Verizon Communications has gone to court to limit picketing and protest activity among striking union workers who have been accused of taking their cause too far.

The company filed a lawsuit Wednesday in New York and won a court order Monday in Pennsylvania, and another in Delaware on Wednesday.  The company is waiting for rulings in New Jersey and Massachusetts that would force Verizon strikers to limit the number of picketers at any given location and stop blocking access to company buildings.

Relations between the company and striking workers have deteriorated significantly as the first week of the strike wears on.

Near Buffalo, two strikers were hit by a replacement worker’s vehicle.  A BB gun was fired at a worker still on the job in the Bronx.  Several incidents of pushing and shoving by both sides have also been documented.  But among the most serious incidents are acts of sabotage that have cut off landline and cell service, mostly in upstate New York.

Service was restored late yesterday to residents in Oneida County, who lost both home and cell phone service after fiber cables were cut.  Verizon has rushed out press releases decrying what they call “sabotage” and indirectly implying Verizon strikers are responsible.  The New York State Police continues criminal investigations in several upstate communities were vandalism has occurred.

Austin (Courtesy: Boston Herald; Photo by M. Stone)

Verizon strikers have also been following around replacement workers assigned to do home installations and repair work, and this has occasionally led to picketers arriving outside of customer homes where repair work is underway.

The Boston Herald reports one Quincy, Mass. mom found a circus outside her home yesterday when Verizon showed up to fix her phone line:

A Quincy mom has disconnected her support for striking Verizon workers yesterday after a group of mouthy picketers surrounded non-union repairmen and turned a phone-line fix at her home into what she is calling a “ridiculous” protest scene.

“I looked in the street and there are picketers, 10 of them or more, doing a circle around the Verizon truck,” said Karen Austin, 64, a mother of five who lives on Forest Avenue.

“Every time (the repairmen) would walk up to my house they would follow them. I couldn’t believe my eyes. This is ridiculous. Why are they picketing my house?”

“I’m not on a main street … I’m not a business. I’m a person who needed a line fixed,” she said.

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Verizon alleges vandalism may be responsible for a significant service outage in Tewksbury, Mass., but union officials suggest Verizon’s claims are “straight out of the Verizon strike playbook.”  WHDH in Boston reports.  (2 minutes)

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WABC in New York watched as Verizon strikers booed anyone approaching an entrance to Verizon’s headquarters.  Company officials are seeking court orders to restrain picketing activities in five states.  (3 minutes)

Vandalism causes serious phone outages in upstate New York. (Courtesy: Verizon Communications)

Frontier Communications’ landline customers in Lewis and Oneida counties faced long distance service outages, while just about everyone in northern Oneida County is without both landline and cell phone service after fiber lines serving cell towers and landline customers were cut Monday.

The New York State Police have launched a criminal investigation into the sabotage, while Verizon Communications implies the damage might have come as a result of a strike against the company that began last weekend.

The largest outage, which cut off cell service and landlines, originated in Deerfield, where cables were severed.

Several upstate communities are facing lengthy service outages from a variety of acts of vandalism, most from cable cuts and damage to junction boxes.

Verizon has rushed out news releases regarding the damage, offering a reward of up to $50,000 for information leading to the arrest and prosecution of individuals that intentionally damage Verizon cables or facilities or cause or attempt to cause physical injury to any Verizon employee or contractor.  Verizon urges anyone who witnesses sabotage of Verizon property or any suspicious activity to call 911 immediately, then call the Verizon Security Control Center at 1-800-997-3287.

Both sides of the dispute are now appealing to Congress to intervene, an action that may not bring immediate results.  Both the House and Senate are currently in their five-week summer recess.

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WKTV in Utica covers the impact of widespread landline and cell phone outages in Oneida County, upstate New York.  (1 minute)

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WRGB in Albany explores additional acts of vandalism in the Capitol District and gets reaction from striking workers about whether they were involved.  (3 minutes)

It’s Cell Company Customer Crackdown-month for AT&T and Verizon Wireless as the two carriers increasingly engage in aggressive “management” of their wireless data networks.  Days after AT&T announced it would throw customers off legacy unlimited data plans if caught using “unofficial” tethering applications, Verizon has reportedly locked out customers from accessing web pages over jailbreak apps like MyWi, redirecting requests to a Verizon Wireless $20 Mobile Hotspot offer instead.

Mobiledia reports Verizon now requires users have a hotspot-capable data plan if they want to tether data from their smartphones to other devices.  At regular prices, those plans start at $20 for 2GB of usage, with a $10/GB overlimit fee.  Certain LTE/4G customers have fared better, being offered unlimited tethering for $30 a month — an option not available to 3G phone owners.

The Federal Communications Commission’s Net Neutrality policy exempted wireless providers from observing its core principles, giving carriers carte blanche to block websites and third party applications from their networks, and Verizon has put the green light to good use.

AT&T has favored direct punitive measures against customers who don’t respond to their demands to upgrade by auto-enrolling customers in $45 tethering plans or threatening legacy customers with the loss of their unlimited data plan.

Some media reports — including those from Mobiledia — have declared third party tethering applications “illegal,” which is inaccurate.  While carriers may not like these applications and declare use of them contrary to their respective acceptable use policies, they do not violate any laws.

Verizon employees rally in New York. (Photo: Gary Schoichet)

More than 45,000 Verizon landline workers are on strike this morning after union workers overwhelmingly rejected a proposed contract from Verizon Communications that could result in as much as $20,000 in reduced benefits per employee, per year.

