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Hundreds of AT&T Wireless Workers and Supporters Plan To Protest at iPhone 8 Launch at Apple HQ
Hundreds of AT&T wireless workers and members of the Communications Workers of America (CWA) will protest outside the launch of the iPhone 8 at Apple HQ on Tuesday, we were told. "Marking the start of a critical sales period that's expected to bring in billions for the telecom giant, workers are calling out AT&T's pay cuts for its retail employees and the company's rampant outsourcing and offshoring that undermine their job security and ability to provide quality customer service," the Communications Workers of America said in a press statement. Over the years, AT&T has increasingly handed over the operations of its retail operations to third-party dealers that now represent over 60 percent of all AT&T branded stores. On top of this, AT&T retail employees allege that they are seeing their pay decline by thousands of dollars because the company manipulates their commission structure.
Apple sets pricing on their phones especially to prevent one seller to undercut another. (They're still expensive but get lots with them, IMO).
In my view, AT&T workers protesting at Apple is just retarded (in the most demeaning way you can take it). It's not Apple's fault AT&T workers are underpaid.
So, AT&T employees are protesting AT&T's business practices. Nothing they're protesting has anything to do with the iPhone 8 or Apple at large. Nonetheless, they're protesting at the launch of the new iPhone, simply because they know that places like Slashdot can't resist posting clickbait articles that mention Apple in the headline, thus bringing attention to their cause, despite the fact that nothing they're doing has anything to do with Apple.
Even worse, it looks like Slashdot is "breaking" this news, since I don't see a link or article mentioned anywhere, so that means that Slashdot is solely responsible for authoring the headline. Shame on you.
I still don't see why the AT&T workers would feel this is Apples fault though.
It's not about 'fault.' It's about eyeballs. They're trying to hijack an Apple product launch and get some media attention.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
Yeah, makes no sense to me for them to protest Apple...seems they should be protesting in from of ATT stores, since they are the ones they have the beef against....?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
It's simple marketing, really. AT&T is treating their employees just like they treat their customers: not listening to them. Apple is likely to enact some corporate NIMBY-ism and tell AT&T to deal with it the eyesore of a protest.
The protesters get publicity. A protest of the iPhone launch will get a LOT more press than protesting outside of some random AT&T store. Even if Apple does nothing, the story still reached a greater audience this way and we're now aware of the situation.
The protest hasn't even happened yet and this strategy is paying dividends. Looks like a 100% win so far.
Work sucked, until it became unemployment, when it became slightly more tolerable. -Tet
The CWA wants the AT&T from a previous era back, and in some respects I would be behind that too. Companies' power to offshore, outsource and basically get rid of any group that isn't 100% profit-generating is a lot of what contributes to middle class instability.
I'm barely old enough to remember when "old" AT&T and the RBOCs existed...I was 10 when they were ordered de-monopolized. But from what I've heard from people alive previously, getting a job with one of these companies was a guaranteed ticket to lifetime stability. In addition, engineering was actually done correctly because there wasn't constant pressure to squeeze every single cost out of the system. I know everyone's going to say monopolies are bad, but they do provide the most stable class of jobs. Maybe monopolies are bad, but the alternative of a ton of cut-throat competitors isn't good for society either. In the model we have, public companies (and private ones controlled by hedge funds) are forced to implement whatever cost-saving trick is in vogue every quarter to make the numbers. A lot of these tricks, like spinning off "expensive" employees into a separate company to reduce benefits, offshoring to a service provider to hide expenses on a different balance sheet line, or constantly squeezing workers to get the tiniest drop of productivity out of them are detrimental to employment in general. Verizon did similar things as well, when they spun out Verizon Wireless. VZW workers get way fewer benefits than the CWA workers in Verizon proper.
I just wish people would get it out of their heads that unions are bad. Especially in the face of automation and offshoring, they're basically the only chance an employee has against their employer. Employers have spent decades convincing employees that they have their best interests in mind and that we're all friends. I think there needs to be a more adversarial labor/management relationship put back into the mix to swing the pendulum back toward the middle more. There's a big difference between "we can't fire you for any reason" demands and standing up when management says "we're moving 20,000 engineering positions to India effective immediately so that I can buy another mansion, and by the way we're still friends, right?"
"If a company like AT&T treats you poorly then QUIT! Go work for another company that pays you better and treats you well!"
People love to say this whenever workers try to claw back some power. The honest truth is that all employers treat people poorly to some degree. And they love it when more people say that anyone who complains about it should quit, because it just makes their job easier. Compared to today, the 50s and 60s were a golden age of employment because there was a balance in the employer/employee relationship, things were stable, and employers grudgingly agreed to allow workers to follow a career path.
Without some universal check on employers' power, employers will just cut and squeeze until there's nothing left to squeeze. They'd love to see everyone working for minimum wage...no wait, let's get rid of the minimum wage...no wait, let's just hire everyone as an independent contractor and offshore everything that can be offshored to TCS or Wipro or Accenture. That universal check would be a union or trade organization. Otherwise, if you try to be the nice employer and offer a few concessions, the other employers will just get more evil in response and drive you out of business.