NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Verizon Communications (VZ) - Get Report shares are taking a hit, down 1.49% to $49.63 on Thursday as the ongoing strike by union workers over a contract has adversely impacted the company's new customers.

Union workers have taken action as they are trying to enhance pension benefits and prevent Verizon from outsourcing jobs to contractors.

At a media and communications summit in New York today, Verizon said that the strike has led to a significant drop in new customers this quarter, Fortune reports.

Specifically, installations and new orders of FiOS service have declined, CFO Fran Shammo noted.

The strike, which has been going on for over a month, began on April 13 when 36,000 Verizon workers walked off the job at the telecommunications giant's wire line business, traditional-phone, TV and Internet businesses, after 10 months of tense contract negotiations.

Separately, TheStreet Ratings currently has a "Buy" rating on the stock with a letter grade of A.

The company's strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as its revenue growth, solid stock price performance, increase in net income, expanding profit margins and growth in earnings per share. We feel its strengths outweigh the fact that the company has had generally high debt management risk by most measures that we evaluated.

Recently, TheStreet Ratings objectively rated this stock according to its "risk-adjusted" total return prospect over a 12-month investment horizon. Not based on the news in any given day, the rating may differ from Jim Cramer's view or that of this article's author.

You can view the full analysis from the report here: VZ