from the squeezing-workers-to-maximize-corporate-profits dept.
The Los Angeles Times reports
An estimated 17,000 AT&T technicians in California and Nevada went on strike [March 22], highlighting workplace tensions within the massive Dallas telecommunications giant.
The strike follows a protracted dispute between AT&T and union members affiliated with the Communications Workers of America [CWA], District 9, who have been working without a contract for nearly a year. Workers say they have been increasingly asked to perform the duties of higher-paid employees and that AT&T has cut sick leave and disability benefits and required them to pay more for their healthcare.
Another sticking point is AT&T's closure of U.S. call centers, including a facility near Anaheim. The union contends that AT&T has moved 8,000 call center jobs in recent years to the Philippines, Mexico, and other countries.
[...] "We're currently negotiating with the union in a good-faith effort to reach a fair labor agreement covering wireline employees" in California and Nevada, [said AT&T spokesman Marty Richter]. "We've reached 28 fair labor agreements since 2015, collectively covering nearly 123,000 employees."
AT&T said it has hired 20,000 people into union-represented jobs in 2016 and has more than 4,200 other union job openings.
"We're a union-friendly company, with more full-time, union-represented employees than any company in America", Richter said. "We're the only major wireless company with a unionized workforce."
Union officials said Wednesday's walkout, which began at 6 a.m., was triggered by AT&T's demand that technicians who typically install and maintain the company's U-Verse TV service also work on the cables and hardware for landline phone service (AT&T's wireless division is not affected by the action).
"We are hoping to reach an agreement settlement with the company", said Shelia Bordeaux, a member of the executive board of the CWA Local 9003 in Los Angeles. "They are unilaterally and continually changing the job duties of our premise technicians to do a higher-wage job at a lower rate of pay."
The two sides have been trying to negotiate a new contract to replace the one that expired in April 2016. Bordeaux said Wednesday's strike was to resolve the issue of job duties for the premise technicians, and only included landline workers who belong to the CWA in California and Nevada.
In addition to Los Angeles, workers were striking in San Diego and San Francisco.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Saturday March 25 2017, @03:29PM (3 children)
I think the crickets went on strike too: it is dead silent in here.
ECHO!
Echo!
echo
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 1) by redneckmother on Saturday March 25 2017, @04:27PM
Sorry 'bout that... my phone's been down.
Mas cerveza por favor.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 25 2017, @05:19PM (1 child)
After yesterdays shitstorm I expect people need to recoup before pucking up the fight again.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Saturday March 25 2017, @11:14PM
What? A shitstorm, you say? And I missed it? [goes to look, oh, 180+ comments!] Only The Minty Brusselsprout going on 'bout the poors, again.
recoup before pucking up the fight again.
Pucking up the fight? Oh, that explains it! Politics on SolyentNews is the equivalent of hockey! Sort of like: "I was at a SoylentNews shitstorm, and a hockey game broke out!" Canadians!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 25 2017, @05:01PM (10 children)
"AT&T has cut sick leave and disability benefits and required them to pay more for their healthcare." News flash: Costs have gone up. Economy sucks. Most everyone is paying more for everything.
Get over it before they fire your ass.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 25 2017, @05:15PM (8 children)
Burn in hell you sociopath.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 25 2017, @05:35PM (3 children)
Ooh! So you'll buy my food, pay my rent, and take care of me while I sit around on my fat arse and do nothing?
No?
Burn in hell you sociopath.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 25 2017, @09:24PM (1 child)
It surely is most heartening to see those who enjoy the benefits of social progress support rolling things backwards. Chuckleheads the lot of you, selfish chuckleheads.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 26 2017, @03:29PM
Wait - what benefits, exactly? You mean the unemployed gangstas who get welfare, so that they can stay up all night dealing drugs, and gang fighting? You mean the illegal aliens coming here to do the work the gangstas don't have time to do?
Maybe if you were more explicit about those "benefits", people would have some meaningful responses.
Hey, I have an idea! If you like all those social benefits so much, maybe we should sign another dozen "trade agreements", encouraging the migration of wealth and wealth production out of the United States! When we are all on welfare, things will be perfect, right?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 25 2017, @11:16PM
Ronnie liked to say "A rising tide lifts all boats."
It appears that rather than lift everyone up to union standards, you want to drag everyone down to your pitiful level.
Dumb bastard. Typical minion of The Ownership Class.
.
If it wasn't for unions, wages in the USA would be ZERO, because then The Ownership Class would know that they can get away with that.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 25 2017, @07:34PM (3 children)
Liberal.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 25 2017, @09:27PM (2 children)
Derp dook mer jerrrbs!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 25 2017, @10:31PM (1 child)
"Liberal", from Latin liberalis "noble, gracious, munificent, generous," literally "of freedom, pertaining to or befitting a free person," from liber "free, unrestricted, unimpeded; unbridled, unchecked." Liberals, in favor of liberty, like the right to form free associations to bargain for the interest of all against oppressive young-blood-transfusing Capitalists. Liberty, the founding principle of America! Why do you hate Freedom? Why do you hate America?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 26 2017, @07:13AM
So you like unions then?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 26 2017, @04:45AM
Dear anti-worker person:
You will be happy to know that
Telecom union calls bogus "strike" at AT&T in California and Nevada [wsws.org]
We previously discussed the Verizon thing.
In another story, I got a +5 for details about the Momentive thing.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 25 2017, @05:03PM (1 child)
We need some Pinkerton [wikipedia.org]/National Guard [wikipedia.org] style action to put that scum in their place.
More pay? More sick leave? Those deadbeats need to get off the crack pipe! Get back to work and maybe we'll let you keep your jobs at 1/4 pay!
