Strikers Follow Replacement Workers

While the practice is legal, the practice has some customers wary.  Zolan Kanno-Youngs has the story in the Wall Street Journal Online.

Jane Clausen got more than she bargained for this week when she asked Verizon Communications Inc. to send someone to her second-floor Brooklyn apartment to fix her Internet.

After opening her door Tuesday for two Verizon workers, Ms. Clausen, a 30-year-old Crown Heights resident, was surprised to see striking workers outside the building.

The men sent by the telecom company told her they weren’t regular technicians, but part of a replacement workforce tasked to fill in for nearly 40,000 Verizon union workers who went on strike last week. The men told her the strikers had followed their company van to her home.

Nearly 40,000 union Verizon employees have walked off the job, escalating months of tense contract negotiations. WSJ’s Ryan Knutson joins Tanya Rivero to discuss. Photo: Getty

When one of the company vans leaves the garage, union members scurry into their own vehicles and trail them to their destination, whether it is a utility pole or customer’s home.

Company officials see it as a low blow. Rich Young, a Verizon spokesman, said the company respects picketing in public places, but following Verizon vans to customers’ homes is “absolutely wrong.â€