Dear Friend,
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On February 22nd - George Washington's birthday - we'll have a Verizon-wide show of solidarity. Your stewards will be distributing U.S. flag stickers so we can show our support for Terry. Right now, you can tell the company to let Terry put up his flag. |
Terry Skiest is a true American hero.
A member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard, Terry recently returned from his third tour duty in the Middle East. He is a genuine patriot and has proudly flown his unit's American flag over the sands of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan.
When he's not defending our country overseas, Terry works as technician for Verizon Business (VZB). But when Terry left his American flag hanging outside his cubicle during his last tour in Afghanistan, VZB removed it.
According to management, the American flag "could be considered propaganda" and "might be offensive to some workers." Verizon Business has a strict zero-tolerance policy against personal items displayed in public areas, implemented to prevent employees from posting pro-union flyers.
Terry doesn't want to make the flag into a "union" issue – he just wants to put the flag back up on his wall. Watch a short video of Terry talking about his flag, and then tell VZB to put it back up on Terry's wall:
The management at VZB (formerly MCI) is going to extreme lengths to silence its employees and prevent them from uniting at work. Just three months ago, two National Labor Relations Board regional directors charged Verizon Business with "interfering with, restraining and coercing employees in the exercise of the rights" to join a union that are supposedly protected by federal labor law.
According to a report by American Rights at Work:
The Verizon Business division, which houses approximately 2,500 technicians, is a non-union, lower-tiered operation. Though Verizon Business techs perform virtually the same work as their union counterparts at Verizon Telecom, according to the techs interviewed for this report, they are denied the higher wages, fully-paid health benefits, and pension plan offered by the union contract.
Sadly, VZB management is so caught up in its anti-worker campaign, it can't respect Terry's symbol of pride from his service to our country.
VZB employees are outraged by Terry Skiest's story. Technicians are standing in solidarity with Terry -- and all of our troops serving in the armed forces -- by displaying hundreds of flags in cubicles all along the East Coast.
You can stand in solidarity with Terry Skiest and our brave men and women in uniform by sending a message to Verizon now:
Verizon Business says that "great companies are judged by what they do, not by what they say."
For over 200 years, our military has defended our right to free speech and assembly. If VZB is as great of a company as they claim they are -- and a company willing to take billions of dollars in government contracts -- then they need to put this soldier's flag back on his wall.
It's the American thing to do.
In solidarity,
Unity@Verizon
