Union wants
greater incentives
for Verizon retirees

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By Erika Engle
eengle@starbulletin.com

The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 1357 may try to compel Verizon Hawaii to double the size of the voluntary separation packages the company is offering to employees.

On Tuesday the company announced plans to cut 26 union positions citing "external pressures, the economy, competition and technology substitution," or increasing usage of wireless telecommunications.

The package being offered includes a payout based on length of service, to a maximum of $36,000 for 30 years' employment.

Contract language allows for doubling of the incentive package but it is unclear what the trigger would be.

"We would want to see them activate that provision prior to anyone having to be laid off," said IBEW 1357 Business Manager Harold Dias. Company officials were unavailable late yesterday.

Of the 2,500 Verizon Hawaii employees, 1,475 are represented by the union. Of those, "several hundred" are of retirement age, Dias said, but he had yet to review which eligible members were in affected departments. "A lot of people on the bubble of retirement would gladly take the incentive, if their group is offered an incentive," he said.

"There's several things we certainly want to take a look at," Dias said. The union wants to make sure there will be no contracting out of the affected jobs and that none of the work is being sent to mainland Verizon units.

"We are very strong in our belief that Hawaii's work should stay for Hawaii's people."

Another option would be to loan affected employees to other work groups within the company, he said.

Dias called the company announcement bittersweet. "We feel that one union member affected is too much, but Hawaii has been very fortunate. Our number (to be cut) is probably the smallest when you look at the size of our unit." He said potential layoffs in other regions are much larger.

"We cannot get away from the fact that the wireline business is declining as more people use wireless technology," said Dias. The future of the union, he said, is in trying to organize the people in the wireless industry. "There's also some technologies out there that give hope, like DSL and such. There's also the possibility of someday offering video over the copper (wireline) network."