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17,000 AT&T Workers Go On Strike In California and Nevada (fortune.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the serious-labor-action dept.

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."

31 of 172 comments (clear)

  1. Baby Goes Whaaaaaaaa! by sexconker · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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).

    1. Re:Baby Goes Whaaaaaaaa! by es330td · · Score: 2

      That train is going to be run. You have no choice about that. But you can choose whether it’s going to be run by one of your men or not. If you choose not to let them, the train will still run, if I have to drive the engine myself If you think that I need your men more than they need me, choose accordingly. If you know that I can run an engine, but they can’t build a railroad, choose according to that.

      It's in the best interest of the union

      Not if striking lets the union find out that the employees they represent are no longer needed and the union's membership suddenly no longer pays union dues.

    2. Re: Baby Goes Whaaaaaaaa! by cyber-vandal · · Score: 2

      Just like that. Jobs just magically appear whenever you need them and they always pay better. Let me guess. You're young with no responsibilities and/or in a career with much higher demand than supply.

    3. Re:Baby Goes Whaaaaaaaa! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      Heaven forbid an employer has to honor a contract it has with its employees.

    4. Re:Baby Goes Whaaaaaaaa! by sit1963nz · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Many years ago I belonged to a Union.
      In its rules was the cause that we could NOT go on strike. The employer could not do a lock out.

      What took it's place was that any negotiations over pay and conditions that could not be resolved in 12 weeks would be taken to an independent Arbiter. That arbiter was a member of the judiciary, their job was not influenced by elections, employer payments, etc etc etc

      Both sides put their final offer to the arbiter and defended it, justifying why their position was the most fair and reasonable. There arbiter required proof of any claims, and that could include looking at the employers books.

      The arbiter could then take a further 2 weeks and choose EITHER the union OR the employer offer. No chasing bits from one and bits from another, they had toe make a choice which offer was the most reasonable. And that decision was binding on both parties

      This forced both sides to start from a position of reason right from the start and most negotiations took less then 3 weeks to negotiate and ratify.

      Sadly that union was consumed by a larger union and all that went away.

    5. Re:Baby Goes Whaaaaaaaa! by PoopJuggler · · Score: 2

      This is where a UBI would really shine. There's no way 17,000 people can all quit and all find other jobs in the same area, but a UBI would give them the time they need to retrain or relocate or just not have to take the first thing that comes along. You would see a drastic decrease in shitty companies because nobody would be forced to take the first exploitive job that comes along.

    6. Re:Baby Goes Whaaaaaaaa! by buss_error · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I remember when President Reagan fired the Air Traffic Controllers. That didn't work out well for more than a year.

      I have also been a union member twice. Unfortunately, one union was run by the company, so it was a pretty shitty union for the most part. The other union was run by ex-union members and were not beholden to the company. That worked pretty well in that "silly" stuff didn't happen. If a shitty boss wanted to fire people for not kowtowing, too bad. But if someone screwed up, the shop steward and the boss delivered the pink slip together. Nobody wanted to do extra work because someone else slacked their assignment. I eventually went management in that job, and I never had a problem in 6 years with union workers. I generally had to hold back the shop steward when I knew things about the employee that he didn't (terminally ill wife, child, substance problems they were being helped with, that sort of thing.) The times I did have to terminate someone, the union guys were in agreement with me and we'd already tried multiple times to get the person back into the fold.

      That said, what strikes me are the many people that say "Unions suck" that have never been in one and how frequently the throw out "get another job".

      Hm. You must live in the land of good jobs, where the trees of excellent education are right there behind the bushes of golden opportunity and the river of endless paycheck. That's a sweet place to live, but one whose address I've not found.

      --
      Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
    7. Re:Baby Goes Whaaaaaaaa! by hambone142 · · Score: 2

      "Changing work assignments of technicians and call center people".

      OH NO! We can't have that.

      In the real world, people get asked to do different things on a daily basis.

      In a union environment, we get a lot of "It's not my job to do that".

    8. Re: Baby Goes Whaaaaaaaa! by Highdude702 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Im a non union electrician for a reason, i may make a lot less but the unions out here promote laziness and shitty work. if you get thrown off of one job, they send you to another, tossed off that one, on to another. as long as you pay union dues they dont really give a fuck. thats not my style. as i said i do electrical work. peoples lives are at stake. i will not be responsible for stupidity.

