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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."
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.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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.
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...
Yeah, unions sure are evil! Thanks, Slashdot! Let's ignore instances of striking workers helping scabs to make sure they don't get hurt. (Link: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/08/19/1008575/-As-Verizon-uses-inexperienced-replacement-workers,-delays-mount). Let's also ignore that they're trying to cut their wages and benefits even as Verizon has experienced record profits.
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.
In Europe, these union acts aren't illegal at all. After all, how do you expect the right to strike to matter if the company can just hire replacement workers? Unions simply don't have enough power in the USA.
Not sure why people dislike them. Maybe it's another anti-socialist thing.
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
"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
That's why in my country we have a constitutional right to go on strike WITH PAY.
Unless a judge rules the strike is illegal, the company still has to pay you. Otherwise, we get situations like you describe.