PROVIDENCE – Verizon Communications Inc. laid off about 200 workers in Massachusetts and Rhode Island at the end of last week as the telecommunications company aims to reduce its payroll nationwide by 8,000, The Boston Globe reported.

The layoffs primarily affected technicians who had been installing Verizon’s new FiOS fiber-optic television and Internet service, the paper said.

Officials with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers union, which represents the Verizon workers, said the layoffs violated the terms of its contract with Verizon and called for an independent arbitrator to investigate.

Verizon had 235,000 employees in the U.S. at the start of this year, including 13,000 in Massachusetts and 3,000 in Rhode Island, according to The Globe.