The Verizon workers’ strike has entered its second week, with tens of thousands of workers on strike up and down the East Coast. It’s one of the biggest U.S. strikes in years. Verizon has sought to cut pensions and ease the outsourcing of work. At a picket line in Brooklyn on Wednesday, Al Pemberton, chief steward of Communication Workers of America Local 1109, spoke out.

Al Pemberton: “My name is Al Pemberton, and I’m a field technician out of Verizon Wireline. We’re fighting for middle-class jobs. Most of us are going to be retiring in a few years, but we want to make sure that the communities that we serve have good middle-class jobs to pass on to the young people coming up. And we think that that should be a positive thing for the community and for the government as a whole, because you’ve got good-paying jobs, you pay taxes, and then most services can be rendered to the community through that process.”