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Verizon Employees End Strike
An anonymous reader writes "Verizon today announced that the approximately 45,000 wireline employees represented by the CWA and IBEW that have been on strike will return to work beginning Monday night, August 22nd, without new collective bargaining agreements. Since the strike began two weeks ago, Verizon has been battling criminal acts of sabotage against its network facilities and union picketers intimidating non-union replacement workers and illegally blocking garage and work center entrances. One union picketer even went as far as to instruct his young daughter to stand in front of a Verizon truck to illegally block it from coming back to a Verizon work center in New Jersey. Verizon said the wireline employees now on strike would be working under the terms of the contracts that expired on Saturday, August 6th. The contracts will be extended with no specific deadline for achieving new collective bargaining agreements so that the parties can take the time required to resolve the critical issues, the company said."
Unions committing criminal acts to "bargain". No wonder a lot of people don't like them.
While your salary and pension are pissed away so that a few well connected assholes from rich famiilies can get richer. Nicely done, libertards!
Poor Verizon. Profits have only doubled to $4.6 billion (http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/25/verizon-profits-nearly-double-but-miss-wall-street-expectations/) and yet it's trying to cut benefits to its workers.
Another corporate-sponsored propaganda piece brought to you by "anonymous"
Nothing about the $252 million the top 5 Verison executives were paid the last 5 years. Nothing about Verison demanding cuts from workers when Verison profits were up.
Actually, most companies make money when there's a strike. Over $100M in unpaid salary in this case for the two weeks, while exempt management employees work overtime for no additional pay (been there, done that).
That's why strikes rarely make sense anymore.
That summary would be a joke if it was even remotely funny. Talk about missing the plot. Everyone should be proud of the CWA and the IBEW workers who organized one of the most important and successful strikes in recent memory. Let's get the facts straight: On the eve of the strike, Verizon announced it would pay a special $10 billion dividend to shareholders. At the same time, its negotiators were pushing for $1 billion in concessions from workers. The company has made $3 billion already this year, and nearly $20 billion in the last four years.
So Verizon, which has been insanely profitable in recent years, decided to reward it's hardworking employees by attempting to slash their health care benefits, freeze their pensions, denie new hires pensions and health care benefits and by attempting to prevent new hires from organizing in unions. All the while Verizon has been outsourcing more and more positions to firms overseas. Scabs struck 15 picketers during the two week strike. And FOX news, the likely source of this so called "summary", has been demonizing the hard working union members 24/7. While Verizon shareholders are swimming in the dough and Verizon execs laugh all the way to the bank.
I personally will never give Verizon one red cent until they start to do right by their employees. Greedy friggin corporate bastards, the lot of 'em.
Not someone, his daughter, a minor. He was specifically banking on the driver of the vehicle being a better person than him.
TFA does not post any corroboration and nothing from the the side of the strikers.
Without further evidence, I'm going to write this article off as anti-union propaganda.
Mart
"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
I don't normally find such slant in Slashdot summaries (except when it's pro-open-source, obviously, which is part of the reason I come here). Using the word "illegal" and "criminal" repeatedly to describe one side of a labor dispute is just beyond the journalistic pale. I know this is "citizen journalism", but it doesn't have to read like some anti-union blog.
But the union won... They were fine with the current contracts, the issue was Verizon wanted the gut health care and retirement benefits. So going back to work under the old contract is a win for them...
Nah, whats nuts is you thinking Verizon lost money during a strike.
Once upon a time, people looked at union worker's higher pay rates and benefits and said, "I want the same for my family." Thus, the modern middle class was born, and the gap between rich and poor was narrowed to the smallest in American hisotry.
Today, people say, "why should those union guys have it so good? I want them to suffer just like me!" And now the middle class has turned against itself, and the gap widens to historic levels. I hope it'll turn back around some day, but our corporate masters have gotten really good at turning us against ourselves, and at labor unions that exist to help us.
Don't fall into the trap. Such instances were incredibly rare, and Verizon behaved much worse, repeatedly calling the cops to disperse union workers who were simply using their constitutional right to assembly. Remember who controls the media, and remember how it's reported. Then compare it to citizen journalism (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hy-Q5ct0AtY&feature=player_embedded) showing the exact opposite of what the summary says.
It's amazing isn't it? The reason being is because they've successfully taught people that they too can be millionaires. Little do they know that class jumping is NEARLY impossible.
Historically, corporations have been found guilty of paying goons to join strikes and cause damage to the corporation, thus harming the union movement and themselves appearing to be innocent victims.
Sure, 100 years ago. So that makes it OK for unions to become the thugs now? I suppose the "european americans" need to pay reparations to "african americans" to make up for slavery, too?
