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About 40,000 Unionized Verizon Workers Walk Off the Job (reuters.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: In one of the largest U.S. strikes in recent years, nearly 40,000 Verizon workers walked off the job on Wednesday after contract talks hit an impasse. The event got a boost as U.S. Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders joined them at a Brooklyn rally ahead of the New York primary next week. The strike was called by the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers that jointly represent employees with such jobs as customer services representatives and network technicians in Verizon Communications Inc's traditional wireline phone operations. The strike could affect service in Verizon's Fios Internet, telephone and TV services businesses across several U.S. East Coast states, including New York, Massachusetts and Virginia. Verizon and the unions have been talking since last June over the company's plans to cut healthcare and pension-related benefits over a three-year period. The workers have been without a contract since its agreement expired in August. Issues include healthcare, offshoring call center jobs, temporary job relocations and pensions.
Couldn't affect customer service in any way, it's impossible to do worse.
It's a power struggle between union and management, and although I think a fair deal can be reached, the management clearly needs to be sent a signal.
We simply don't care any more about increasing share holder value at the expense of jobs.
The Verizon CEO ripped Bernie in a FB post, about his "contemptible" platform of trying to make business decisions into a moral issue. Probably the wrong response at the wrong time.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/...
http://www.weeklystandard.com/...
There was a two and a half year cliff. We are just on our way into that now. Yes, this does mean a reduction in so-called "Cadillac Plans", orwise known as "Good health insurance.
In addition, in states like New York and California, which set up exchanges, have their own sunset coming on the federal subsidy; this was the big argument between Red States, like Alabama, who refused to set up exchanges of their own, and the federal government last year when those sunsets started to kick in, and the question was whether the sunset provisions applied in those states, or whether the fed, if it wanted people to have the subsidy, would have to continue paying all of it themselves, rather than the states having to pick up the bill.
Ironically, it was tied to creating a state exchange, so there are good legal arguments why the fed would have to carry the load they willingly shouldered when they picked up for the lack of state exchanges.
The jury is still out on who is going to foot the extra Medicaid costs, but the bill is definitely coming due for the unions, and they are seriously unhappy.
I expect that if this keeps up for any significant period of time, since it's on the order of 22% of Verizon employees, if we are to believe the 40,000 employee numbers, that we will be seeing Verizon call centers opening up in the Philippines to take advantage of the recently fast-tracked TPP (Trans Pacific Partnership) agreement.
"May you live in interesting times..." applies, I think.
I can certainly understand that businesses, in lean times, need to take steps to keep afloat to avoid bankruptcy, but when you're close to earning $12B in profit a year, cutting pension and healthcare benefits is just mean-spirited. Verizon is destroying the middle class that it is hoping will buy its FIOS and wireless services, and that's both bad for business and bad for the country, and I don't want to support those sorts of actions.
Verizon wireless did a similarly mean-spirited thing last year and moved thousands of customer support jobs from "expensive" SoCal to "cheap" Kentucky, putting a few of my pals out of a job, actually. Despite good wireless service, I cancelled my Verizon Wireless accounts immediately, and when Retention called to ask why, I told them exactly why, asked the caller where they worked, and advised them to start looking for a new job because their position was surely going to move to a cheaper area of the country too.
Isn't $12B in profits ENOUGH? Vote with your wallets folks, and be sure to tell Verizon why you're leaving.
I'm always glad to see union workers standing up for what they want, and I've never worked in a position where I've even had the opportunity to join a union. It's a nice contrast to the ultra-Libertarian crowd in IT who doesn't realize they're being taken advantage of.
If IT and software development were unionized, or better, entry was controlled by a professional organization, people would have a better quality of life. The H-1B visa abuse wouldn't exist and employers who routinely understaff positions and demand 70-hour work weeks to make up for it would be curbed. If we had a professional organization instead of a union, we could actually train new entrants instead of relying on overpaid consultants and/or dealing with incompetence. Instead, we have the lone ranger mentality, and people are convinced that nothing bad will ever be done by their employer.
From what I've read, the union is entirely justified in this case - Verizon is trying to slowly take away things like employer-paid health care and hoping people don't notice by giving them a salary increase. These things are basics, and should be part of everyone's benefits package. It's executive and shareholder greed, pure and simple. Verizon makes massive amounts of profit and their workers should get their fair share, period.
One of the most important tenets of Libertarianism is your individual right to sell your labor. Voluntarily choosing to sell your labor via a labor union isn't incompatible with Libertarianism.
I have two issues with some unions:
1. An individual should never be forced to join a union. An individual should join a union if it makes sense for the individual. Too often unions enrich themselves while providing little else to the rank and file.
2. There should be no unions in Government work. No functions of our Government should be at the mercy of a union.
Beyond that, I support voluntary membership in private sector unions.
Wireless is not involved. The people who are striking are the ones who physically connect stuff with wires, which is the opposite of wireless.
Verizon's wired business is shrinking because of people going wireless. The people who connect wires are suffering because people are going wireless.
Is there still a number of wires left to be connected? Sure, because wireless isn't completely wireless. But it's a lot less demand for the skills of connecting wires compared to pre-wireless days.
You mentioned Verizon Wireless as if it were a separate company. And it is a separate issue, since these are customer support jobs that could be done from the moon for all it matters.
If you take the losses or slowdowns on wired business, and consider that wireless offsets those declines, then wireless is a money printing business for Verizon. I think your message is better off focusing on these sorts of points, not global all-business-lines profit. And you'll make a far stronger argument. I'm actually a little bit on the other side of the argument now. Like 98% with you instead of 99%.
Dear Sir:
Our company, Bombay Telephone Polishers, LLC stands ready to provide most excellent service with all needful certifications at very low prices.
In other words, don't be silly. If there's one thing outsourcing companies excel in it's cram-and-barf certs, and even when they don't actually have those certs, they'll claim they do just to score the contract with the corporate bargain-hunters. Then, if there is an actual requirement, they'll ram as many junior persons through cram-and-barf as necessary.
How would one ionize a Verizon Employee in the first place?
Have you ever fallen asleep at the keybhanusdiog?