Fears of a strike by thousands of Verizon employees in Maryland, Virginia and the District rose in the final days of contract negotiations between the telecommunications company and two workers’ unions, as the two sides sought to forge an agreement over health care, job security and benefits before a midnight deadline last night.
The prospect of workers walking off the job, which both union and company officials said was far from a foregone conclusion, could mean disruptions in customer service, maintenance, and the expansion of Verizon’s fiber-optic Internet service, called “FiOS.” Verizon Wireless customers would not be affected.
The labor contracts for 65,000 workers in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast expired after midnight Sunday, said Candice Johnson, a spokeswoman for the Communications Workers of America, which is bargaining jointly with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. She said nearly 13,000 of those employees are in the District, Maryland and Virginia.
Johnson said they hope to reach an accord with Verizon but “We have a lot of ground yet to cover.”
Verizon spokesman Harry Mitchell said the company is prepared for a work stoppage.
“But we’re focused on getting to an agreement so it becomes a moot point,” he said.
This weekend’s negotiations could produce one of three conclusions: a contract agreement could be reached, both sides could agree to continue talks past the contract deadline, or the unions could call a strike.
For Fairfax County government, the potential stoppage represents “more of an inconvenience” than anything else, said Skip Munster of the Department of Information Technology. The department has about two dozen staff members ready to shore up the gaps in the case of a work stoppage, he said, though he doubted that many would be necessary.
“Because we have been through this in past years, I think we have a group of seasoned professional managers here that are kind of accustomed to taking these kinds of things in stride,” Munster said.
Some of the county’s information technology infrastructure, he said, relies on Verizon lines, including the county’s E-911 facility. Verizon’s management has committed to prioritize service for critical county facilities, he said.
