Verizon: 150 Acts of 'Sabotage' Since Strike Began Verizon workers have been striking since April 13, and Verizon continues to blame striking union workers for a rash of attacks on the company's networks. As of April 28, Verizon had claimed it had seen 57 instances of network sabotage across New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. In just under two weeks those claims appear to have ballooned, with Verizon now telling news outlets that they've seen more than 150 cases of network sabotage since the strike began.

"These are just the latest of approximately 150 similar incidents that have happened nationwide since April 13, which also happens to be the day that the strike began," claims Verizon. Verizon's latest statement pretends to not point fingers, but the company has made it repeatedly clear in past statements that they believe union members are to blame. "We don’t know who did this or why, but their agenda or motivation is irrelevant – they may know enough to cut the correct wires to cause harm, but they do not know who or what those wires support – whether it is an alarm system, a medical device, or a phone for someone elderly," the company added. The company has yet to offer any evidence of union wrongdoing in any of the 150 alleged instances of sabotage, or provided any evidence supporting that sabotage actually occurred (as opposed to being routine damage), something that doesn't appear to factor into media coverage of Verizon's claims. Still, some amount of sabotage during strikes has certainly been a union tactic historically. Meanwhile, the Communications Workers of America has only responded by claiming Verizon's the one putting its network at risk by employing replacement workers that may not fully know what they're doing in the field. Verizon says the majority of replacement workers have received training for their new, and hopefully temporary, positions in the field. The company says it's working with law enforcement agencies in impacted states. “We will find out who’s behind these highly dangerous criminal acts and we will pursue criminal charges,” said Michael Mason, Verizon’s chief security officer in a statement. “These reckless perpetrators are risking the lives of countless Americans by cutting access to key lines of communications, especially to local police, fire and rescue personnel. If someone has an emergency and needs to contact local authorities, these malicious actions could prevent that from happening.” “We will find out who’s behind these highly dangerous criminal acts and we will pursue criminal charges,” said Michael Mason, Verizon’s chief security officer in a statement. “These reckless perpetrators are risking the lives of countless Americans by cutting access to key lines of communications, especially to local police, fire and rescue personnel. If someone has an emergency and needs to contact local authorities, these malicious actions could prevent that from happening.”







News Jump California Defends Its Net Neutrality Law; AT&T's Traffic Up 20% Despite Data Traffic Actually Being Down; + more news Are The Comcast-Charter X1 Talks Dead In The Water?; AT&T May Offer Phone Plans With Ads For Discounts; + more news Europe's Top Court: Net Neutrality Rules Bar Zero Rating; ViacomCBS To Rebrand CBS All Access As Paramount+; + more news Verizon To Buy Reseller TracFone For $7B; 5G Not The Competitive Threat To Cable Many Thought It Would Be; + more news MS.Wants Records From AT&T On $300M Project; Google Fiber Outages In Austin, Houston, Other Texan Cities; + more news States With The Biggest Decreases In Speed; AT&T Hopes You'll Forget Its Fight Against Accurate Maps; + more news AT&T's CEO Has A Familiar $olution To US Broadband Woes; EarthLink Files Suit Against Charter; + more news 5G Doesn't Live Up To Hype, AT&T's 5G Slower Than Its 4G; Cord-Cutting Now In 37% of Broadband Households; + more news FCC Cited False Broadband Data Despite Warnings; ZTE, Huawei Replacement Cost Is $1.87B, But Only $1B Allocated; + more Cogeco Rejects Altice USA's Atlantic Broadband Bid; AT&T Is Astroturfing The FCC In Support Of Trump Attack; + more news ---------------------- this week last week most discussed

Most recommended from 40 comments

smk11

join:2014-11-12 27 recommendations smk11 Member I want to see the 150 police reports And I want a follow up after the police and/or fbi finish their investigations. Oh wait...



------

"These are just the latest of approximately 150 similar incidents that have happened nationwide since April 13, which also happens to be the day that the strike began," claims Verizon.

------



Over 210,000 American have died since April 13, which also happens to be the day the strike began. Now I'm not saying Verizon has killed 210,000 Americans. I'm just asking questions explain very suspicious data.

WHT

join:2010-03-26

Rosston, TX 20 recommendations WHT Member As I was saying.... Call it sabatoge said by WHT: Scene: In a manhole duct



Bill the janitor - "Which cable do I need to fix?"



Bob from accounting - "Oh shit you cut the wrong 100 strand fiber optic bundle."



Becky from media relations - "Let's call it sabotage and call it a day." majortom1029

join:2006-10-19

Medford, NY 16 recommendations majortom1029 Member yeah right So a very very badly run network + call center employees doing tech stuff like pulling pairs = union sabatoge. Just verizon blaming poor network maintanance and their untrained employee errors on the union.



have you ever seen the insides of some of those green boxes? I don't even know how the very experience union techs work in them.

