Verizon to union: The grill must go, or else

In recent days, sparks are still flying over a controversial “Unify Main Street” BBQ dinner attended by several community groups that gathered with Communication Workers of America Local 2204 near Verizon headquarters on Nov. 3 in support of a fair contract for Verizon employees and for preserving middle-class jobs in the Shenandoah Valley.

In a clear act of retaliation against the union’s involvement in the community event, a Verizon manager has demanded that the BBQ grill used to cook the group’s food be removed from the company’s property before Thanksgiving.

“I just learned from a union newsletter this morning that, when my union friends got to work last week, their boss gave them an ultimatum,” said Donald Wilson Bush, a member of several Occupy Wall Street/Unify Main Street groups forming in the Valley, “Either they move the grill away from Verizon property by Thanksgiving or else Verizon management will throw it away in the company dumpster.”

Presented in the questionable context of a concern for “worker safety,” this demand on the part of local Verizon management to remove the grill followed publication of a Letter to Editor on Tuesday, Nov. 15 sent to the Staunton News Leader by Harry J. Mitchell, Verizon’s director of public relations in Richmond.

In his letter, Mitchell referred to the community-sponsored BBQ event as filled with “empty rhetoric,” and argued against the CWA’s proposition that middle-class jobs in America are due, at least in part, to years of successful contract negotiation between leaders of organized labor and corporate management.

“Mr. Mitchell is certainly entitled to his own opinion, but he is not entitled to his own facts,” Bush replied. “Clearly, as any fair study of labor history will prove, the upward trajectory of middle-class growth in America shows that he is absolutely mistaken about the positive impact that organized labor relations have had on the livelihoods of working class people all around the world.”

“I was shocked to learn that the BBQ grill in question has been on company property for at least 12 years and has been used by management and associates alike for different events,” Bush continued. “It has never been a safety concern before. This is simply what happens when you try to unify groups of people in the community like we did in support of CWA’s current campaign against corporate greed.”

The BBQ grill in question will be given to a family of Verizon customers living in Staunton after it is removed from Verizon property this week. The family receiving the grill says that it will be used again in future community-sponsored BBQ events that support middle-class jobs.