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posted by on Sunday May 21 2017, @06:29PM   Printer-friendly
from the a-ruined-weekend-for-some dept.

Reuters reports:

About 37,000 AT&T Inc (T.N) workers, or less than 14 percent of the company's total workforce, began a three-day strike on Friday after failing to reach an agreement with the No. 2 U.S. wireless carrier over new contracts.

This is the first time that AT&T wireless workers are on strike, which could result in closed retail stores during the weekend, according to the Communications Workers of America (CWA) union. The workers on strike are members of the CWA.

The workers are demanding wage increases that cover rising healthcare costs, job security against outsourcing, affordable healthcare and a fair scheduling policy.

Other coverage at UCOMM Communications Blog and The New York Times

Previously on SoylentNews: Largest Labor Action in 5 Years Slated for Wednesday, April 13 Against Verizon

[Ed. Note: This story was rewritten with a different source because the original story substantially altered the quoted material and contained a longer off-topic text than the section quoted. As always, the original submission is available at the link below.]


Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 21 2017, @07:00PM (15 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 21 2017, @07:00PM (#513107)

    We can do this one of two ways. Either you pay an intermediary so that the unneeded people can live in peace, or the unneeded people are coming to kill you. Your choice.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 21 2017, @08:59PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 21 2017, @08:59PM (#513151)

    Safari through the poor :)

    You get rich people to pay you, a slightly less rich individual, to handle the logistics of Hunting Safaris through the Urbana, seeing who can bad the biggest (smallest?) poor folk, and helping to reduce their numbers to manageable levels for when cheap labor, a supply of servants, etc is needed.

    Win Win Lose :) But we already knew that poor folks were losers, didn't we?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 21 2017, @09:22PM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 21 2017, @09:22PM (#513163)

      Hunt the fat welfare cows, see them flee before you, and hear the lamentation of their children.

      • (Score: 3, Funny) by looorg on Sunday May 21 2017, @11:13PM (1 child)

        by looorg (578) on Sunday May 21 2017, @11:13PM (#513188)

        Hunt the fat welfare cows, see them flee before you, and hear the lamentation of their children.

        Conan the Republican rides again?

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 22 2017, @12:19AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 22 2017, @12:19AM (#513216)

          "Do you know the secret of steal?" Thulssa Doom, Trump Republican

  • (Score: 1) by tftp on Monday May 22 2017, @12:15AM (10 children)

    by tftp (806) on Monday May 22 2017, @12:15AM (#513215) Homepage

    Either you pay an intermediary so that the unneeded people can live in peace, or the unneeded people are coming to kill you. Your choice.

    You know what they say about giving man a fish vs. teaching him how to fish? Same principle here. Even if you have the best intentions in mind, you cannot have enough fish to feed them and their families forever. There is no reason to start on a path into a dead end. They want to eat? Let them set up a Kibbutz, or something. Hell, I'll buy some of their products, so that they can buy something that I make.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 22 2017, @12:34AM (6 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 22 2017, @12:34AM (#513226)

      Why isn't there a Kibbutz for laid-off American tech workers who trained their H-1B replacements? Why isn't the Free Software Foundation employing unemployed coders to finish GNU? Why is the FSF a charity non-profit organization, when instead the FSF should be a charitable organization? Why does FSF take instead of give? I'll tell you why. Stallman's longterm goal stated in the GNU Manifesto was to suck the government teat, specifically the teat of the National Science Foundation. That was the endgame: GNU fully funded by NSF. Too bad it never happened.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 22 2017, @01:19AM (2 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 22 2017, @01:19AM (#513242)

        Stallman's longterm goal [...] was to suck the government teat

        There are currently lots of extremely wealthy individuals, educational institutions, and for-profit corporations receiving gov't subsidies.
        This, while extracting gobs of income from the economy and doing everything they can (some legal and some very shady) to avoid paying taxes.

        Stallman's plan is to make available what he and his disciples produce to everyone without paying (not even limiting use by the military--an entity he dislikes).
        Many would see gov't getting involved in funding this as a fine example of Liberal Democracy.

        -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 22 2017, @01:51AM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 22 2017, @01:51AM (#513253)

          Haven't you noticed how money flows in one direction: toward FSF. I know very well, as I have donated money to FSF, and I have also written GPL software (not for GNU, thus I retain the copyright), but there's nothing liberal democratic about FSF. FSF is purely communist. FSF doesn't give. FSF takes. FSF takes donations and FSF takes copyright assignment. FSF does not give to promote the cause of free software. FSF takes as much as it possibly can from sponsors and volunteers. FSF is one monumental communist leech.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 22 2017, @04:14AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 22 2017, @04:14AM (#513310)

            Cause lawyers to fight bad lawsuits cost nothing.

            Sounds like someone wants a free ride, hypocrisy strong with you today?