    9. Re:Baby Goes Whaaaaaaaa! by sit1963nz · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Not in New Zealand.

      Our Judges are not elected, nor government appointed. They either put their name forward themselves or the firms they work for nominates them. However the MUST have a law degree, must have at least 7 years experience as a practicing lawyer, and they get chosen based on their work experience, character , social awareness, fairness etc etc etc by the Attorney-General's Judicial Appointments Unit.

      Our civil service is also non partisan, senior appointments are not political appointments and dont change when there is a change in government.

      Equally our news media is less partisan then US media, and it has been rated as far more free (as in free speech) than US media too.

      New Zealand is also one of the least corrupt countries in the world, the lack of political interference in the courts, police, civil service may also account for this.

    10. Re:Baby Goes Whaaaaaaaa! by Uberbah · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

    11. Re: Baby Goes Whaaaaaaaa! by Uberbah · · Score: 2

      just not entitled and whiny

      Entitled and whiny? Common man, just because capitalists feel entitled to gouge their customers while stiffing employees in the midst of high profits (while paying a lower tax rate than either) doesn't mean they aren't people too!

      Know what happens when companies lose their good employees to greener pastures?

      They continue to enjoy the benefits of lowered pay scales, laughing at the unique snowflakes who think their wages aren't lowered for being a tree in a forest.

      The companies either learn from their mistakes, or they go under.

      Yes, that's the need thing about capitalism: success means success, but failure also means success because it frees up space for the next group of capitalists to come in and begin the next round of exploitation.

    12. Re: Baby Goes Whaaaaaaaa! by erapert · · Score: 2

      One anecdote against another.
      Stop wasting our time.

    13. Re: Baby Goes Whaaaaaaaa! by LunaticTippy · · Score: 2

      Working conditions used to be awful. Unions improved conditions for all, union or not, and are the sole reason we have things like days off, health care, safety rules, and good pay.

      As unions have lost power conditions have begun eroding, especially for unskilled workers. It's fine to think you are self reliant, but you exist in an environment that was shaped by a lot of other peoples effort. You are benefiting from that. Now that that force is fading conditions will continue to deteriorate.

      --
      Man, you really need that seminar!
  2. Re:100% of landline customers affected by strike by bobdehnhardt · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Worst case scenario for the unions: what if nobody really notices?

  3. Re:We'll see what Trump does by TroII · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    --
    "If there was a gay Afro-Puertorican Linux distribution, I'd give it a try" ~lucm
  4. Support the Union by sdinfoserv · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Support the Union by sit1963nz · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

    2. Re:Support the Union by sdinfoserv · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

    3. Re:Support the Union by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

    4. Re:Support the Union by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 2

      USA is in enormous debt because the world subsidises its consumption.

      Duh. Of course. But that is not going to stop. Trade "debt" is not like personal credit card debt. There is no reason that it EVER has to be paid back. As long as we control the world's reserve currency, we can continue to issue checks that will never be cashed. Besides, it is not "collective debt". If I buy a German made BMW, that adds to our trade deficit, but paying it back is MY problem, not yours.

      Trade deficits are a sign of strength, not weakness. It means foreigners want to invest in dollar denominated assets (such as American stocks and bonds) and are willing to reduce their own consumption and subsidize ours in order to make that happen.

      Japan has run trade surpluses for more than 50 years. What has it got them? My chicken coop is bigger than the average Japanese home. The yen went from ~400 to the dollar to 90 today, which means 80% of the "savings" that they sweated for decades to achieve simply disappeared, and their economy is stagnant. Do you really think America should be more like Japan?

      Reserve currency does not prevent the need to pay for consumption

      False.

    5. Re: Support the Union by Uberbah · · Score: 2

      Unions today exist solely to artificially increase wages / benefits and to perpetuate themselves. But what they really do is deter new jobs by being such a pain in the a$$

      Tired anti-union nonsense is tired. Unions act as a counter-balance to corporate greed. If corporate greed isn't a problem anymore, and you can trust the altruism of capital, than you can also repeal all the laws on...

      child labor, working conditions, worker safety

      ...because those laws are as "antiquated" as unions. Don't forget overtime, too - there's no way the CEO would exploit non-exempt employees if given the chance, now would he?

