News

When our European affiliates are involved in establishment of the SNB for the Verizon Business EWC, the company sacked two employees in their finance department in Italy. The company also has plans to make two other positions redundant. These two dismissals were made without appropriate communication to the employees and with the minimum statutory severance package.

In reaction to this casus belli, the Italian trade unions and employee representatives met with the whole staff last Friday and voted (at 85%) a strike notice for July 10th, demanding the immediate reinstatement of the interested parties and the reopening of formal negotiations with the Management.



This reorganisation is going to affect the employees in France therefore our French affiliates have asked Mark Kearns, VP Int'l Finance, about the reasons behind this project as well as the expected benefits. He has reassured the union that he has acted "with the timing of the transition in mind and sensitivity of the impacted employees".



The incongruity between the response given and what has happened in Italy demonstrates clearly that communication to employees seems a domain a lot less controlled than the transfer of their activities to South-East Asia.

There is a Company Agreement in Verizon France valid till the end of 2010. This agreement defines the accompanying social measures in case of eventual reorganisations, with the combined intention of guaranteeing decent conditions for anyone laid off due to economical reasons as well as maintaining the serenity and the motivation of the remaining employees in a world of continuing change.



Verizon Business is one of three operating units of Verizon Communications Inc. delivering advanced IP, data, voice and wireless solutions and having more than 32 thousand employees in 75 countries all over the world.