the UK has FAR better worker protections than the US. These two countries should not be mentioned in the same sentence when it comes to worker protections.
don't forget though, AOL owns TechCrunch, Engadget, Huffington Post, and a bunch of other crap, and they have a pretty massive ad platform. Id wager that the ad platform is what Verizon is really after here.......and maybe a nice bonus would be controlling huffington post and getting them to stop writing articles about how shitty comcast/verizon/twc are and how net neutrality is a good thing.....but that is just me being a bit speculative