    6. Re:Support the Union by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 2

      You believe this because it worked so far.

      No, I believe it because I understand economics. I also understand history: Britain controlled the world's reserve currency from the Napoleonic Wars until WW1. They had trade deficits for a century while their economy boomed and British people enjoyed the highest living standards in the world. Most of the bonds issued to fund this debt were repeatedly rolled over, and eventually inflated away and never repaid in real terms. Now we enjoy those same benefits, and we would be foolish to throw them away in some idiotic quest for "balanced trade".

  5. Re:100% of landline customers affected by strike by Altus · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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

    --

    "In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson

  6. Re:100% of landline customers affected by strike by WheezyJoe · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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?

    --
    Take it easy, Charlie, I've got an Angle...
  7. and the Aliens Go Whaaaaaaaa? by WheezyJoe · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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...
  8. Re:Too bad Muslim terrorists don't go on strike by lgw · · Score: 2

    Terror attacks are rare in the US because we've kept the terrorists out. Now there's a concerted effort to ship terrorists to the western world. Europe has changed from attacks being just as rare as here, to attacks being common. Let's not have that here. Islamic terrorists killed over 22,000 people last year, and it's an ongoing and increasing campaign. Keep the attacks here rare, please.

    --
    Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
  9. Re:Too bad Muslim terrorists don't go on strike by sit1963nz · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Murder rate
    UK 0.9/100,000
    Canada 1.5/100,000
    Germany 0.9/100,000
    France 1.2/100,000
    New Zealand 0.9/100,000
    Australia 1.0/100,000
    Spain 0.7/100,000
    China 0.8/100,000
    Japan 0.3/100,000
    Italy 0.8/100,000
    Sweden 0.9/100,000
    Iceland 0.3/100,000

    And the site I am looking at says the USA is 3.9/100,000 which puts it 108th out of 218 countries
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    Almost half the countries in the world are safer than the USA.


    And the US imprisonment rate is nearly 700/100,000
    Canada 114/100,000
    Germany 78/100,000
    France 103/100,000
    New Zealand 202/100,000
    Australia 152/100,000
    Spain 131/100,000
    China 118/100,000
    Japan 47/100,000
    Italy 89/100,000
    Sweden 53/100,000
    Iceland 45/100,000

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    So yeah, most countries could indeed be safer if they kept americans out, they seem to have a high rate of crime and murder compared to other 1st world civilised countries. That wall is looking better and better, not to keep Mexicans out, but to keep Americans in, Canada should take a close look at this, who knows maybe they can get the US to pay.

  10. Good - hope they get what they want by ErichTheRed · · Score: 2

    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.

  11. Re:Too bad Muslim terrorists don't go on strike by sit1963nz · · Score: 2

    https://www.start.umd.edu/pubs...

    In the period 2004-20013 3066 Americans were killed due to terrorists, 2902 were killed in 9/11
    In the period 2004 -20013 over 126,000 americans were murdered by americans.

    If you remove 9/11 as a statistical outlier you have are 128 time more likely to be murdered than killed by a terrorist.If you assume half the people know their murderer you are over 60 times more likely to be killed by someone you know than by a terrorist.

    Now lets compare this to deaths in Iraq
    https://www.theguardian.com/ne...
    "The key figures IBC found are:
    14,705 (13%) of all documented civilian deaths were reported as being directly caused by the US-led coalition. The report notes that
    Of the 4,040 civilian victims of US-led coalition forces for whom age data was available, 1,201 (29%) were children"


    And that was just for one year, over the same 9 years it could be higher than 150,000 deaths and climbing

    The USA is much less a "hero" than you are led to believe.

    And you wonder why people from these countries have a strong anti-US sentiment ?
    Look how much hate the US has towards muslims, yet the deaths caused by them are insignificant compared to the number of muslims killed by US led forces.

  12. Re:100% of landline customers affected by strike by hambone142 · · Score: 2

    I dumped AT&T two years ago. They wanted $39 for basic telephone service (no long distance).
    I bought a dedicated Tracfone and linked it to a bluetooth gateway. I plugged the gateway in to my house wiring and transferred my landline number to the Tracfone. My monthly cost is running about ten dollars now.

    Screw ATT and screw their union.

    They are a dying business model.