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SBC CWA Strike Imminent
Tmack writes "SBC union workers are preparing (again) to strike after negotiations have broken down between CWA and SBC. What this means to the average person? As long as the strike is taking place, orders for new service and repair of existing services with SBC will be delayed as only non-union workers and temps will be around to complete the work. Latest word is the strike is now planned for Friday night through next Tuesday. Check here(1),
here(2), and here(3)
for more info."
SBC = (Something - Southern, maybe?) Bell Company, one of the Big Bells, provides service throughout the Midwest.
CWA = Communications Workers of America, big union including all your telco repair folks.
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Mod me down, you fucking twits. Go ahead. I dare you.
(I read with sigs off.)
I'll freely admit I gave up on tracking the buyouts and mergers, but that seems to be the layout of the local carriers in the US. SBC is a biggie, at least by geography.
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Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
Actually, the union isn't saying that.
They're saying:
"We want a raise. If you don't give us a raise, NO ONE will come to work."
Its totally legit, and you can do it at your job legally as well. However, at your job, unless you can:
a) Convince no one else to show up if you don't get what you want/get fired.
b) Convince any potential replacements that they'll get a better paycheck if they join your strike.
Then management will laugh at you.
Unions are a method of using the collective legal power of the workers (the threat of withholding labor) to counterbalance the economic power of the corporation (the threat of withholding a job/paycheck from a single worker).
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Mod me down, you fucking twits. Go ahead. I dare you.
(I read with sigs off.)
SBC stands for Southwestern Bell Company, which is the Incumbent Local Exchange Carrier (ILEC) for much of the Western USA, including California and Texas which have major datacenters. CWA stands for Communications Workers of America, which is the labor union that represents most of their technical workers.
It's news because it affects a good chunk of the IT industry. Basically, if the CWA goes on strike, SBC's ability to resolve field-wiring issues will suddenly be reduced to management employees who aren't represented by the union. This means any line noise or wire failure issue that happens on local phone line loops within their territory will take much longer than usual to be resolved... leading to potential longer-than-usual disruptions to communication services that rely on local copper loops.
How would NYC and the whole East Coast feel if Verizon's people went on strike? That's who SBC is over there...
See, now you see why this is newsworthy. Even if you're not over there, if you depend on reaching something or someone over there, you're a bit nervous because if for any reason a phone line were to go down, a strike would make it take longer to bring back up.
The Communications Workers of America (CWA) has issued a press release, Communications Workers Set Strike at SBC Involving 100,000 Workers at Midnight Tomorrow:
The CWA also offers a See-n-Say with CWA Game.
Only Women Bleed (Sex, Sharia remix)
From the orignal "Baby Bells" formed by the AT&T breakup, the resulting companies have been allowed to remerge and now there are four distinct ILECs left standing, Qwest (North-West), Verizon (North-East), SBC (South-West) and BellSouth (South-East).
Cingular is not merging with AT&T. They're merging with AT&T Wireless which was spun off from the mothership AT&T years ago in the same move that created Lucent (now Avaya) and AT&T Broadband (now part of Comcast). SBC will pick up a right to use the AT&T Wireless brand for no more than six months, so absolutely any sign anywhere that reads AT&T Wireless will be getting rebranded Cingular rather quickly. The AT&T long distance company has nothing to do with this.
Therefore, SBC will not be aquiring much help in getting local loops fixed... the only local loop AT&T Wireless is concerned with is cell towers. Cingular and AT&T Wireless operate on the same technologies, so they'll have no compatiblity issues taking on the existing AT&T Wireless customers onto the Cingular networks. They basically want AT&T Wireless so that Cingular can mark off any where AT&T has set up a GSM tower up as already done on their GSM conversion effort.
Still, the union's timing in light of a merger close is exactly what they're swinging for. Cheapen the company as the merge closes, and SBC is out money if they cave, and out money if they don't cave. Sad when a business deal heads into mutually destructive territory...
