Verizon Employees End Strike 591
An anonymous reader writes "Verizon today announced that the approximately 45,000 wireline employees represented by the CWA and IBEW that have been on strike will return to work beginning Monday night, August 22nd, without new collective bargaining agreements. Since the strike began two weeks ago, Verizon has been battling criminal acts of sabotage against its network facilities and union picketers intimidating non-union replacement workers and illegally blocking garage and work center entrances. One union picketer even went as far as to instruct his young daughter to stand in front of a Verizon truck to illegally block it from coming back to a Verizon work center in New Jersey. Verizon said the wireline employees now on strike would be working under the terms of the contracts that expired on Saturday, August 6th. The contracts will be extended with no specific deadline for achieving new collective bargaining agreements so that the parties can take the time required to resolve the critical issues, the company said."
An offer you can't refuse. (Score:4, Insightful)
Queue the union hatred (Score:2, Insightful)
Blah (Score:5, Insightful)
Poor Verizon. Profits have only doubled to $4.6 billion (http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/25/verizon-profits-nearly-double-but-miss-wall-street-expectations/) and yet it's trying to cut benefits to its workers.
Another corporate-sponsored propaganda piece brought to you by "anonymous"
Sounded like a Verizon corporate press release (Score:5, Insightful)
Nothing about the $252 million the top 5 Verison executives were paid the last 5 years. Nothing about Verison demanding cuts from workers when Verison profits were up.
Re:Eh, I bet Big Red begs to differ.. (Score:1, Insightful)
Actually, most companies make money when there's a strike. Over $100M in unpaid salary in this case for the two weeks, while exempt management employees work overtime for no additional pay (been there, done that).
That's why strikes rarely make sense anymore.
Re:Sounded like a Verizon corporate press release (Score:0, Insightful)
Maybe that's they were worth? If the executives were not satisfied with their compensation, they could have left.
That's what workers could do as well, except instead they engage in corporate sabotage aka, strike and try to extort the company.
talk about a one-sided summary... (Score:5, Insightful)
That summary would be a joke if it was even remotely funny. Talk about missing the plot. Everyone should be proud of the CWA and the IBEW workers who organized one of the most important and successful strikes in recent memory. Let's get the facts straight: On the eve of the strike, Verizon announced it would pay a special $10 billion dividend to shareholders. At the same time, its negotiators were pushing for $1 billion in concessions from workers. The company has made $3 billion already this year, and nearly $20 billion in the last four years.
So Verizon, which has been insanely profitable in recent years, decided to reward it's hardworking employees by attempting to slash their health care benefits, freeze their pensions, denie new hires pensions and health care benefits and by attempting to prevent new hires from organizing in unions. All the while Verizon has been outsourcing more and more positions to firms overseas. Scabs struck 15 picketers during the two week strike. And FOX news, the likely source of this so called "summary", has been demonizing the hard working union members 24/7. While Verizon shareholders are swimming in the dough and Verizon execs laugh all the way to the bank.
I personally will never give Verizon one red cent until they start to do right by their employees. Greedy friggin corporate bastards, the lot of 'em.
Re:Slashdot has never been a neutral reporter, but (Score:3, Insightful)
Not someone, his daughter, a minor. He was specifically banking on the driver of the vehicle being a better person than him.
One-sided propaganda (Score:5, Insightful)
TFA does not post any corroboration and nothing from the the side of the strikers.
Without further evidence, I'm going to write this article off as anti-union propaganda.
Mart
Slanted Summary (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:2 weeks? (Score:5, Insightful)
But the union won... They were fine with the current contracts, the issue was Verizon wanted the gut health care and retirement benefits. So going back to work under the old contract is a win for them...
Re:Sounded like a Verizon corporate press release (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Eh, I bet Big Red begs to differ.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And the others..? (Score:5, Insightful)
Today, people say, "why should those union guys have it so good? I want them to suffer just like me!" And now the middle class has turned against itself, and the gap widens to historic levels. I hope it'll turn back around some day, but our corporate masters have gotten really good at turning us against ourselves, and at labor unions that exist to help us.
