They predicted a weak strike, small picket lines, and a quick union agreement to the company's demands. They claimed that with automated services the strike would have little impact on the phone system.

They were wrong. Some 86,000 workers in a dozen states in the east of the country have downed their tools. By the second day of the strike, more than 14,000 union members were on the picket lines outside 550 company buildings. The picket lines are boisterous and full of confidence. The company is unable to keep up with all the installation and maintenance orders, or to sustain its directory assistance service.

The unionists refuse to hand the company the power to transfer them where it pleases. They reject Verizon's demand to be able to impose compulsory overtime. They are asserting themselves as human beings who insist on having a life before and after selling their labor power to the capitalists.

And they are confronting the bosses over the issue of the right to be union. The capitalists aim to contract out more work. They are trying to keep unions out of their expanding, multibillion-dollar wireless and Internet operations. By taking on the bosses' attempt to build up an increasingly nonunion industry, the phone workers are setting an example to working people everywhere who need a union.

The employing class, understanding the stakes involved in this battle, is mobilizing every resource at its disposal to attack the workers at Verizon. The cops have already arrested some pickets, and will look for opportunities to arrest more. Verizon quickly got a judget to issue a restraining order on pickets. The big-business press is doing its part by violence-baiting the strikers, accusing them of sabotage--a tactic used by GTE during the 1998 telephone strike in Puerto Rico that the strikers there defeated by standing their ground and mobilizing public support to their side.

The telephone workers' determined stand against the Verizon telecommunications conglomerate merits the support of all working people. These workers are taking on issues of importance to the entire working class. The bosses are deploying their weapons--the cops, courts, and the big-business press. Labor must mobilize our weapon: solidarity. Bringing fellow workers to join the picket lines, offering solidarity from other unions, joining strike support rallies, rebutting the bosses' lies--all these can make the difference and tip the scales in favor of our brothers and sisters on strike.

Drop the charges against the arrested strikers! Lift the restraining order on picketing!

Solidarity with the striking phone workers!  
 
 
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