Workers employed by Verizon East, which serves the company’s northeastern and mid-Atlantic regions from Massachusetts to Virginia, left their jobs as their contract with the company expired over the weekend.  Two unions — the Communications Workers of America and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, are pitting the dispute as part of a corporate war on the middle class.

Verizon has been demanding serious concessions from union workers in negotiations for a new contract agreement.  But employees are expressing serious concern over draconian salary and benefit concessions that could drastically reduce their pay and benefits package.  According to William Huber, president of IBEW Local 827:

• Verizon is seeking to tie pay increases to company-defined performance reviews;
• Employees would pay significant sums towards health care premiums;
• Pensions would be frozen at the end of 2011;
• Sickness and death benefits would be eliminated;
• Disability benefits would be slashed from 52 to 26 weeks and authorized “sick time” curtailed.

Verizon officials claim the benefit and pay concessions are part of the reality of today’s landline telephone business, which has been in decline for several years.

“We need to reach a contract that addresses economic realities,” said Lee Gierczynski, a Verizon spokesman. “The wireline business is constantly in decline. In order for Verizon to compete, Verizon and the unions need to make some difficult decisions.”

That contention is seriously disputed by the two unions and employees.  The CWA called Verizon one of the most profitable companies in the U.S., noting the company earned $19.5 billion in profits in the last four years and paid over $258 million in compensation to just five top executives.

“So tell me, where is their loss?” said Dino Cantillo, a facilities technician and 17-year employee. Cantillo told the Star-Ledger that Verizon’s CEO, Ivan Seidenberg, earned more than $18 million in total compensation in 2010 – roughly $49,000 every day.

“It takes these guys a year to make that,” said Cantillo, pointing at the two dozen or so protesters who picketed in Howell, N.J.

“They are trying to get rid of the working class,” said Bill Gebhart, a lineman who has worked for Verizon for 15 years. “They are totally annihilating it.”

The unions are especially upset Verizon has been aggressively trying to contract work out of the region, hiring workers offshore in Mexico, the Philippines, and other countries to perform tasks formerly done by regional employees.  The unions also point to significant corporate welfare Verizon received recently — a $1.3 billion federal tax rebate paid for by taxpayers.

“These negotiations are all about good jobs,” said CWA District 1 Vice President Chris Shelton. “Companies like Verizon should be investing in rebuilding the American economy, not contributing to the destruction of good, middle-class jobs.”

Verizon appears to be in no hurry to negotiate, cancelling several bargaining sessions last weekend.

During the last strike by Verizon employees in 2000, requests for repair service, installation, and other construction work languished for weeks, so it is very likely consumers with phone or Internet service problems or new order requests will face growing delays the longer the strike lasts.  Union officials plan to move against company plans to reassign managers and workers from other regions with strike protests and what one union official said would be a “blizzard of paperwork.”

Union workers also suggest the quality of repairs and installations done by those pressed into service with little experience may be below standard.

The CWA recommended that union workers and supporters retaliate against Verizon by canceling their phone, Internet, and cell phone service.  That could be an expensive proposition, particularly for wireless customers who would certainly face the prospect of early termination fees.

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Visible strike actions by Verizon workers have served as catnip for local reporters, who are extensively covering the strike up and down the eastern seaboard.  Stop the Cap! has assembled coverage from stations all across the region. (28 minutes)

Verizon's 20' Monolith (Courtesy: Macro/micro Brooklyn)

Verizon Communications has found a way to outdo AT&T’s enormous and unsightly “lawn refrigerators.”  They have installed 20 foot fiberglass poles in the middle of historic neighborhoods in Flatbush, Brooklyn on top of which the phone company plans to mount boxes containing equipment to support its FiOS fiber to the home service.

The enormous polygonal poles went up suddenly without advance warning, and neighbors left their homes to gaze up at the mysterious new addition to the Victorian-era community.

“The neighbors started gathering around it like it was the monolith in ‘2001,’ ” Rev. Jeanne Person, told the New York Times.

Nobody seemed to know who installed the poles, or more importantly why.

It turns out they are Verizon’s answer to AT&T’s enormous and unsightly 4-6 foot tall metal cabinets that the latter has been installing on street corners and in front of homes throughout U-verse service areas.

John J. Bonomo, Verizon’s director of media relations, told the Times the poles provide an interface between underground cables and above-ground wires that thread through backyards.  Bonomo recognized the way AT&T does it attracts vandals and graffiti.  Verizon’s solution tries to hide the unsightly boxes in the canopy of neighborhood trees, to varying degrees of success.  It also prevents anyone other than Spiderman from stealing equipment inside.

Besides, Bonomo says, the company got all of the necessary permits from the Department of Transportation.  Well, almost all of the necessary permits.

They forgot the Landmarks Preservation Commission, which regulates the look and feel of protected, historic neighborhoods — like Flatbush.  Install 20-foot plastic poles without a permit at your peril.

A spokesperson for the Commission says they hope to reach a resolution with Verizon soon.

It’s not that neighbors are ungrateful that Verizon is extending FiOS into Brooklyn, where it will provide real competition to Cablevision.  Many applaud the fiber service and look forward to signing up.  They just don’t believe randomly placed 20′ poles are the way to do it.

“First we wanted to know what it was,” Rev. Person said. “Then when we figured out what it was, we wanted to get rid of it. What does landmarking mean if it doesn’t protect us?”

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Brooklyn residents complained to WCBS-TV about the 20 foot unwelcome additions to their neighborhoods.  (2 minutes)