Verizon Communications Reports a Dozen Cases of Sabotage as Workers Continue Strike

[dgstorm]

A couple of days ago we shared a story along with OneTenderRebel, about a group of 45,000 Verizon Communications Union workers going on strike. Unfortunately news came out today that the strike may have escalated to criminal proportions. Apparently, there have been 12 acts of sabotage to Verizon Communications during the time that the workers are on strike. Some of the sabotage were cases of cut cable, telephone and internet lines, impacting service in Massachusetts, Maryland, New Jersey, and New York.

Additionally, fiber-optic lines were intentionally cut in Tewksbury and several other municipalities on the East Coast. Furthermore, there was a case of Stolen equipment in Cedar Grove, N.J. which affected service to a police department, and a heat system was tampered with at a central office in Manhattan. Here is Verizon's response on the subject,

Verizon is offering a $50,000 reward “for information leading to the arrest and prosecution of individuals that intentionally damage Verizon cables or facilities or cause or attempt to cause physical injury to any Verizon employee or contractor.’’

So far, there has been no evidence to support the idea that the sabotage was caused by striking employees, but the timing is obviously very suspicious. A representative of the striking New England workers in the negotiations, Myles Calvey, indicated that union has no knowledge of its members committing any acts of sabotage.“We don’t do that, and nobody in the union leadership supports any of that,’’ he said.

Verizon Communications was able to handle 75% of their customer repair orders on Sunday, despite the strike. The striking workers are members of the IBEW and the Communications Workers of America. Negotiations between the strikers and Verizon Communications continued yesterday.

This seems awfully "coincidental", and I don't really believe in coincidences. Either some of the striking workers thought they would be "crafty" and make life really tough for Verizon while they were short-staffed, or... Verizon themselves concocted this plan to make the Unions look bad. The second option seems a bit too "conspiratorial" and unlikely. I am leaning toward the former being more plausible. You know what they say about walking ducks, right? What do you guys think?

Source: Boston.com
Photo Source: WickedLocal.com

[furbearingmammal]

Yeah, someone cut some phone lines leading to an entire township that isn't very cell-friendly the other day just down the road from me a few miles.