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Occupy Wall Street and Verizon Employees join forces: October 21, 2011, unions and OWS come together in Lower Manhattan to protest corporate greed.

Anti-Wall Street protesters joined Verizon Communications workers on Friday in a march to denounce corporate greed as 45,000 employees negotiate a new labor contract.

The march to a Verizon store in Lower Manhattan coincided with the top U.S. mobile provider reporting a third-quarter profit of $1.38 billion, more than double its profit for the same quarter last year.

Support from unions across the United States has helped boost the ranks of the Occupy Wall Street movement against economic inequality, which began five weeks ago and continues to spark protests nationwide and globally.

The unionized workers negotiating a new contract, who went on strike for two weeks in August, represent roughly half Verizon’s wireline workforce.

Verizon employees gather to protest at Verizon’s headquarters in downtown Manhattan.

Stop the 1 percent.

The CWA (Communications Workers Of America), which is organizing the protest, said that, “Occupy Wall Street has focused the world’s attention on the destructive power of corporate greed. Together, we are demanding that the American economy start to work for the 99 percent again, not just the top 1 percent.”

Verizon’s union workers have been at odds with the company over pension and benefit cuts as they try to negotiate a new contract.

On August 7, some 45,000 workers in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states walked off the job. Workers returned to their duties on August 22, but they had not finalized a contract with Verizon. They are currently laboring under the terms of the old contract.

The protesters marched from Verizon headquarters past Zuccotti Park, ending at a Verizon Wireless store near the New York Stock Exchange.

Verizon workers gain allies and energy from Occupy Wall Street.

Many of the Verizon workers planned to spend the night at Zuccotti Park with Occupy Wall Street.

The protest ends at a Verizon shop one block south of the New York Stock Exchange.

PHOTOGRAPHS + TEXT by ANTHONY SUAU / facingchange.org