Don't get in the way of 'murikkkan progress, motherfuckers! Or you traitors^W strikers are going be living the rest of your short-ass lives in agonizing pain!
Don't fuck with corporate profits or you'll pay the price, you ratbags!
We're going to make 'murikkka great again if we have to kill every last one of you.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 25 2017, @11:43PM
Some more concepts of that age:
Robber baron [wikipedia.org]
The Long Depression (1873-1896) [google.com]
The Guilded Age [erenow.com]
Seeing any parallels to today?
[1] Donnie Tiny Hands recently made a pilgrimage to Jackson's home.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 25 2017, @05:53PM (4 children)
OK, so they think they're getting shorted on their bennies. I can see how that would make them cranky. Fine ...
Jobs got offshored? Join the club. Most of the ones striking appear from the summary to be on-site wire workers anyway, so offshoring isn't likely to be an issue for them. So this isn't really their problem, it's just a banner to wave.
They got asked to do a different but closely related job? Wow. The horror. The orphans of the Middle East weep for them.
If they think that they're all that, then let their union forge a new company, using their awesome skills, mad productivity and so on, and compete AT&T into the ground. Nobody will cheer louder than I will. But until then? Whiners go to the back of the line.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 25 2017, @06:42PM
Hey, corporate shills, get your tongues off your master's buttholes. If you happen to live in the US you should be deported for un-American activities.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 25 2017, @11:54PM (2 children)
No, they weren't -asked-, they were TOLD.
They were assigned expanded responsibilities with no additional compensation.
If fact, they took cuts in their last negotiations.
Their contract ran out a year ago and the company is abusing the situation.
Have you been crapped on so often that this seems normal to you, you pathetic hump?
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 27 2017, @04:45PM (1 child)
Not asked but told? Semantics. If they don't want to touch the icky things that the Evil Boss(tm) wants them to, they can go look for a job that doesn't involve touching icky things. The dynamic and consequences are the same regardless of the verb you choose to use; asked, told, begged, menaced. It doesn't matter.
From one working stiff to another (I assume you work): it is a huge pain in the ass to work with mister Nomahjob. "Hey buddy, could you just.." "Nomahjob." "We need a ..." "Nomahjob." "You're right over there!" "Nomahjob." That asshole makes everybody's lives worse, not better, and codifying it into some kind of rule-bound glorification of not doing a thing because someone didn't stroke your dick enough makes nobody happier.
You're one of the forces convincing companies like AT&T to develop robots to run wires, to crimp connections, to do everything. Sure, they'll have five incredibly highly paid robotic overlords managing all the work over a three state area - and they'll still come out ahead because they got rid of five hundred brothers of the Nomahjob family.
The weirdest part of this whole thing is that by marxist logic that you love so much, it shouldn't matter whether they're digging holes or doing brain surgery - same pay, because of the labour theory of value. But no, all of a sudden all those extra dollars are super-duper important when it comes to boosting your favourite crowd.
As for being crapped on, the most regular crapping I get is from shithead coworkers who would rather find an excuse to get blitzed at 4PM rather than work a full day, and dump their half-assed work on me. So no. No sympathy. They can do their assigned jobs, or find other jobs to do. And if this means that AT&T hires a bunch of guys called Juan and Miguel who will actually get off their asses and get the work done? I'll write them a goddamn recommendation, and sign it with a smile.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 27 2017, @06:57PM
Semantics
True. Now, if their union did a better job, they'd have a contract and the union would be doing a better job of getting compensation for additional responsibilities.
...instead of sending them back to work yet again without a contract, to be abused yet again.
It is unfortunate that, with a Capitalist system, the best that is being offered is a (management-friendly) labor union (with the abuses permitted under Taft-Hartley).
Sounds like yet another great opportunity to call for Worker-Owners instead of a separate Capitalist ownership class and a separate abusive management class and a separate exploited worker class.
I assume you work
Dude, I am OLD.
...but, yeah, I have been a part of the labor force and have seen the worst of what Capitalist operations have to offer.
It's a big reason why I'm so anti-Capitalist.
mister Nomahjob
Another call for Worker-Owners here.
I assure you that the folks at Mondragon would have weeded out those types early in the process.
They'd also democratically figure out a way to reward Worker-Owners who are more valuable.
You're one of the forces convincing companies like AT&T to develop robots
Oh, riiight.
...because otherwise Capitalists (whose main activity is trying to maximize profits) wouldn't do that. /sarc
My platform is societal stability.
If that can be achieved at the same time as efficiency, I'm for both.
If not, then maximizing profits takes a back seat.
Capitalism, however, isn't interested in societal stability.
Capitalism is a broken system.
that [...] marxist logic that you love so much
...which you don't understand in the slightest.
Aligning yourself with the greedy Ownership Class and the abusive Managerial Class makes you look foolish IMO.
You'd better be planning for the day when they're through chewing out all your juices and they spit you out.
a bunch of guys called Juan and Miguel who will actually get off their asses and get the work done
The Mondragon worker-owned cooperative is headquartered in the Basque Country of Spain.
They have lots of guys just like that.
I'm betting that a bunch of them even go by those same names.
You're not demonstrating the superiority of Capitalism here.
You're describing The Race to the Bottom that is Capitalism.
Another call here for a system that has ONLY Worker-Owners.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Saturday March 25 2017, @07:11PM
From TFS:
Were I live, the TV service offered by the phone company uses exactly the same wires. To work on the phone service, the technicians many need a butt set [wikipedia.org] and low-pass filters.
I am not a TV service tech, but the demand does not seem unreasonable. Maybe the TV techs are not actually trained to hook up the phone line an rely on another tech to do that first. Or knowing how cheep the local phone company is, maybe the don't pay the TV techs for "incidental" work like chasing binding posts around the neighbourhood.