Verizon Strike Update: CWA Union Creates Fund for Striking Families With Special Needs

The Communications Workers of America (CWA) union said it has created a ‘Verizon Strike Solidarity Fund’ to help strikers and their families to weather the work stoppage which is now nearly three weeks old.

CWA Secretary-Treasurer Annie Hill has urged union members and staff to contribute to especially help to financially support workers who have special needs.

While we are fortunate enough to have a Members Relief Fund to give some assistance, there are always circumstances that are out of the ordinary where we would all like to do more. We have established a Solidarity Fund for just this purpose, said Hill.

Such ‘special needs’ might include ‘extraordinary expenses for a child with a chronic medical condition, or for support with an aging parent with expensive care.’

Some 45,000 Verizon workers, represented by both CWA and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) have been on strike since early August to protest concessions that Verizon is demanding from them in light of higher health care costs and the declining fortunes of its wireline business. (Virtually all the strikers are from the wireline segment of the company)