Agreement in Principle with Verizon
A message from President Mike Ippoliti
District One Vice President Dennis Trainor is pleased to announce that CWA and the IBEW have reached an agreement in principle with Verizon on a four-year extension of our current contract, which was scheduled to expire on August 1, 2026. The new agreement, if ratified, will expire on August 3, 2030.
This contract includes major gains and no givebacks:
- ➔ Wage increases
- ➔ Increases pension band values
- ➔ Increases Retirement Security for post-08 and post-12 members➔ Adds a significant number of new CWA-represented jobs
- ➔ Adds work to the bargaining unit
- ➔ Continues the Work at Home Agreement
It includes up to an additional $1,000 a year for post-08 hires towards their retiree pre-Medicare health care subsidy by increasing the maximum benefit to $15,440 and reduces the number of years to reach the maximum subsidy amount from 25 to 20.
For post-12 employees the Agreement also includes an additional $1,100 per year in the form of a CPS award, moves the Stock Together Program’s $2,500 a year discretionary payment into the CPS award making the $2,500 guaranteed and adds the $700 award that was in place resulting in an annual award of at least $4,300 for the post-12 employees. All other employees had the $500 Stock Together award added to their CPS award making it guaranteed, resulting in a minimum distribution of $1,200 a year.
Over the life of the agreement, the compounded value of the wage increase will be 17.62%, which includes an additional 1% added to the wage increase that had been negotiated under the previous contract in July 2026.
A minimum of 500 new technicians will be hired in New York, and at least 280 call center employees will be hired into Sales & Service and Tech support positions in the NY/NE footprint.
This agreement is a tribute to the militancy and determination our members demonstrated during the seven-week strike in 2016. That battle has now produced four contracts - the original agreement that ended the 2016 strike, the extensions negotiated in 2018 and 2022 and the current extension before you.We should be proud of what we accomplished through that strike, including this extension agreement.
Our union and the conditions in which we’re bargaining have changed over the past ten years since the 2016 strike. The current federal government has openly called for firing striking workers and tearing up union contracts, the National Labor Relations Board has been gutted, and we’re staring down a growing healthcare affordability crisis impacting every industry throughout the country.
Our country is facing a major healthcare crisis with skyrocketing healthcare costs in every industry, which is only exacerbated by the passage of the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act." Thisbill significantly cuts healthcare funding and dismantles the Affordable Health Care Act - driving up the cost of care for everyone, regardless of their health insurance coverage. This extension Agreement continues incremental increases, as contained in previous Agreements, and is a huge victory considering the crisis before us. And contains an economic package that far outpaces any increase in medical costs.
Thanks to our militancy and solidarity, we reached an Agreement that we can be proud of — and alongside this agreement, we must recognize that without real changes in our healthcare system, we will continue to see the impacts at the bargaining table in years to come. We must fight for these changes in the healthcare system to protect our contract and to ensure adequate coverage for everyone.
