Posted on 04/13/2016 3:27:35 PM PDT by matt04
36,000 Verizon workers have walked off the job Wednesday after failing to reach a new labor agreement.
This is the largest strike in the United States since Verizon workers last walked off the job in 2011, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. That strike involved 45,000 workers.
Most of the striking workers service the company's landline phone business and FiOS broadband network -- not the much larger Verizon Wireless network. They have gone without a contract since August, and their union, the Communication Workers of America, says it is fighting to get Verizon to come to the table with a better offer.
The union's list of complaints is a long one: Verizon has outsourced 5,000 jobs to workers in Mexico, the Philippines and the Dominican Republic. Verizon is hiring more low-wage, non-union contractors, the union says.
"The main thing is that's it's taking good-paying jobs and taking them away from the American public," said Ken Beckett, a technical telecommunications associate for Verizon and union board member with 1101 CWA, as he picketed with colleagues outside a Verizon office in Manhattan.
The union also claims Verizon won't negotiate with people who work in Verizon stores and is closing call centers. And Verizon is asking workers to work out of state, away from their homes, for months at a time.
...
Verizon said that it is prepared to serve its customers despite the strike. It said that thousands of non-union workers have been trained to cover new assignments in the event of a strike.
(Excerpt) Read more at money.cnn.com ...
And more jobs get sent overseas
I believe the last time they had a big labor action, thousands of jobs were eliminated, replaced by better on-line customer access.
Rich companies are outsourcing a lot more than a hole union people. Look at what Disney did to it’s top IT guys.
heard an interview on WMAL this morning with a non-union person who said that the union is stuck in the days of land lines and servicing those while the number of Verizon landlines are decreasing and more business is going to cell phone. Also the health care costs are going up faster than planned for due to Obamacare.
I better pay attention. Ms. Onona and I both work from home, and yep, Verizon’s our service. Losing service would not be looked well upon.
Irreverent is typical of union goons.
Irrelevant not so much.
When I moved I was able to order cable/interned service entirely online, even scheduled the install appointment. I would imagine Verizon has similar options.
A Union stuck in the past, combined with their beloved Obamacare causing problems in 2016? I would have never guessed.
I tried paying my Verizon bill here in Texas, granted it was a privately owned store but her computer was down, I said I’ll be back tomorrow
Well there goes my Verizon bill higher again - one less time I get to take my kid to McDonald’s for lunch - the money gets moved around, the greediness goes on....
In my area we have these Verizon workers going door to door pitching Fios; I wouldn’t want that job. I guess a lot of people don’t; the salespeople are “English-challenged” minorities.
Every time Verizon CWA goes on strike, my landline and internet seems to mysteriously go out for a few days.
Just a coincidence, I’m sure.
It is frightening to watch; I don’t understand what people are supposed to do as we have so many more working-age people than jobs. Even the jobs available are crap; not that I wouldn’t work them, but the standard of living would drop A LOT (which was the companies’ goal to begin with).
At its most basic, this dynamic is why there are very few American children around.
Part of the problem here is the concept of the "good-paying job".
The name implies that the people in these jobs are overpaid.
In which case, somebody is going to come along and offer to do the job at a lower price. In some cases, that person may be from another country, or even IN another country.
As Peter Fonda (of all people!) once said, "A man makes his own security".
Learn how to do something that is in demand, that has a high, natural barrier to entry, and you will be OK.
But don't stop there; keep raising the bar for yourself, making yourself more valuable; increasing your own "human capital" (thank you Adam Smith) and you will stay "irreplaceable".
My 2¢.
Thoughts?
I thought Frontier bought out Verizon as of April 1.
That’s true. Few people other than businesses have a landline these days.
“I thought Frontier bought out Verizon as of April 1.”.
No, VZ sold off a bunch of relatively unprofitable landline markets to Frontier for a cool $8B: http://abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=7574975 . Wireless is the big profit beast of course..
I’m in IT in the south , and had several teammates tagged (had week long training session over last few months) to be “Emergency Workers” to temporarily handle positions throughout the north east. Trained a bunch of programmers and system analysts to install FIOS, drive forklifts and climb line poles...lol
I heard about the service outage yesterday, then today I heard about the strike.
Oh Yeah! That explains the service outage.
It should be interesting to see the picket line crossers here in Philly...
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