Re:Two wrongs... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:And the others..? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Usually a double-game (Score:2, Insightful)
Historically, corporations have been found guilty of paying goons to join strikes and cause damage to the corporation, thus harming the union movement and themselves appearing to be innocent victims.
Sure, 100 years ago. So that makes it OK for unions to become the thugs now? I suppose the "european americans" need to pay reparations to "african americans" to make up for slavery, too?
Strike (Score:4, Insightful)
This is the worst the Verizon strike-busters could come up with? It perplexes me how many news stories I've read about how "one union picketer even went as far as to instruct his young daughter to stand in front of a Verizon truck to illegally block it". If you watch the video, HE stands in front of the moving truck, which stops. Then she walks over of her own accord. Then the instruction part comes in, he tells her to stand in front of the stopped truck alongside the cameraman who is obviously standing there as well in front of the stopped truck. She holds up her sign, the cameraman films. Then he goes over and yells at the scab who took his job for less than a minute. As happens every time, they then let the trucks go through.
Illegal is a great word. It is illegal to murder and rape. It is also illegal for me to loan one of my DVDs to a friend so that he can copy it to his computer. It is illegal to smoke marijuana. In virtually all industrialized countries but this one, what is illegal is for scabs to replace striking workers. In the good old, God-fearing, Libya-bombing, Iraq-bombing, Afghanistan-bombing USA though, it is illegal for workers to delay scabs from taking their jobs.
Verizon is one of the largest examples of a company which does nothing but profit from its monopolies. It spends tons of money on state and federal lobbying, and has a lock on a portion of wireless wavelength, and an almost total and complete lock on the local loop. The majority of its stock is held by the very wealthiest of Americans (over 40% is held by the wealthiest 1%, and the 51% mark is only slightly larger), and the majority of those people inherited virtually all of their wealth. The majority of the majority owners are heirs who sit on their asses and expropriate dividend checks from not their government-lobbied, government-granted near-monopolies, but the people in this video, the people out there doing all the work and creating all the wealth for the company.
I know the USA is a piece of garbage, ruled by these rich parasite heirs, aside from their religious wacko pals and other assorted asocial Tea Party nuts, so there's not much use getting over-exerted about any of this. The words criminal and illegal really mean nothing here. Before World War I, for workers to form a union in the USA was itself a criminal act. It was illegal. As I said, in other countries, these scabs replacing striking workers is illegal. In the good old USA workers replacing the scabs taking their jobs is illegal. Just like breaking DRM and all the other nonsense. We are all slaves to these rich parasite heirs trying to extract money from their monopolies and the wage slaves they have working for them. It's naturally American to be filled with vitriol and hatred for the average working class Joe standing with his union brothers to try and earn a living wage. Following authority, passively licking the boots of the lazy rich heirs who own the majority of Verizon stock, with Almighty God watching over all is the natural order of things. The reward will be in the "next life".
(and WRT to who references to who owns stocks, is an heir and such, you can consult sources like the Federal Reserve's Survey of Consumer Finances, Forbes 400 richest list and other sources).
Re:Seriously. (Score:2, Insightful)
There are no qualifications needed to become a parent. Anybody can join. Whether you think this is a good thing depends on your perspective. Governments that change this policy tend to go downhill on human rights very quickly.
Re:2 weeks? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Sounded like a Verizon corporate press release (Score:3, Insightful)
That profit came mostly from the wireless business (which is non-union), not the old wireline side.
Why should the union benefit from non-union labor's productivity?
