I doubt this will stand up in court. Out of tens of thousands of striking workers, Verizon feels the need to punish 40 for what they claim are violent and racist activities.
“We respect the rights of our employees to peacefully picket and protest during a strike. However, the actions of many individuals in the August 2011 strike violated our code of conduct and in some cases, violated the law,” Verizon said in a statement to the Globe. “This has nothing to do with their rights to peacefully picket. It has everything to do with making threats of violence, engaging in physical violence, running people off the road, making outrageous profane or racist comments and more. Many of these activities were egregious and unacceptable and as a result, we’ve taken appropriate action.”