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17,000 AT&T Workers Go On Strike In California and Nevada (fortune.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Fortune: Approximately 17,000 workers in AT&T's traditional wired telephone business in California and Nevada walked out on strike on Wednesday, marking the most serious labor action against the carrier in years. The walkout -- formally known as a grievance strike -- occurred after AT&T changed the work assignments of some of the technicians and call center employees in the group, the Communications Workers of America union said. The union would not say how long the strike might last. A contract covering the group expired last year and there has been little progress in negotiations over sticking points like the outsourcing of call center jobs overseas, stagnant pay, and rising health care costs. The union said it planned to file an unfair labor charge with the National Labor Relations Board over the work assignment changes. "A walkout is not in anybody's best interest and it's unfortunate that the union chose to do that," an AT&T spokesman told Fortune. "We're engaged in discussion with the union to get these employees back to work as soon as possible."
Luckily the number of landline customers is zero.
A walkout is not in anybody's best interest and it's unfortunate that the union chose to do that
I'm generally anti-union because they almost always devolve into pieces of shit, but fuck AT&T and fuck the obvious bullshit line about a strike not being in anyone's best interest. It's in the best interest of the union (and hopefully of the employees).
Under this administration? Good luck!
This could be interesting.
Strikers replaced by H1B scabs.
I'm not a member of a union, and used to be anti-union, but the destruction of unions paves the way to total employee exploitation. Notice that pay has been flat for years, but for Corporate AT&T in 2016:
*Consolidated revenues of $40.5 billion, up more than 22%
*Operating income up 13.6%
*Net income up 10.6%
*Cash from operations of $10.3 billion, up 12.5%
*Free cash flow of $4.8 billion, up 8.4%
*Diluted EPS of $0.55 as reported and $0.72 diluted adjusted EPS compared to $0.59 and $0.70 in the year-ago quarter.
All the while the workers get no increases. Every single worker in the US (outside of a few high pay tech positions) is suffering due to corporate greed. A few people at the top have received all the increases for all the productivity gains since the 1980s. If you care about what this country will look like for your kids, you really should care about this. The reality is, you are likely not someone at the top.
California is leading the resistance! Woo-hoo!
There are 17,000 new job openings in California and Nevada.
Rape their children and then kill them. Kill them with death.
--
roman_mir
Another Muslim terrorist attack today. Trump's right... keep the fuckers out of America.
Alas, as the aliens observing us reluctantly realize, humans have short memories. Like environmental laws, civil rights (and even... democracy), collective bargaining came about because our great-grandparents went through hella crazy Pinkerton shit, and our grandparents stood up and got shot until they managed to force change. But alas, our grandparents died off and our parents grew up not knowing what the fuck, and anyway global markets came along so that everything is cheap in China, and now the politicians are telling us that the only thing between us and a trophy wife and the top-floor suite of the Trump Hotel is unions and job-killing environment and food-inspection laws.
and the aliens say, isn't that the shit these creatures fought so hard for just a few generations ago?
Take it easy, Charlie, I've got an Angle...
So we can expect more fiber cuts in remote areasâ and they won't be able to find anyone responsible...
I hope the union members get what they want. People are all too willing to give up all of their bargaining power and be at the mercy of employers. I happen to be one of those strange people who would like to see a little more loyalty on the part of both employers and employees. It's not good for either side to have a revolving door - employers lose valuable trained people, employees become modern-day Okies migrating from employer to employer with no consistency in their lives. If you have that loyalty, and a good work environment, and good salary/benefits, then you wouldn't need a union. Unfortunately, we're back on the other side of the pendulum now, and I think it might be time for collective bargaining to make a comeback.
Think about it rationally -- even if you're the l33test, baddest full-stack DevOps Ninja out there, you're still at the mercy of an employer who is actively trying to pay you as little as possible. If you work in Silicon Valley, you're in a salary bubble right now because Apps! Wait until the bubble pops and employers have their pick of 500 DevOps Ninjas, some of whom are willing to work for practically nothing. Or, they have their pick of thousands of H-1B candidates who work for even less, or could just have all the Ninja-ing done in India and pay less than that! And of course, all that savings goes directly into their pockets, increasing the income disparity and making life miserable for everyone except the executives. I don't think there's anything wrong with a union standing up and fighting against the offshoring of their jobs...or look how many IT jobs might have been saved had the H-1B visa been lobbied against. This is what unions do.
Face it, everybody needs a job, and everybody needs a job whose salary keeps up with inflation and lets them earn more as they age. Society is set up around this, and it's not going to change easily. No one is going to buy houses anymore once they see they can't count on their employers to keep them employed. People won't even take out car loans if they don't feel they have income to pay them back. Unless we have a nuclear war and have to rebuild the system with 1% of the population, you're not going to get people to give up using money to transfer value amongst themselves. I think unions and professional organizations are a good limiting factor on the unchecked greed of business owners. No business owner is going to be nice and share their profits equitably among their workers unless something forces them to. A union is an employee's best hope of getting as many table scraps from the executive dining room table as possible -- no one employee, not even a DevOps Ninja, will get the management class to give in to anything they want.
This strike, had it been called while President Barack "Lawnchair" Obama was in office, would have likely ended in no progress for either side, with the workers going back to the same shitty situation they walked out from (ultimately a loss for the workers as they would see no raise while their cost of living increases). That would have been bad timing.
Now we have a GOP that is still drunk on power calling the shots in DC. These workers might as well go take a long walk off a short pier at this point. I would be surprised if they are able to return to any jobs at all. There is no protection left for them, and if they thought otherwise they will soon find how wrong they are.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
You dont ask a nurse to do a surgeons job, Which is exactly what is happening. They are asking Prem techs to do jobs above their paygrade without additional pay (TO the tune of $16.0 dollars an hour)
... Is when they get fired municipalities can absorb them and thousands more for the "Dig Once" pending legislation.
- Tjp
I am in wallow with my inner money grubbing capitalistic pig. ... Oink!