Verizon Strike: 100s of Workers March Across Brooklyn Bridge

NEW YORK CITY, NY — For the second day of the largest strike in any U.S. industry in years, hundreds of NYC-based Verizon workers left their picket locations in Manhattan and marched across the Brooklyn Bridge late Thursday afternoon.

Bridge marchers convened at 3 p.m. in Manhattan's financial district, at the intersection of Chambers and Centre streets.

Cars honked in support as the workers marched, drummed and waved picket signs in the bridge's pedestrian walkway. Once they reached the other side, around 4 p.m., they met up with Brooklyn picketers at McLaughlin Park in Downtown Brooklyn, near DUMBO.

While all this was happening, the Brooklyn picketers — who were famously visited by a certain labor-loving Democrat yesterday — similarly ditched their usual spot outside the Verizon call center at 395 Flatbush Avenue Extension around 3 p.m. and marched down to meet the bridge-marching contingent at the park.

Asked if residents could expect any street closures or extra police presence in the area, an NYPD spokesperson said only: "An adequate detail will be assigned."

Below are some photos and videos from both ends of the march.

IBEW Local 827 and CWA Local 1000, the unions representing nearly 40,000 East Coast employees of Verizon, have said this week's massive strike comes as a last resort after 10 months of "trying to reach a fair contract" with Verizon management. Among other grievances, union leaders cite the company's recent push to offshore jobs and, locally, its cuts to the "vital staff" needed to roll out the FiOS high-speed broadband service it promised New York City.

Isaac Collazo, a Verizon technician and CWA member from Brooklyn who has worked at the company for 19 years, said in a statement issued Wednesday:.

“Our families and our customers deserve more from Verizon. Through our hard work, Verizon is making record profits while our families are left with threats to our jobs and our customers aren’t getting the service they need. Striking is a hardship for our families, but we need to remind Verizon executives that the people who build their profits are a critical reason for the company’s success."

In response to workers' demands, Verizon's CEO himself, Lowell McAdam — who's been beefing with Bernie Sanders over the company's practices — showed up to the picket line on West 47th Street in Manhattan earlier Thursday to speak with workers about their demands. And pose for pics, of course.

No major service outages have been reported since tens of thousands of Verizon workers walked off their jobs Wednesday, that we've seen. But that may not last forever. When 45,000 Verizon workers went on strike in 2011, customers complained of going without internet service and cable television for two weeks or longer.

And although Verizon says it has brought in thousands of non-union employees to cover for striking workers this week, they've only got around 10,000 fill-ins, according to the New York Times.

Lead photo by Brad Clinesmith/Flickr