This is the worst the Verizon strike-busters could come up with? It perplexes me how many news stories I've read about how "one union picketer even went as far as to instruct his young daughter to stand in front of a Verizon truck to illegally block it". If you watch the video, HE stands in front of the moving truck, which stops. Then she walks over of her own accord. Then the instruction part comes in, he tells her to stand in front of the stopped truck alongside the cameraman who is obviously standing there as well in front of the stopped truck. She holds up her sign, the cameraman films. Then he goes over and yells at the scab who took his job for less than a minute. As happens every time, they then let the trucks go through.
Illegal is a great word. It is illegal to murder and rape. It is also illegal for me to loan one of my DVDs to a friend so that he can copy it to his computer. It is illegal to smoke marijuana. In virtually all industrialized countries but this one, what is illegal is for scabs to replace striking workers. In the good old, God-fearing, Libya-bombing, Iraq-bombing, Afghanistan-bombing USA though, it is illegal for workers to delay scabs from taking their jobs.
Verizon is one of the largest examples of a company which does nothing but profit from its monopolies. It spends tons of money on state and federal lobbying, and has a lock on a portion of wireless wavelength, and an almost total and complete lock on the local loop. The majority of its stock is held by the very wealthiest of Americans (over 40% is held by the wealthiest 1%, and the 51% mark is only slightly larger), and the majority of those people inherited virtually all of their wealth. The majority of the majority owners are heirs who sit on their asses and expropriate dividend checks from not their government-lobbied, government-granted near-monopolies, but the people in this video, the people out there doing all the work and creating all the wealth for the company.
I know the USA is a piece of garbage, ruled by these rich parasite heirs, aside from their religious wacko pals and other assorted asocial Tea Party nuts, so there's not much use getting over-exerted about any of this. The words criminal and illegal really mean nothing here. Before World War I, for workers to form a union in the USA was itself a criminal act. It was illegal. As I said, in other countries, these scabs replacing striking workers is illegal. In the good old USA workers replacing the scabs taking their jobs is illegal. Just like breaking DRM and all the other nonsense. We are all slaves to these rich parasite heirs trying to extract money from their monopolies and the wage slaves they have working for them. It's naturally American to be filled with vitriol and hatred for the average working class Joe standing with his union brothers to try and earn a living wage. Following authority, passively licking the boots of the lazy rich heirs who own the majority of Verizon stock, with Almighty God watching over all is the natural order of things. The reward will be in the "next life".
(and WRT to who references to who owns stocks, is an heir and such, you can consult sources like the Federal Reserve's Survey of Consumer Finances, Forbes 400 richest list and other sources).
There are no qualifications needed to become a parent. Anybody can join. Whether you think this is a good thing depends on your perspective. Governments that change this policy tend to go downhill on human rights very quickly.
Gut health care? Making union employees pay for a portion of their health care like every non union employee does is gutting?
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law - Aleister Crowley
Less than 7% of private workers in the US are unionized, yet you see it as a "cartel". Verizon has a monopoly on land lines in the North East and mid-Atlantic (with AT&T and Qwest covering 99% of the rest of the country), yet you don't see that as a cartel. Verizon, Sprint and AT&Tmobile are three companies who also control over 99% of US wireless, yet you don't see them as a cartel. The wealthiest 1% of the country, most of whom inherited all of their wealth, owns the majority of bonds, over 40% of stocks and so forth - but they're not a cartel.
The average, working, wealth-producing person is not cartelized at all in the US. The rich parasite heirs who you worship are who rules the US. One of the reasons the US economy has had sluggish growth for decades, while the second largest economy in the world, China's, has been growing at 10% a year for 30 years. Not much will change in that respect in the US - the mass of boot-lickers like you, along with the fundamentalist crazies, will succeed in holding the US down as the rest of the world passes it by...
Yes. Getting rid of benefits with no replacement is gutting. Now if they wanted to raise everyone's pay by the amount it would cost for them to each individually replace this benefit then fine, but they are essentially decreasing the salary of the workers.
Get a web developer
No, the point is that history repeats itself more often than not..
"Um... by definition [corporations] are unthinking by their very nature... people who are either unwilling or unable to represent themselves (ie [shareholders]) band together and let others ([CEOs]) think and negotiate for them.
I have never been a [corporate stock holder], nor will I ever... because I am competent enough to represent myself.
Not that I have a particular opinion on the Verizon strike specifically, but why is collective action of capital holders the pinnacle of the modern economic system, but the collective action of laborers is destroying society as we know it?
I wish I were as sure of anything as some people are of everything
Don't you understand that when you take a job, you negotiate for a "Total Compensation" package. If the value of that is $100,000, and $25,000 of it is in 'benefits', if you cut the 'benefits' by $10,000 you need to INCREASE TAKE HOME PAY by ten grand PLUS the lost tax benefit...
In other words, you don't SAVE any money by cutting benefits, because unless your goal is to FUCK PEOPLE OVER, then you're going to be increasing their take home, so your "Total Comp" package remains the same....
