BY STEVEN WISHNIA
"This is not just a strike against Verizon," Communications Workers of America (CWA) President Chris Shelton told the more than 1,500 people who packed the block outside a Verizon Wireless store on Wall Street May
- "This is a strike because this country's lords and corporations have decided they want to get rid of unions. It's about every person with a union card. It's about every person who works for a living."
The strike began April 13, when 39,000 workers from Massachusetts to Virginia walked out, virtually all of them in Verizon's landline division. It came eight months after the company's contracts with the CWA and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, the two unions representing those workers, expired.