45,000 Verizon Workers Strike for Healthcare Justice

From Labor Campaign for Single Payer

In 1989, 60,000 telephone workers at NYNEX waged a militant 4-month strike to successfully resist company demands for givebacks on their hard-won benefits. Raising the slogan of "Health Care for All, not health cuts at NYNEX!" these workers electrified a labor movement that was just beginning to wake up to the concerted corporate assault on negotiated benefits. Their call for healthcare for all helped to revive a powerful grassroots movement for single-payer, Medicare-for-all healthcare for everyone in America.

These workers were able to maintain their benefits despite corporate reorganizations and downsizing. Now part of Verizon Corporation, these CWA and IBEW members struck again in 1998 and 2000 and fought tough corporate campaigns in 2003 and 2008. Today, they are part of the 1% of the working class who still receive full company-paid medical benefits. And they have never stopped fighting for healthcare for all....

Read the full article.

Published August 15th, 2011

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