Verizon’s new chief executive, Lowell McAdam, might want to check into a Manhattan hotel this evening.
The two unions representing about 45,000 Verizon workers on strike for the past 12 days plan to stop by McAdam’s residence in New Jersey’s affluent Mendham Borough.
“I’m talking with the union representatives and their attorneys and we’re setting up parameters for a peaceful and safe candlelight vigil," the borough’s police chief, John Taylor, told the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Several hundred strikers are expected to attend the rally.
It’s probably little consolation to McAdam that he hasn’t been singled out during a strike that involves one of America’s most powerful telecommunications companies. On Friday, the Communications Workers of America and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers stopped by the home of Verizon chairman Ivan Seidenberg for a similar rally, according to the report.
Workers have been on strike since last week after a contract expired on Aug. 6, affecting tens of thousands of workers in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic.
Verizon and the two unions have been in talks for several weeks.
Verizon has asked its workers to make concessions because it must deal with economic realities in its shrinking landline business. The unions have claimed Verizon is flush with cash yet threatening the middle class way of life with demands for $1 billion in annual concessions.
New York-based Verizon last faced a strike in 2000 that endured for about three weeks.
