Verizon: Stop Killing the Middle Class

This weekend, the New York Times reported that wages as a percentage of national income are the lowest they’ve been since 1965, and falling.

What that means is that virtually all of us who are lucky enough to have jobs are being underpaid, while corporations rake in obscene profits. And as we’ve all seen, big corporations are failing to re-invest their profits in creating good jobs we desperately need—they’re sitting on cash.

Take Verizon. In the past four years alone, the company made more than $19 billion in profits—and compensated its top five executives more than a quarter of a billion dollars.

Yet this highly profitable company is using Wisconsin-style tactics to try to extract $1 billion in concessions from 45,000 of its workers. That's $20,000 for every family.

Verizon’s unionized workers have been more than willing to come to the bargaining table and negotiate. But Verizon has been coming up with one excuse after another—and refuses to bargain seriously. So at midnight Sunday, 45,000 Verizon workers went on strike.

Verizon needs to know that we stand with these workers—and we won't stand for their Wisconsin-style tactics. If we allow highly profitable corporations like Verizon keep leading a race to the bottom in American wages, our country’s middle class may not survive. By going on strike, these corageous workers aren’t just standing up for themselves, but for all of us.