Verizon Workers On Strike

NEW YORK (WBEN/AP) -- About 39,000 Verizon landline and cable workers on the East Coast, including over 700 here in Buffalo, are walking off the job after they say there has been little progress in negotiations since their contract expired nearly eight months ago. The workers, members of two unions - the Communications Workers of America and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers - represent installers, customer service employees, repairmen and other service workers in Connecticut, Delaware, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C., for Verizon's wireline business, which provides fixed-line phone services and FiOS Internet service. Their latest contract expired in August and so far, the unions and management say negations have been unsuccessful. The workers are expected to begin a strike and set up picket lines at more than two dozen locations across the eastern U.S. starting at 6 a.m. Wednesday. More....