Sanders Joins Verizon Picket Line

WASHINGTON — Speaking to New York City’s transit workers union on Wednesday (April 13), Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) said he was next headed to the picket line of CWA members striking against Verizon Communications.

He told Transit Workers Union Local 100 that he was joining in "that stand against the greed of Verizon," citing it as the kind of corporate greed his campaign was aimed at reining in.

Sanders has slammed Verizon, accusing it of not paying taxes, though the company has said it pays billions and that any suggestion it does not pay its fair share is untrue.

There were at least three Communications Workers of America-International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers picket lines set up in New York. The strike began at 6 a.m. and followed ten months in which the unions and Verizon could not come to terms on new contracts for about 39,000 wireline workers on the East Coast.

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.