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."

Comments

Baby Goes Whaaaaaaaa!

[sexconker]

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).

Re:Baby Goes Whaaaaaaaa!

[Uberbah]

Nobody wanted to do extra work because someone else slacked their assignment.

That's the central flaw in the "unions protect the lazy" canard. It's predicated on the idea that Steve is happy to do his own work plus Bob's if Bob starts to slack off. Human beings simply aren't built that way, unless they're in a Biff Tannen/George McFly relationship - in which case Biff could just as easily having George do his work at a non union shop anyway.

Re:We'll see what Trump does

[TroII]

Well he campaigned on the idea of giving power back to the people, so if he were an honest man, he'd be on the workers'/union's side here. However it's quite obvious that he's the biggest, greatest liar in the world, as well as being a traditional conservative corporate whore, so he's going to be on AT&T's side.

Support the Union

[sdinfoserv]

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.

Re:Support the Union

[sit1963nz]

See, when I complained how Apple was able to sort the New Zealand tax system the people from the USA were unsympathetic.

"Change the laws" they said
"It will only increase the price of Apple products" others said
"The government has no rights to Apples money" yet more people said

Well here we are now in the USA, with US workers complaining.
The same basic sentiments apply by the looks of it.

The only people entitled to make more money is "not you", and Trump is not going to change that.

Re:Support the Union

[sdinfoserv]

Profit for a company in the form of reduced benefits is off the backs of the workers
C-Levels continually get raises, golden parachutes, and lucrative stock options paid for the by the workers of the company who are only rewarded with less vacation, more expensive health care, lower bonus, and decreasing or no annual raises - and you want to call it "other peoples money".... I say their fair share was stolen.

Re:Support the Union

[ShanghaiBill]

This country is running trade deficits because manufacturing jobs have been shoved overseas

Nope. America manufactures more today than ever before. We just do it with a lot fewer people. The main reason for the trade deficit is that America controls the world's reserve currency, which is a GOOD THING.

Foxconn, the Chinese company ...

Foxconn is not a Chinese company.

Children are chained to desks

All the evidence for that was part of a hoax. There is no credible evidence that anyone at Foxconn was ever physically restrained at their desk, and they do not employ children.

Now, if that's the world you want here in the US ...

You mean the world of "alternative facts?" We already have that.

Re:100% of landline customers affected by strike

[Altus]

Then clearly the companies shouldn't be employing any of them... which is fine, but probably not the case since companies are pretty slick when it comes to figuring out if they still need employees and cutting down labor costs if the answer is "no" so really this is just about your hatred of unions because you know damn well that if these people weren't needed the company would have laid them off a long time ago

Re:100% of landline customers affected by strike

[WheezyJoe]

Yep. Boss Trump is rallying the fans in Kentucky, promising to bring back coal jobs. Or, at least, bring back coal by letting up on silly environmental rules like the Stream Protection Rule.

Trouble is, giving coal companies a break doesn't necessarily mean good things for coal miners. Like everyone else, coal companies are heavily investing in automation and mining techniques that require fewer pesky workers. At the same time, strip-mining and poisoning the water and the land makes it suck worse to live in coal country, either as a miner or even as a crazed live-off-the-land survivor type.

Further, Trump is a big friend of fracking, which lowers the price of natural gas, which, like, lowers the demand for coal. Uhhh, right.

My guess is there's gonna be a lot of disappointed folks in coal country in a coupla years when the jobs don't come and Trumpcare takes over. Maybe by then AT&T will be hiring scabs to replace all the folks on strike. Can you run some fiber before that black lung gits ya, or will the heavy metals in the frogs and the river trout git ya first?

and the Aliens Go Whaaaaaaaa?

[WheezyJoe]

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?