Updated at 9:37 a.m. May 4, 2016

By CRAIG FREILICH

POTSDAM – About a dozen members of the Communications Workers of America Local 1128 continued to picket Tuesday to draw attention to their three-week-old strike against Verizon.

The strike is largely over issues of shrinking membership and job security, acording to members.

“They want to close down call centers, close certain buildings, shuffle people around,” said Gene Cota, an 18-year Verizon employee.

He said issues that lead to strikes aren’t always about money.

“Pension and medical are not a big issue right now," Cota said. "They always give us a percentage increase for salary, and that always looks good for them. People see that and say, ‘Hey, they’re making good money. What are they complaining about?’”

“For the past 10 months, Verizon has tried to reach agreements for the Company’s 36,000 wireline associates in the East,” a press release from Verizon said after the strike was announced. “While the company has on the table proposed wage increases, continued retirement benefits (including a generous 401(k) match) and excellent healthcare benefits, union leaders decided to call a strike rather than sit down and work on the issues that need to be resolved.”

The union says it is Verizon that has been intransigent.

“They want to be able to relocate us, transfer us to buildings farther away,” Cota said, explaining that the company wants to be able to assign people to temporary locations for as long as two months, where the maximum is three weeks now, and make involuntary transfers.

“That will really disrupt home life for our members,” Cota said. “We want to be able to watch our kids grow up, see their soccer games.”

And the union says the company wants to slash the percentage of union workers in call centers and contract out many technician jobs, among other measures.

Nearly 40,000 members of the CWA and the IBEW – the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers – from New York to Virginia walked out April 13 after 10 months of failed negotiations.

The ranks of the workers on strike, who handle jobs on telephone lines and equipment, installations, and maintenance of vehicles and buildings, have been shrinking since cell phone use mushroomed.

One picketer said he remembers as many 125 members of Local 1128 in Potsdam and Malone in 1998, “and before that maybe even more.”

Today there are about 40 CWA 1128 members.