"I can’t believe, when you look at the numbers here, when you look at how profitable Verizon is, when you look at what these executives make  I can’t even count that high," he said. "The top five executives making over a quarter of a billion dollars in the last four years. I can’t imagine what kind of company does that and then says to its workers you can’t have basic benefits."

The striking workers install and manage the company's landline operations; Verizon has said that because fewer and fewer people have landlines, the work force must take pay and benefit cuts.

"We're asking our union-represented employees to help us on a variety of issues that could streamline our processes and further reduce our wireline cost structure while keeping their overall compensation and benefits among the best in corporate America," said Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam in a letter to company management. "It is clear that some of the existing contract provisions, negotiated initially when Verizon was under far less competitive pressure, are not in line with the economic realities of business today."

De Blasio however was having none of it.
"I don’t understand what kind of company takes 1.3 billion in tax cuts from the federal government, uses every tax shelter in the book, and then says to its workers there is nothing for you," he told the strikers at the company's Brooklyn call center. "It is not acceptable. They are not bargaining in good faith."

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