The roughly 36,000 Verizon workers who went on strike Wednesday as a contract dispute entered its ninth month have brought into sharp relief one of the most fundamental questions facing the United States: Can an economy in the throes of dizzying technological change be a source of new middle-class jobs for blue-collar workers?

The company, which is seeking rule changes that would make it easier to outsource work, seems to cast some doubt on that proposition, through its actions if not its words. It argues that technological change and shifts in consumer demand have rendered self-defeating many of the promises made to workers a generation or two ago.

“Our objective in these negotiations is to preserve good jobs with competitive wages and excellent benefits while addressing the needs of our ever-changing business,” Lowell C. McAdam, Verizon’s chief executive, wrote in an essay posted on LinkedIn. But “nostalgia for the rotary phone era won’t save American jobs, any more than ignoring the global forces reshaping the auto industry saved the Detroit automakers. We’re determined not to find ourselves in that same boat.”

The two unions involved, whose members at Verizon currently earn an average of $130,000 a year in wages and benefits, insist this level of compensation can be not just sustained but shared with more workers, if only it were a higher priority. The company, they point out, is highly profitable and sells services that consumers are clamoring for.