NJ.com: Verizon Workers End Strike

Striking Verizon workers will return to work Tuesday without a new contract after a work stoppage kept them off the job for the past two weeks, according to a published report Saturday.

The Communication Workers of America and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers issued a statement saying tens of thousands of Verizon workers have agreed to come back to work while they continue to negotiate with Verizon Communications Inc., according to a report on NJ.com.

About 45,000 Verizon landline workers from Massachusetts to Virginia struck on Aug. 7, fighting management demands for contract givebacks. The sides cannot agree on the issue in the face of the company's declining landline business in an age of mobile phones.

In Union County, Verizon employees began picketing Aug. 7 outside of the Verizon store on Rte. 22 in Union near the Springfield border as well as other locations. 

During the course of the strike, Verizon management accused striking workers of acts of network sabotage causing disruption of service to its customers, including one incident in Cedar Grove.

In that incident, a nondescript equipment shed on Garrett Street was damaged. Police Chief Richard Vanderstreet said a Verizon employee notified the police of damage and theft of an unknown number of electronic cards that were stored inside the shed.

Vanderstreet said the incident caused brief interruptions in township residents' Verizon phone service over the weekend, and township hall, which was closed at the time of the incident, briefly lost service as well. But, he said, the police department's phones were "functioning fully," contrary to what Verizon had stated in the news release about the theft affecting the police department's phones.

Vanderstreet said the incident was still under investigation, but that the nature of the damage could point to sabotage.