After a two-week strike that ended Saturday, more than 45,000 Verizon Communications Inc. workers returned to work Tuesday without major incident, except for the earthquake.
A spokesman for Verizon, a telecommunications provider, said the company was assessing its landline infrastructure but had seen no major damages in the earthquake-hit areas.
"I think that (Tuesday) had been busy to begin with, and then, of course, the earthquake obviously has — I hate to say it but — shook up things," said Richard Hatch, executive vice president of the Communications Workers of America Local 2201, which represents about 1,200 Richmond area Verizon employees who had been on strike.
"We are just happy to be back and helping the customer," he said.
The strike started Aug. 7 after contract negotiations broke down between Verizon and two unions representing the workers in nine states from Massachusetts to Virginia. The unions, including the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, ended the strike Saturday after the two sides agreed to resume negotiations.
Employees represented by the unions are working under contracts that expired Aug. 6.
Negotiations may resume within a week. Benefits, work flexibility and job security are among the issues that remain to be settled.
"This is going to take a while," said Harry Mitchell, a Verizon spokesman. "Those issues are very serious issues, and we have to wrestle our way through it."
Verizon, which has about 196,000 employees, hasn't provided an estimate for the cost of the two-week strike.
An 18-day standoff in 2000 cost the company $40 million in revenue. This year's stoppage probably cost less because it involves fewer workers over a shorter time period, said Michael Nelson, an analyst at Mizuho Securities USA Inc. in New York.
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