Verizon Linemen Working Without Contract in Westchester, Rockland, Putnam

MOHEGAN LAKE, N.Y. -- Verizon line employees who have been working without a contact since Aug. 2 held informational pickets Tuesday and Wednesday outside of the major wireless phone company's stores along Route 6 and in Hartsdale and Port Chester.

More than a dozen union members of the Communications Workers of America held an informational picket outside the Verizon store in Mohegan Lake on Tuesday. Picketing continued on Wednesday along Route 6 an at stores in Hartdale and Port Chester.
Photo Credit: *Jon Craig*

Union members working without a contract sine Aug. 2 for Verizon held an informational piket on Tuesday along Route 6 in Mohegan Lake.
Photo Credit: *Jon Craig*

Closeup of one of Tuesday's union members who joined an informational picket line outside the Verizon store in Mohegan Lake on Tused. Picketing also is going on this week outside Verizon stores in Hartsdale and Port Chester
Photo Credit: *Jon Craig*

More than a dozen members of the Communications Workers of America union picketed the Verizon store along Route 6 in Mohegan Lake on Tuesday to inform the public they have been working without a labor contract since Aug. 2.
Photo Credit: *Jon Craig*

Jon Craig

10/14/2015 8:30 p.m.

Anthony Pugliese, vice president for Local 1103 of the Communications Workers of America AFL-CIO, said, "It's all about preserving good middle-class jobs."

Pugliese said the CWA has been in bargaining talks since June 22 with Verizon management, but that their three-year contract expired on Aug. 2. That night, the union decided to continue bargaining without a contract, rather than go on strike, Pugliese said, which would have involved about 40,000 employees along the East Coast including New York and New Jersey.

About 1,500 unionized Verizon line workers are affected in Westchester, Rockland and Putnam counties.

About a dozen have been holding "informational pickets" late weekday afternoons and will continue to do so as long as there is no contract agreement, according to Pugliese.

On Tuesday, roughly every other motorist honked in support of the picketers outside the Mohean Lake store on Route 6. "We've had unbelievable public feedback,'' Pugliese said,

He estimated about 90 percent of motorists passing the union picket lines in Hartsdale have been honking

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