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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: 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.
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