Flyonthwall

@teksavvy.com 14 recommendations Flyonthwall Anon So, it's malicious But what about the standard operating procedure of not repairing or upgrading adequately? Can this also be seen as malicious since the sort of problems that can happen with sabotage can also happen with network neglect?

TIGERON

join:2008-03-11

Boston, MA Motorola MG7550

13 recommendations TIGERON Member cry me a river this is all neglect on Verizon's part. The company has no intention of maintaining or upgrading the wireline. As soon as Frontier completes digesting the latest massive three state acquisition, there will be another sell off coming with the remaining states being transferred over.

rollinraver

join:2002-04-27

Buffalo, NY 11 recommendations rollinraver Member Sabotage isn't needed... Given the VAST amount of video circulating of the SCABS botching things, dropping poles in houses, dropping cables IN the road, etc., they need not look any further than their replacement workers. In fact, those replacements should follow their own rule of PAUSE (prevent all unplanned service events) and just go back to their cubicles, board rooms, hole in the ground, or rock from which they crawled from under.

KrK

Heavy Artillery For The Little Guy

Premium Member

join:2000-01-17

Tulsa, OK 10 recommendations KrK Premium Member Verizon is calling all vandalism and all obvious copper theft "Sabotage" ? ... Just a heads up here. They are logging all damage everywhere is sabotage it seems.... and... 150 incidents? In other words, almost zero, and most of then very unlikely to CWA workers.



Propaganda is important, just remember that.... firehawk618

join:2016-02-25 10 recommendations firehawk618 Member Decade+ of Verizon's own sabotage How come no news coverage about the last decade+ of self induced sabotage on Verizon's own network?

fruhead

join:2002-01-29

Mosquito,NJ 9 recommendations fruhead Member If it were actual sabotage... If it were actual sabotage, there would be major outages. Techs know exactly what to cut, what power supply to impede, what fiber bundle to break.



Verizon is calling every outage 'sabotage' for the benefit of the press, to try and improve public opinion and to cast the strikers in a negative light. They're not mentioning that they're forcing their other non-union employees to work in jobs for which they have minimal (if any) training, in dangerous situations with gear that's unfamiliar to them - then they expect their customers to believe that Verizon has their best interests at heart? Puh-leez.



Jobs are tight. When you're an employee with a mortgage, kids in school, bills to pay - and your company tells you that your choice is to cross your fellow worker's picket line or join the unemployment line, what choice do you have? Even if you're pro-union, you have no choice. Ethics be damned, get out there and hump that pole.



Verizon sucks for putting their employees in this situation.



It used to be that your employer took care of you. This is obviously not Verizon's viewpoint.

ham3843

join:2015-01-15

USA 9 recommendations ham3843 Member The FBI should have bugged Shamwow, and Mc Lowbrow's offices.... I would bet that these two thug Verizon executives have at least on rare occasion

mentioned that it would be nice to frame CWA members for such sabotage, but in fact perhaps THEY are behind it.....clever and dirty way sociopaths would try and frame

innocent union workers to make them look bad or guilty.

The goal of Verizon senior executives is to get rid of the union by hook or yes, CROOK! pittpete1

join:2009-06-12 9 recommendations pittpete1 Member 147;These reckless perpetrators are risking the lives of countless Americans" Verizon management cares nothing about its subscribers nor its employees so this is laughable.

xpbx

No Compassion

Premium Member

join:2000-11-08

Errington, BC ·Shaw

ARRIS TG3482

6 recommendations xpbx Premium Member my last year or so with the company i worked in a dept that is directly related to these kinds of trouble reports:



"whether it is an alarm system, a medical device, or a phone for someone elderly," the company added."



I can say from first hand knowledge that the company only pretends they actually care about those reports. medical emergencies and the like are not high on the list of priorities. I can only imagine how badly some of the people now working inside the company as well as the replacement techs realize it is not as rosey a picture as vz mgmt wants to portray. screwing the customer and the workforces simultaneously? priceless. loweell will be giving himself and fran a big raise of course. they pull that shit all the time. lying, cheating, thieving bastards all vz upper mgmt. go climb a pole, lowell. make some new plans, fran. dont need to discuss much, just get yourselves free. please start using T mobile. Shakrai

join:2016-02-27

United State 5 recommendations Shakrai Member Not Surprised I remember working with a old-time United Steel Workers man when I volunteered with Obama for America. He lamented the fact that "back in the day" the police would look the other way when the union guys roughed up someone that crossed their picket line. He viewed it as regrettable that the police now stop such acts of violence, "We never REALLY hurt them, just enough to get the point across."



If you can't win your argument within the bounds of the law......