How a Verizon Worker Beat the Company’s Union Busters
In November, the National Labor Relations Board issued a complaint against Verizon, alleging that the company illegally fired an employee in retaliation for union activities. Now that employee is getting his job back.
Verizon has been forced to give an employee back their job after firing them for organizing. (Andrew Harrer / Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Jesse Mason, the Washington state worker Verizon fired last year after he tried to organize two Seattle-area retail stores, went back to work on Monday, as part of the telecom giant’s recent settlement with federal labor regulators.
The company’s decision to fire Mason mirrored the anti-union tactics employed by other corporate giants like Starbucks and Chipotle to combat a growing unionization wave across the country. Mason’s case may show the limits of that hardball approach: he told the Lever he quickly started working for the Communications Workers of America (CWA) union after he was fired and helped successfully organize Verizon workers in Portland, Oregon.
“Verizon thought they could stop me from organizing Verizon stores by firing me, but it just gave me the opportunity to do it full time instead,” he said.
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