VERIZON WORKERS CONTINUE STRIKE

45,000 Verizon employees, or about 25% of the company’s workforce, continued their strike on Monday after the company failed to reach an agreement with labor unions, Bloomberg reported. It is the first strike in 11 years at Verizon and it could end up affecting customers waiting for new phone and web installations or phone support, though Verizon has 40,000 other employees on hand.

The Communications Workers of America and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers don’t want to pay monthly premiums on health benefits, but Verizon isn’t quite willing to spend more money on the unions as customers continue to opt for wireless service and internet entertainment in place of phone lines and cable TV. “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,” Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam said Sunday. “In fact, under these contracts, benefit costs have risen consistently even as the wireline business has shrunk.” “We’re looking to bring our union more in line with what the rest of the workers pay,” Verizon spokesperson Rich Young said, noting that a majority of Verizon’s employees pay part of their health insurance premiums. International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers manager Bill Huber sees it differently. “These aren’t negotiations, they’re an insult,” he said. “This is a clear attack on our unions.”

It should be noted that Verizon reported revenues of over $27.5 billion last quarter, with a majority of that revenue coming from the wireless division.

FACEBOOK ADDS 'CIVIL UNIONS' AND 'DOMESTIC PARTNERSHIP' TO RELATIONSHIP STATUS

Facebook has added two new relationship status options users can include in their online profiles: "in a civil union" and "in a domestic partnership."

The new fields are being rolled out in the U.S. and several other countries, including Canada, France, the U.K., and Australia, starting today.

"This has been a highly requested feature from users," said Facebook's Andrew Noyes, manager of public policy communications. "We want to provide options for people to genuinely and authentically reflect their relationships on Facebook."

Among other information included on their Facebook profiles, such as their alma mater and favorite books, users also have the option to characterize their relationships. Previously, the set of options included: single, in a relationship, married, engaged, it's complicated, in an open relationship, widowed, separated, and divorced.

The changes were made in consultation with Facebook's Network of Support, a group that includes LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender] organizations such as the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network, and the Human Rights Campaign.

"As LGBT people face a patchwork of relationship recognition laws, this gives people more tools to adequately describe their relationship," said Michael Cole-Schwartz, spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaign. "Facebook has been a company that has tried to be inclusive of the LGBT community and this just one sign of it."

Richard Socarides, president of Equality Matters and former gay rights advisor to president Bill Clinton, echoed Cole-Schwartz's praise.

"Facebook has always been an empowering place for gay people--it's a place you can be yourself in relative safety," Socarides told the Huffington Post in an email. "This is a natural progression of that. In most places, gay Americans can't yet marry but they may be able to formalize their relationship short of marriage. This change reflects that reality. Well done."