Bernie Sanders: Verizon is the poster child for corporate greed

Every oft-repeated argument needs a fresh angle - and the workers' strike at telecoms giant Verizon gave Senator Bernie Sanders exactly that.

Hours after he had joined the picket line alongside Verizon workers, Senator Sanders was speaking to thousands of supporters in New York’s Washington Square Park, the perfect opportunity to call out the company and its CEO as a perfect example of greedy capitalism.

“I take my hat off to CWA [Communication Workers of America]. They are standing up to a greedy corporation that want to cut their healthcare benefits, send decent paid jobs abroad and then propose $25 million a year to their CEO,” he said. “Verizon is just the poster child for what so many of our corporations are doing today."

Verizon wants to freeze pensions, make lay-offs easier and rely more on contract workers, according to the unions.

CEO Lowell McAdam said on his LinkedIn blog that he found Mr Sanders' views "ignorant" and "contemptible", and that the company paid $15.6 billion worth of taxes in the last two years - a rate, he said, of 35 per cent.

But Mr Sanders responded that he would "welcome" contempt from the CEO.

“This campaign is sending a message to corporate America: you cannot have it all,” said Mr Sanders at the rally.

The Senator, who has won the last seven out of eight caucuses and primaries, also picked on General Electric and Walmart, and the Walton family who owns “more wealth than the bottom 40 per cent of Americans”.

“This family own the largest private sector employer in America, and yet because the wages that they pay are so low, many of their employees are forced to go on food stamps and medicaid,” he said.

Among the supporters, Tanner McMhan, 22 a New York University student, said that the most important reason to support Mr Sanders was his promise to reform campaign finance, which was, in his view, “so messed up”.

“If that was sorted out, we can go on from there and do anything,” he said.

“This will be our only chance to have a president like him,” added 20-year-old Diego Llaca, another NYU student. “Not only in terms of progressiveness, but also someone that represents the people. He’s not just a politician, and he’s not just looking for power.”

Brenda Biddle, a 64-year-old teacher, huddled against the cold April night in a pink parka jacket, said she barely got by with social security, despite working as a chef and then a teacher for decades.

“Too many people are without work, healthcare and homes,” she said. “Every day on the street I see homeless people and it makes me feel enraged; I want to give them all letters saying that it’s not their fault, it’s the system.”

But why Sanders over Clinton?

“Hillary voted for the Iraq war, and she got support from Henry Kissinger,” she said.

It seemed like the audience was well versed in Senator Sanders’ policies, and he brought up every point they mentioned - campaign reform, Wall Street finance, social security, homelessness and poverty, and of course, the “most destructive Secretary of State in history", Henry Kissinger.

“People say I’m just a nice guy, and my ideas are ‘huge’,” he said, mocking Donald Trump’s key word. “But I don’t think so.”

His supporters at the New York gathering, from actress Rosario Dawson and film director Spike Lee to Ohio Senator Nina Turner, agreed these policies were achievable.

“If we can get a man to the moon we can educate our children,” Senator Turner bellowed to the crowd. “If we can abolish slavery we can get universal healthcare.”

Ms Biddle was also pleased that the Vermont Senator, the down-to-earth son of a Polish immigrant who grew up just across the water from the park, “demilitarised” the language of his presidential campaign.

“All those ‘commanders in chief’,” she scoffed.

True to form, Mr Sanders did not mention the term once.