Technology -- No Place For Wimps! Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia Chatroom -- http://www.wemissjerry.org
So, following your logic: If an employee has a contract for total compensation of X dollars which includes $1000 per month in health insurance. When the insurance premiums go up 10% the following year, the union employee should then pay the extra $100 because the contract was for a fixed amount? The article mentioned that the contract had expired, I see NOTHING wrong with a new contract that requires that ALL employees pay a portion of health care costs.
In the real (non union) world you don't negotiate for 'Total Compensation' in dollars, you negotiate for salary (which is usually a fixed amount) and benefits (which are usually not fixed).
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law - Aleister Crowley
It is interesting that you simultaneously think that it is fine that people form corporations so they have a limited liability in their investments, but not unions, to have bargaining power much larger than you could ever have, however competent you may be.
How cute that you think union workers don't live in the real world.
Today, people say, "why should those union guys have it so good? I want them to suffer just like me!" And now the middle class has turned against itself, and the gap widens to historic levels. I hope it'll turn back around some day, but our corporate masters have gotten really good at turning us against ourselves, and at labor unions that exist to help us.
See, back in the Utopian day you speak of, union members were proud of their work and it was well known. You could expect on American cars to be the best, most reliable cars on the planet. An union constructed building would be one that you knew was not only up to code, but surpassed it. Union members were their own foreman and made sure that all union members were doing their jobs RIGHT.
That's not the case any more. Now you have union members standing around waiting for the union electrician to plug something into a wall socket. You have union members enter a "job bank" requesting a job that is not available in their area and sit around and nothing for years waiting for a job that no longer exists. Now you have union members who are completely incompetent, lazy and cocky because they know they can not get fired. Now you have people literally attacking, even shooting and vandalizing non-union shops and their own coworkers who don't join them. To make sure the operations continue, they want to make all union votes completely open, meaning union thugs may see how you voted to make sure you voted right.
Meanwhile, you have workers that still take pride in their job who work hard and put in the extra hours to get ahead only to see their promotion go to some union member that does nothing but has been at the company doing nothing longer than you have and union rules will mandate they get promoted before someone newer. You have small businesses trying to compete getting put out of business because they are getting harassed by union members of their trade or lose out to jobs because a union may provide kickbacks to your former customers to make union work cheaper "Walmart style". You bust your ass to have a job, pay for your own benefits and struggle to pay your taxes only to see those that are paid with your tax dollars go on strike and literally shut down your government because they DON'T want to pay for their benefits. They want you to pay for your health insurance AND theirs. There are even unions that force non-union members to pay union dues.
And you don't understand why people don't like unions any more? I too hope it will turn back someday to a day when a union not only takes care of their workers, but also guarantees that a union product is a BETTER product. When times get tough, a union is willing to make concessions, even if only temporary, to help the company make it through a tough time and ensure that everyone still has a job. I want to see a union throw a member out for showing up late or doing shoddy work. Until that happens, unions will continue to get the reputation they deserve.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
well, I live in a different world altogether - I live under a national healthcare system, so the reason these particular strikes started in the first place was solved for us as a nation after WW2.
Here in the real world, everyone but the US solved this problem too, but in 2011 the supposed "leader of the world" is the last major developed nation to have such a backward, broken healthcare system.
I'm certainly not jealous, not even a little bit.
(And disclaimer, I have lived under both systems.)
The problem is health care costs are going up, substantially. Verizon cannot shoulder all of it, so they are asking for workers to pay some as well. Verizon cannot afford to give the equivalent of a 10-20% raise to everyone, especially in a bad economy for a field that is losing a lot of customers (wireline access).
The fact is, things change, and the workers cannot be expected to be insulated from all changes. Or at least non-union workers cannot.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Not everybody is a wage slave.
Hint if you NEED your next paycheck you are a wage slave. You don't have the ability to say no. Figure out the difference between needs and wants.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
That was a really harsh response. You could have said, "I try to live with three months of expenses saved away." Instead, you said "I'm better than you because I don't live paycheck to paycheck."
Oh? You think sharing other people's money actually improves civilization somehow? Government taking money out of private sector and spending the money on what it prefers is what created all of the economic problems since the income taxes were introduced and the Fed was created in USA, while USA became the largest creditor nation and producer of innovation and cheap high quality goods prior to that moment in time.
Having government redistribute profits is what creates the mis-allocation of resources, takes people's liberties away, makes people dependent on government programs rather than having those very people invest their own savings into businesses of their choosing.
You can't handle the truth.
Please tell us what country so we know never to invest in any business from there.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
As an American, I want to say thank you. Please keep fighting this perception. Every time national health care is brought up it's fought with cries of "SOCIALISM!". Never mind the facts you stated about the UK, or the fact that we already have more than a few "socialized" services (Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, Police, Fire Department, etc.).
It's goddamned sickening how easily some people fall for this shit.
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)