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Verizon Accused of Slighting Copper Infrastructure
High Fibre writes "Regulatory hearings in Virginia raise questions about Verizon's stewardship of its copper infrastructure, with workers accusing the telecom of cheaping out on maintenance in Virginia due to its preoccupation with its FiOS network. Ars covers the fracas and gives more time to Verizon than the local media do. From Ars: 'During testimony given before the Virginia State Corporation Commission last week... workers painted a dire picture of the state of Verizon's copper network, saying that the equipment required to make repairs — including tools and cable — is not even available.' Verizon disagrees, saying that while it's a challenge to manage and maintain both networks, they are not neglecting their copper infrastructure." A union official gave written testimony about the Verizon problems, presumably so that individual workers would not have to testify in public and open themselves to retribution.
I hate Verizon too, but it's really hard to argue with a 30/5 line that costs half as much as the old 5/2 line I was getting from Speakeasy, especially since I actually get most of the 30/5 out of the line. I hate how only Verizon can offer it though, since they still use PPPoE for no good reason and block incoming port 80 and have no option for static or even multiple IP addresses. All of that stuff is really a minor annoyance compared to the $50 a month I'm saving and the ability to FTP a multi hundred megabyte file from home in a handful of minutes.
I read the internet for the articles.
A trade union is a monopoly. A trust concerning itself with (mostly — anti-competitive) efforts towards maintaining and ever increasing the prices of its members product (labor).
Nobody likes monopolies — the sooner you are busted with RICO and other anti-trust laws, the better. Your corruption and violence have made you far less likable, than most corporations are or deserve to be.
Those, who have grown up in a Soviet Union and similar countries, have particular dislike for trade unions — workers' solidarity, May 1st, class warfare... As far as I am concerned, for example, your sorry Socialist union-official neck belongs on a lamp-post... Nothing personal.
Those (truly) poor, who wish to immigrate to this country to work, are appalled by your arguing, that Americans are, somehow (by birthright?), entitled to better jobs, than Mexicans or Thais or Uzbeks.
And all — including the natively born and raised Americans — still remember the crookery surrounding the name "Hoffa", and the recent NYC-transit strike. We are all wondering, for example, why using the electronic EZ-Pass is only $0.5 cheaper, than going through a unionized toll-collector (EZ-Pass would've fazed those bums out, so extra is being collected for your undeserved pensions). Etc.
I do strongly dislike Microsoft. But:
- it is possible to not buy them;
- they don't slash anybody's tires;
- they don't beat the competition up on the street;
.Much like the Luddite's of the past, you tend to stand in the way of progress — except now you phrase yourself differently. Instead of the honest "this will eliminate my job", you are lying: "it is not safe" (witness the union opposition against automated subway trains, for example).
Got the idea, on where the subject comes from, yet?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
The unions, themselves were a result of bosses stomping on the rights of workers in order to maximize their own profits.
Even if you're not in a union yourself, you're probably benefiting from the literal blood, sweat and tears shed by the early union organizers in order to achieve things like decent wages, safe workplaces and respect for even the basic rights of the average worker.
Then again, if you think that the average union worker is a pig at the trough, consider the upper management who are trying to justify "fair wages" of... uhm. (pulls out calculator) $1400/hour plus housing allowance, car, country club membership and a copious golden parachute should reason be found to fire them.
Of course, at that price, you can always trust the word of of a C{x}O like Ken Lay or Conrad Black -- they wouldn't get that kind of money, if you couldn't trust them, would they?
OS Software is like love: The best way to make it grow is to give it away.
Then you'll stop automatically distrusting unions,
Never.
and stop automatically trusting the corporations which demonize them.
I don't, and I never will.
Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean they're not all out to get me.
I don't know much about the history of unions nor do I know what kind of tacts they may or may not use on a large scale. I do know that my father was a union carpenter in Boston for many years and he spoke highly of it, and I do know that I currently work in a union job shop that makes aircraft parts (roughly 450 employees).
I myself am not a union worker, I'm an engineer/software developer. There are probably 60 people total at our company that are office workers in sales/engineering/management that are not union, only the shop floor workers are.
Some of the negative things I've seen the union do:
-Block the lay-off/firing of dead weight employees that have statistically cost the company hundreds of thousands of dollars due to simply being able to perform their job like 90% of the other workers in the shop. I've also seen them bring legal retribution to the company when they fired them anyway and forced them to bring the employee back.
-I've seen them hold meetings encouraging (borderline ordering) union workers to vote for X candidate in local and national elections
-When the shop floor falls behind in production and decides to re-open Saturday to make up for it (which can happen for weeks at a time across a few months) union official demand that X% of office workers work on Saturdays as well regardless of whether there is work for them to do, and despite the fact that while most shop floor workers are getting paid time and a half office workers are salary and don't get paid so much as a dime extra for their time. Saturday work days are optional for shop floor workers and typically there is an overabundance of volunteers suggesting that they don't have a problem coming in for the extra cash.
-I've seen union officials keep the company from switching to a more suitable insurance plan that not only would offer more coverage but be slightly cheaper (the insurance company was phasing out the old plan and making a good offer on the new one to entice people to switch) simply because the old plan better suited them despite the fact that the new plan was better suited for a vast majority of the other workers in the shop.
Some of the negative things I've seen the union do:
-fight to keep bonus plans reasonable and generally increasing on a year-to-year basis
-fight for higher overall wages of the union workers (which are actually lower then our non-union sister plants)
On a whole most of the office workers don't seem to have a problem with anyone but the union reps (for forcing Saturday labor etc.), yet I constantly catch bits of conversations from the shop floor workers who seem to constantly carry an "us vs them" mentality against anyone who works in the office.
Also we're the only company in our field that is unionized, we've been losing more and more business on a yearly basis because our competitors are able to produce similar products at prices lower then our labor rate/scrap product ratio alone. As a result we started outsourcing labor last year just to stay competitive, we haven't laid anyone off in the process but we had numerous threats of violence (including a man in the parking lot who called in to tell us that he had his rifle trained at the head of the HR department) when we cut back the number of people needed for overtime work. Even after outsourcing our company hasn't had any mass layoffs in the last 15 years.
I went into this company with a positive view of unions from my father's years of praise... after 3 years my view is dramatically less impressed. I see it as just another corrupt systems like so many other corrupt systems we deal with on a daily basis.
I can't speak for unions in general, but at my small company in my small NH town we don't have any million dollar salary CEOs, nor do the engineers make all that much more then the shop floor staff. We don't have the best management but on a whole I genuinely feel that most of the management make what they feel are the best decisions for the company. I can honestly say that from my first hand dealings with my company's union I think my company would be much better off without them, and in the future I will probably avoid any company that uses union labor based on my experience here.
Collector's Edition
Mainly though, they're a great deal for anyone who's in them.
No, they are a great deal for the average worker who can't rise above the masses on his own abilities. They are a horrible deal for the individual who outperforms and finds his advancement blocked by the very organization that is supposed to help him.