By Jane VonBergen

– More than 39,000 Verizon employees from Massachusetts to Virginia plan to go on strike at 6 a.m. Wednesday, the union leaders said Monday.

“Unless this company reconsiders its shameful demands… our members will be on strike,” said Chris Shelton, president of the Communications Workers of America, which represents 29,000 of the 39,000 workers.

The employees have been working without a contract since Aug. 1, 2015. Union leaders said they expect to meet with company officials on Tuesday, and last met for negotiations on Thursday.

“No worker ever wants to go on strike. It’s always the last resort,” said Lonnie R. Stephenson, president of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, which represents 10,000 workers, many in New Jersey.

“Verizon . . . has given us no other option,” he said.

Verizon executives said they’ve been training thousands of non-union Verizon employees for a year to take over union functions if there is a strike.

“We’ve tried to work with union leaders to reach a deal,” Marc Reed, Verizon’s chief administrative officer, said in a statement.

“Verizon has been moving the bargaining process forward, but now union leaders would rather make strike threats than constructively engage at the bargaining table,” he said.

The unions, which primarily work on Verizon’s copper and FIOS wired businesses, are chiefly worried about their jobs being outsourced. In the Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, DC and West Virginia area, 680 call centers jobs are threatened, said Edward Mooney, CWA vice president of that region.

The unions accuse the company of dragging its feet on promises to build out its high-speed FIOS network and say they are increasingly using non-employee technicians to repair facilities.

Verizon’s “wired” business accounts for about 29 percent of its revenues.

Source – http://www.philly.com/philly/business/20160412_Verizon_workers_issue_strike_threat_for_6_am_Wednesday.html