Some of the union gripes are that SBC is outsourcing jobs instead of giving the jobs in new areas to union employees, so the union wants some job guarantees. Another union gripe is that they currently pay 4-7% in copays (no premiums) for health insurance, and SBC wants to raise it to 7-11%.
SBC is also using this as a stick to beat the feds with, because they claim that they have to support the CLEC's by leasing them their lines at less than it costs to maintain them, so if the feds give them some pricing relief, they will reciprocate with the unions.
As a customer of both CLEC's and SBC, I hope SBC loses on the feds front. The service I get from the CLEC is vastly superior to SBC's service, even when the CLEC leases the line from SBC. Presumably, it is because with SBC, we're small fish, big pond, whereas with the CLEC, we're big fish, small pond, though I think SBC's problems are systemic.
I struggled for days and days and all I got was this lousy sig.
Labor union officials enjoy many extraordinary powers and immunities that were created by legislatures and the courts. Union officials claim to rely on the support of rank-and-file workers. Yet, they clamor in the political arena to secure and expand their government-granted powers, including the powers to shake down workers for financial support and even to wage campaigns of violent retaliation against non-union employees.
The following list of special privileges reveals the extent to which union bosses have rigged our nation's labor laws in their favor.
Privilege #1: Exemption from prosecution for union violence.
The most egregious example of organized labor's special privileges and immunities is the 1973 United States v. Enmons decision. In it, the United States Supreme Court held that union violence is exempted from the Hobbs Act, which makes it a federal crime to obstruct interstate commerce by robbery or extortion. As a result, thousands of incidents of violent assaults (directed mostly against workers) by union militants have gone unpunished. Meanwhile, many states also restrict the authority of law enforcement to enforce laws during strikes.
Privilege #2: Exemption from anti-monopoly laws.
The Clayton Act of 1914 exempts unions from anti-monopoly laws, enabling union officials to forcibly drive out independent or alternative employee bargaining groups.
Privilege #3: Power to force employees to accept unwanted union representation.
Monopoly bargaining, or "exclusive representation," which is embedded in most of the country's labor relations statutes, enables union officials to act as the exclusive bargaining agents of all employees at a unionized workplace, thereby depriving employees of the right to make their own employment contracts. For example, the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) of 1935, the Federal Labor Relations Act (FLRA) of 1978, and the Railway Labor Act (RLA) of 1926 prohibit employees from negotiating their own contracts with their employers or choosing their own workplace representatives.
Privilege #4: Power to collect forced union dues.
Unlike other private organizations, unions can compel individuals to support them financially. In 28 states under the NLRA (those that have not passed Right to Work laws), all states under the RLA, on "exclusive federal enclaves," and in many states under public sector labor relations acts, employees may be forced to pay union dues as a condition of employment, even if they reject union affiliation.
Privilege #5: Unlimited, undisclosed electioneering.
The Federal Election Campaign Act exempts unions from its limits on campaign contributions and expenditures, as well as some of its reporting requirements. Union bigwigs can spend unlimited amounts on communications to members and their families in support of, or opposition to, candidates for federal office, and they need not report these expenditures if they successfully claim that union publications are primarily devoted to other subjects. For years, the politically active National Education Association (NEA) teacher union has gotten away with claiming zero political expenditures on its IRS tax forms!
Privilege #6: Ability to strong-arm employers into negotiations.
Unlike all other parties in the economic marketplace, union officials can compel employers to bargain with them. The NLRA, FLRA, and RLA make it illegal for employers to resist a union's collective bargaining efforts and difficult for them to counter aggressive and deceptive campaigns waged by union organizers.
Privilege #7: Right to trespass on an employer's private property.
The Norris-LaGuardia Act of 1932 (and state anti-injunction acts) give union activists immunity from injunctions against trespass on an employer's property.
Privilege #8: Ability of strikers to keep jobs despite refusing to work.
Unlike other employees, unionized employees in the private sector have the right to strike; that is, to refuse to work while keeping their job. In some