      • (Score: 1) by tftp on Monday May 22 2017, @01:46AM (2 children)

        by tftp (806) on Monday May 22 2017, @01:46AM (#513252) Homepage

        Why isn't there a Kibbutz for laid-off American tech workers who trained their H-1B replacements?

        Some form their own startups, which is exactly what I proposed. Some - but not all. This road requires a different set of skills. But programmers or IT people are not the most disadvantaged ones here. Unwanted bank tellers and telephone sanitizers - those are in real trouble, especially if middle-aged. Chronically unemployed are a complete write-off, as far as HR people are concerned. It's, basically, this group of people - those who can never find a job - that has to consider alternative occupation. Ideally, that would be managed from the top, but Presidents always appear to be busy with something else. This job may have to be sponsored by the taxpayer, but it will be still better than twiddling thumbs (which is the current activity on social security, if one is receiving the benefits - and not everyone does.) But why to invent things, everything has been invented [wikipedia.org] before us :-) Such things were done before [wikipedia.org] - and nobody can say that there is absolutely nothing to be built or repaired in the country. For starters, they could wash off the graffiti from all the overpasses... Honest pay for honest work. Only the disabled should receive benefits without working. For everyone else, however, free money corrupts the soul.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 22 2017, @02:15AM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 22 2017, @02:15AM (#513269)

          Don't scrub that artwork off the bridge, because it's not graffiti. It's a neighborhood mural which was permitted by the city council. There isn't much actual graffiti these days since amateur artists have turned to social media which affords them a global audience with little effort. Sure the occasional joker tags a construction site to screw with the crew, but naturally it gets cleaned up in the course of construction work. Your example for starters of cleaning graffiti is a nonstarter because it doesn't really need doing these days. Unless you can come up with some other unskilled makework job that can be done easily by former bank tellers, I'm afraid you're going to have to pay them to do nothing.

          • (Score: 1) by tftp on Monday May 22 2017, @02:25AM

            by tftp (806) on Monday May 22 2017, @02:25AM (#513273) Homepage

            It's a neighborhood mural which was permitted by the city council.

            OK, then _in my world_ it's the city council that will be scrubbing the concrete. They earned the privilege.

            Unless you can come up with some other unskilled makework job that can be done easily by former bank tellers, I'm afraid you're going to have to pay them to do nothing

            Most of the bridges are rusty and need painting, if not worse [wikipedia.org]. When the workers are done with that, I'd like them to add two lanes to all interstates and state highways. With superchargers for EVs every ten miles. This can't be done over the Internet.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 22 2017, @12:58AM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 22 2017, @12:58AM (#513232)

      After reading his previous comments, I have thought of tftp as a Reactionary.

      Now, he proposes a community-based solution.
      If he's not careful, someone may accuse him of being a Communist.

      -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

      • (Score: 1) by tftp on Monday May 22 2017, @01:29AM (1 child)

        by tftp (806) on Monday May 22 2017, @01:29AM (#513246) Homepage

        If he's not careful, someone may accuse him of being a Communist.

        If someone does, I will not be offended. As matter of fact, I support that idea, being born into it. But I also know firsthand most of its very fundamental limitations. The problem is that Communism is possible in a very small group of like-minded people who cooperate, but as soon as the group becomes larger, the tradedy of commons strikes, and everyone starts looking for their own, personal advantage. So far, that's how the world works. But you can definitely have communes on small scale. The key here is the freedom of association - you are part of the group while you want it *and* while [almost] all others want you. Freedom of association was mostly nonexistent in USSR, except in some work teams.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 22 2017, @04:45AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 22 2017, @04:45AM (#513315)

          We can quickly run into semantics with entities calling themselves one thing and actually being another thing.

          Democracy in the Workplace (Socialism) can and does indeed work.
          There are thousands of such workplaces in northern Italy, some of them of being of significant size.
          USA is a relative newbie at this but there are hundreds of worker-owned cooperatives here.

          I don't doubt that, with the diversity of human experiences, there are also examples of power plays and selfishness that can't be resolved.
          OTOH, Mondragon has over 100,00 worker-owners, so it can scale up very well.

          Moving on to "Communism", I see that as a broader phenomenon where folks who are already practicing Democracy in the Workplace in many, many workplaces apply an organized political effort to bringing natural monopolies (electricity, transit, internet) under collective ownership of all the people in the affected region, replacing Capitalist ownership, with this accomplished via direct competition or eminent domain buyouts of existing businesses, with this having strong worker/voter control.

          As such, "Communism" is -always- a large-scale thing.
          I see it as having a the-most-good-for-the-greatest-number-of-people nature as Liberal Democracy *should*, but with a tighter and more specific feedback loop.

          ...and, of course, if you have some gov't guy sent from the capital city/county seat to tell everybody how stuff is going to be done (top-down), "Socialism" and "Communism" stop being accurate callouts for what you have.

          -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]