Boston Telecom Workers Make Solidarity Journey to Madison

In another important solidarity development, seven Boston-area Verizon employees who are members of International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 2222 left on Friday afternoon for an eighteen hour drive to Madison, Wisconsin to join the massive labor protests scheduled for this weekend.

Writing in a blog about the group's trip, Verizon employee and IBEW Local 2222 organizer Paul Feeney wrote, "We're making good time. We left Boston this afternoon and have heard from union members throughout the area as they send messages of support to the workers of Wisconsin. We plan to drive straight to Madison throughout the night."

I have asked each of my union brothers on the trip to reflect on how important it is to stand up at this critical time and act. Though we are but one small trip across many states that will end in a matter of days, we hope it serves as a call to action to all workers and their families. The call is urgent and the time is now!"

Steve "Smitty" Smith, another IBEW organizer and a retired 36-year lineman who is also on the trip wrote, "How important is Madison to me? My mom and my dad (a retired postal worker) live very modestly on his pension. Yet they offered me $100 when I told them we were going to support the workers in Madison. My mom and dad can't afford $100, but they won't stand by and see their children and grandchildren's futures disappear without getting involved." With his years of telecom experience and history of union activism, Smitty is considered the dean of the Boston delegation.

Other IBEW Local 2222 members on the trip to Madison include Bill Crowley, John Colleran, Jeff Oreander, Pat Atwell, and Matt Lyons.

"I'm so proud of all the telecom workers who are standing in Solidarity with our union brothers and sisters in Wisconsin," said Myles Calvey, Business Manager of IBEW Local 2222 and a key leader of Verizon telecom workers in New England. "Our unions must become part of a broad social movement to stop corporate greed in its tracks where ever it rears its ugly head! If today that fight is in Wisconsin, then we will be there!"

Calvey will be one of the lead negotiators for the union contracts with Verizon covering telecom workers from Massachusetts to Virginia that expires on August 6, 2011.

"Our local labor movement stood proud on Tuesday, said Greater Boston Labor Council, AFL-CIO Executive Secretary-Treasurer Rich Rogers. "To see our private sector unions rallying with our public employees demonstrated again that union solidarity is more than just a slogan in Boston."

Watch a video clip of the last Tuesday's Boston rally visit:http://blog.aflcio.org/2011/02/23/boston-rally/