65,000 East Coast Verizon employees, 15,000 of whom live and work in the New York City area, have voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike if Verizon and labor unions can't reach an agreement by the August 2 expiration of their current deal. According to Crain's New York, 91% of workers voted to authorize a strike if negotiations fail. "That’s pretty much standard procedure," says a Verizon spokesman. "It really doesn’t mean anything about the tenor of the negotiations." Workers say the newly announced NYC FiOS plan gives them added leverage, as the company doesn't want install schedules disrupted.