Workers at Verizon stores north of Seattle in Everett and Lynnwood won their union election on Friday, making them the first Verizon branch stores in the country outside of New York. GET FOX BUSINESS IN ENGINE BY CLICKING HERE A group of workers and supporters watched the vote count, which was broadcast on Zoom by the National Labor Council on Friday, in the parking lot of the Everett Verizon store, the Daily Herald reported. Verizon Wireless Retail Location (istock / iStock) Victory gives employees the right to negotiate wages and working conditions with Verizon. Austin Heatz, a Verizon employee and organizer of the union campaign, said employees wanted cost-effectiveness increases and more control over their programs. STRIKE ORGANIZER ETSY SAYS NEXT STEP CONNECTION “We really want to codify what we already have – we have pretty good benefits and 401K, but Verizon is systematically taking things away from us and we want to stop it,” he said. Employees voted to be represented by Communications Workers of America, which has more than 700,000 members nationwide. Ticker Security Last change Change% VZ VERIZON COMMUNICATIONS INC. 53.83 -0.31 -0.57% Verizon did not respond to a request for comment. Verizon said it “respects the rights of our employees to freedom of association and collective bargaining … including the right to join or not to join unions” in a February filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT FOX BUSINESS Steve Yu, sales representative at the two Verizon stores, went out to celebrate with colleagues and supporters during his break on Friday. Yu has been with the company for 22 years and voted for a club. His biggest disappointment was the changes Verizon made to the payment of employee commissions. “We do not want to be fired anymore and we do not want to be fired from future employees,” Yu said.