Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., greets a CWA worker at a Verizon workers picket line Wednesday in the Brooklyn borough of New York. (Mary Altaffer / Associated Press)

(CNSNews.com) – Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) accused Verizon of not treating the environment or its workers with respect and on Thursday urged the company’s CEO to negotiate with the Communication Workers of America.



“There are some great businesses who treat their workers and the environment with respect. Verizon happens not to be one of them,” Sanders said during the CNN Democratic presidential debate in New York.



CWA and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, which represent installers, customer service employees, repairmen and other service workers in 10 states on the East Coast, including Washington, D.C., say Verizon wants to freeze pensions, make layoffs easier and rely more on contract workers, the Associated Press reported. Verizon said health care issues for retirees and workers need to be addressed, because medical costs have grown and that it wants ‘greater flexibility’ to manage its workers.



“Senator, you've slammed companies like General Electric and Verizon for moving jobs outside of the United States. Yesterday, the CEO of Verizon called your views contemptible and said in your home state of Vermont Verizon has invested more than $16 million and pays millions of dollars a year to local businesses. He says you are, quote, ‘uninformed on this issue’ and disconnected from reality,” said CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.



“Given your obvious contempt for large American corporations, how would you as president of the United States be able to effectively promote American businesses around the world?” Blitzer asked.



“Well, for a start, I would tell the gentleman who's the CEO at Verizon to start negotiating with the Communication Workers of America, and this is a perfect example, Wolf, of the kind of corporate greed which is destroying the middle class of this country,” said Sanders.



“This gentleman makes $18 million a year in salary. That's his compensation. This gentleman is now negotiating to take away health care benefits of Verizon workers, outsource call center jobs to the Philippines, and trying to create a situation where workers will lose their jobs. He is not investing in the way he should in inner cities in America,” Sanders added.

“All right, Senator, but the question was, the question was, given your contempt for large American corporations, as president, how would you be able to promote American business around the world?” Blitzer asked.



“First of all, the word contempt is not right. There are some great businesses who treat their workers and the environment with respect. Verizon happens not to be one of them, and what we need to do is to tell this guy Immelt, who's the head of General Electric, he doesn't like me, well, that's fine,” said Sanders.



“He has outsourced hundreds of thousands of decent-paying jobs throughout the world, cut his workforce here substantially and in a given year, by the way, it turns out that both Verizon and General Electric, in a given year, pay nothing in federal income tax despite making billions in profits,” Sanders added.



“But Senator, experts say that no matter the means to bring back these jobs to the United States, prices of goods for consumers in the United States would go up, which would disproportionately impact the poor and middle class. So how do you bring back these jobs to the United States without affecting the cost of goods to America's middle class and poor?” Blitzer asked.



“Well, for a start, we're going to raise the minimum wage to 15 bucks an hour, and number two, while it is true we may end up paying a few cents more for a hamburger in McDonald's, at the end of the day, what this economy desperately needs is to rebuild our manufacturing sector with good-paying jobs,” said Sanders.



“We cannot continue to sustain the loss of millions of decent-paying jobs that we have seen over the last 20, 30 years, based on trade agreements of which Secretary Clinton has voted for almost every one of those. That has got to change,” he said.