News

CWA members will be turning out in force for the Verizon, Idearc and IBM shareholder meetings next week, taking on issues that include out-of-control stock options, corporate governance and executive pay as well as anti-labor policies.

IBM's meeting is Tuesday, April 29, in Charlotte, N.C. Verizon and Idearc both meet May 1; Verizon in Lincoln, Neb., and Idearc in Dallas. Idearc, whose CWA and IBEW-represented workers in New England and New York have been without a contract since last summer, is a directory-advertising company spun off from Verizon in 2006.

CWA and IBEW activists will deliver thousands of proxy votes from worker shareholders to the Verizon meeting. The unions are supporting two shareholder proposals: the first would curb stock options awarded to senior executives and bar current stock options from being re-priced; the second would separate the role of CEO and chairman of the board in the Verizon hierarchy.

Doing so is "fundamental to sound corporate governance," the resolution states, asking, "How can the CEO be his own boss? Directors are responsible for protecting the shareholders' interests – and they must do so primarily by monitoring and evaluating the CEO's performance."

CWA and IBEW, which have spent years battling the company's union-busting at Verizon Wireless and lately at Verizon Business, are also backing a "no confidence" vote against the election of the board of directors.

The unions will hold a press briefing immediately before the shareholders meeting starts, explaining how the company has built a wall between Verizon's unionized landline operations and its rapidly growing non-union areas.

The wall blocks union members "from the high-growth, high-profit segments of the company in Verizon Wireless and its large accounts acquisition from the former MCI, Verizon Business," the unions say in a joint statement. "Over the last five years, union membership has slipped from producing 70 percent of revenues to only 33 percent; substantially weakening workers bargaining power."