Federal regulators are seeking an injunction to stop striking Verizon workers from demonstrating at New England hotels where replacements are being housed.
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is accusing the union members of being noisy and “confrontational” at the premises of various hotels, in an apparent violation of labor laws on secondary boycotts.
“The union locals’ ‘confrontational’ and ‘highly disruptive’ picketing has included allegedly shouting to hotel guests that they were staying with ‘scabs’ at bedbug-infested hotels,” according to an NLRB motion filed Monday at a federal District Court in Massachusetts.
The NLRB also claimed members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) have been obstructing hotel entrances, swearing at hotel staffers, and carrying out minor acts of property destruction.
An IBEW Local 2222 representative in Dorchester, Mass. denied the charges, telling The Boston Herald that “it’s been pretty low-key.”
“There’s been no craziness. We have been respectful as we can be,” said Myles Calvey. The Herald reported that nine workers are on the picket lines at the three hotels.
On May 10, after being petitioned by the NLRB, a federal judge in New York enjoined allegedly similar protests at four hotels in the state. Those demonstrations were organized by members of the Communications Workers of America.
Verizon general counsel Amy Seifer said IBEW demonstrations are “unlawful” because they have “nothing whatsoever to do with the current labor dispute.”
The Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 prohibits “secondary boycotts” in a bid to preserve the flow of commerce during times of industrial unrest. Despite its clear targeting of speech and association, the statute has been repeatedly upheld by the Supreme Court (pdf).
In 1982, the body even unanimously ruled that it was illegal for the International Longshoremen’s Association to boycott Russian goods in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
Almost 40,000 Verizon workers with CWA and the IBEW have been on strike since last April. They’re protesting the company’s plans to outsource jobs to the Philippines and Mexico and increase its use of non-union contractors, while forcing existing employees to temporarily relocate for work.
Prominent lawmakers and Democratic presidential candidates have waded into the dispute. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last month rallied on picket lines with striking workers in New York, ahead of the state’s primary.
Sanders praised the workers for standing up to “corporate greed.” Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam replied, calling the senator “uninformed” and contemptible.”
Sanders reacted by saying he “welcome[s] their contempt,” lumping McAdam’s rant alongside prior criticism delivered by General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt. The riposte mimicked a famous utterance against criticism by conservatives and the business community. “They are unanimous in their hatred for me,” President Franklin D. Roosevelt said in 1936, “and I welcome their hatred.”
Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), the only member of the upper house to endorse Sen. Sanders, has also marched alongside Verizon workers.
“[I]f our corporations are hugely profitable, but workers are working harder for flat wages, falling benefits, and less job security, we’re not succeeding,” Merkley said last week in a Facebook post about the picket.
Labor Secretary Tom Perez has been involved in trying to mediate a dispute. He met last week with both sides, saying he was “encouraged by the parties’ continued commitment to remain at the bargaining table.
The strike is believed by one Wall Street analyst to be costing Verizon some $200 million in revenue–roughly five cents per share.
