The largest strike USA has seen in the recent years was that of The Verizon Wireless workers last year. The strike involved technicians, customer service representatives and members of the Communications Workers of America (CWA) who stood in solidarity with the employees of the company (Stangler, 2016). The strike was angled on the fact that the company wanted to get large sweeping concessions on the pensions and healthcare benefits of their works. It also wanted the CWA to grant them more power to outsource labor. The dispute was solved through mediation. The mediator was the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service who offered to help the company avert crises with the strike that took 45 days (Bloomberg, 2016). After a lot of negotiations, the company, the workers and the unions involved signed new contracts that provided an 8% rise in wage over four years, a significant signing bonus and the maintenance of pensions.
The union and the workers did well to inform the company of the impending strike if their grievances were not addressed. This gave the company management time to deliberate over the issue. It was also a good show for the union and workers to call off the strike to hold talks towards new contracts. This was a show of good faith and good rapport between the parties involved (Greenhouse, 2011). The method of solving the dispute chosen was mediation which was done by the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service. This is the body that approached Verizon Wireless to solve the issues of the company and ending the strike. By bringing in a the body as the mediator, the process involved both parties and also was a channel to ensuring other underlying issues in the company are sorted since mediation takes place in an informal environment.
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References
Bloomberg, S.M. (2016, April 12). Verizon open to mediation to avert strike of workers. The Detroit News. Retrieved from http://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/2016/04/12/verizon-open-mediation-avert-strike-workers/82958520/
Greenhouse, S. (2011, August 20). Verizon Workers Plan to End Strike, Agreeing to Revive Talks Toward a Contract. New York Times . Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/21/technology/verizon-workers-end-strike-though-without-new-contract.html
Stangler, C. (2016, April, 15). 40,000 Verizon Wireless Workers Launch One of the Biggest Strikes of the Decade. The Nation . Retrieved from https://www.thenation.com/article/40000-verizon-workers-launch-one-of-the-biggest-strikes-of-the-decade/
