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More Than 35,000 AT&T Workers Threaten Weekend Strike (fortune.com)
More than 35,000 AT&T workers plan to go on strike on Friday if they don't reach an agreement with the company for new contracts. From a report: The Communications Workers of America union said about 17,000 workers in AT&T's traditional wireline telephone and Internet business in Nevada and California who have been working without a contract for over a year would walk off the job on Friday afternoon for a three day strike if no deal is reached. On Tuesday, the union made a similar threat for 21,000 workers in AT&T's wireless business spread across 36 states and Washington, D.C. Workers are fed up with delays in the negotiations, Dennis Trainor, vice president of CWA District 1, said. "Now, AT&T is facing the possibility of closed stores for the first time ever," Trainor said. "Our demands are clear and have been for months: fair contract or strike. It's now in AT&T's hands to stand with workers or at 3pm Eastern Time on Friday workers will be off the job and onto picket lines across the country."
Do you mean it? Every time I've ever had to go into a cell phone store it's been filled with slack-jawed morons wasting oxygen playing with their phones. So yeah, I think civilization might survive.
For whatever reason many, such as yourself, particularly "conservatives" fail to realized that both unions and companies engage in "collective bargaining." A company is a collection of people providing capital, a union is a collection of people providing labor. Strikes, work halts, layoffs, furloughs etc are all the same arm of different groups (using your market influence). Collective groups exercising their power to get better terms.
If you don't think union's represent the interest's of a labor provider you are ignorant of both the statistical evidence https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2... (there are a multitude of papers detailing the correlation between union power and increased wages) and basic economics http://www.investopedia.com/te...
I don't understand why they ever had any power to start with. If they don't show up to work, fire them. Period.
They have power because they are the actuators of the enterprise.
Take any business, now forbid them from hiring any person to perform any task whatsoever.
Now you understand why they wield power.
The business owner sells a widget for $1000, he gives $200 of that to his employees, leaving $800.
He pays $275 of that $800 to the government in taxes and pockets $525 for himself.
The employees see they are getting $200, and divided between the 100 of them, that's $2/each.
The employees see they are doing 99.9% of the total work for 25.8% of the total pay.
Now you understand why they want to use their power to improve their position.
Mass firing your employees in the Internet age is a recipe for creating the worst competitor you'll ever face.
The people you fire have BOTH a common enemy (you), and a common goal (getting paid more for doing what they did).
Instead of organizing to ask you for better wages, they'll organize to start their own company.
You'll have an idle capital investment, sabotage from disgruntled workers, the fun of trying to hire lots of people below market rates, and plenty of downtime and waste due to new and inexperienced workers.