Re:And the others..? (Score:5, Insightful)
Less than 7% of private workers in the US are unionized, yet you see it as a "cartel". Verizon has a monopoly on land lines in the North East and mid-Atlantic (with AT&T and Qwest covering 99% of the rest of the country), yet you don't see that as a cartel. Verizon, Sprint and AT&Tmobile are three companies who also control over 99% of US wireless, yet you don't see them as a cartel. The wealthiest 1% of the country, most of whom inherited all of their wealth, owns the majority of bonds, over 40% of stocks and so forth - but they're not a cartel.
The average, working, wealth-producing person is not cartelized at all in the US. The rich parasite heirs who you worship are who rules the US. One of the reasons the US economy has had sluggish growth for decades, while the second largest economy in the world, China's, has been growing at 10% a year for 30 years. Not much will change in that respect in the US - the mass of boot-lickers like you, along with the fundamentalist crazies, will succeed in holding the US down as the rest of the world passes it by...
Re:2 weeks? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:talk about a one-sided summary... (Score:4, Insightful)
There will be fewer and fewer jobs in USA exactly because of actions like the one described above. Why risk losing your investment to the government created inflation if you are going to be demonized as an investor for wanting a return on your investment?
This will give a good example to the rest of the industries that still allow unions in their shops.
Verizon announced it would pay a special $10 billion dividend to shareholders.
- yes, the shareholders. Those bastards, who were funding the operations. How dare they to want to escape government created inflation and move their money out of the USD denominated assets into something valuable?
I wonder how many pension funds are holding Verizon shares nowadays?
The company has made $3 billion already this year, and nearly $20 billion in the last four years.
- isn't that what business is for? Investing into it to make money? Who are you to decide what is a good return and what is not, especially given the government created inflation?
by attempting to slash their health care benefits,
The workers are striking because, they say, Verizon is preparing to make wide-spread wage cuts and to increase the amount employees contribute to their health care plans and pensions, among other things.
Additionally, Verizon does not plan to cut or remove its current employeesâ(TM) pensions. Instead, it hopes to move future employees away from pensions and into enhanced 401(k) plans, with increased contributions from Verizon.
A major source of contention between the two groups is health care. Union workers currently do not pay for their own health care. The company is now asking for the union workers to do so because of the continued increase in health care costs.
The non-union workers in Verizon are paying part of their health care premiums, the union workers do not. I am amazed that Verizon didn't try to tackle that issue much earlier!
As to pensions - companies should not even be in a position where they are forced to think about workers' retirements. SS needs to go away but so must this idea that company where you work is supposed to think for you about your own pension plan!
Re:An offer you can't refuse. (Score:5, Insightful)
Not sure why people dislike them. Maybe it's another anti-socialist thing.
Because they harass people at their homes, bother their children, trespass on people's property, block people into their homes, and try to force their way into people's homes. Then, after they change the rules regarding a union vote, they claim interference when they still lose(it was perfectly fine for them to stand right outside the employee parking lot handing out fliers, but apparently it's vote tampering for the company to actually advertise to the employees the date of the votes. How can you claim to represent the employees when you don't want them to participate?). I have all of this information from first-hand accounts of some of my coworkers(and myself) when the company I work for was recently under a union vote. These were not isolated incidents, these were systematic tactics being employed by the unions. This is why Americans dislike unions. They harass you and intimidate you to force you into something you don't want and, in the US, if a union vote passes, you have exactly 2 choices: join the union and pay them for the privilege of working, or quit. And remember, once a union is voted in, it is virtually impossible for it to be removed or decertified.
Re:Usually a double-game (Score:2, Insightful)
No, the point is that history repeats itself more often than not..
Re:Slashdot has never been a neutral reporter, but (Score:5, Insightful)
"Um... by definition [corporations] are unthinking by their very nature... people who are either unwilling or unable to represent themselves (ie [shareholders]) band together and let others ([CEOs]) think and negotiate for them.
I have never been a [corporate stock holder], nor will I ever... because I am competent enough to represent myself.
Not that I have a particular opinion on the Verizon strike specifically, but why is collective action of capital holders the pinnacle of the modern economic system, but the collective action of laborers is destroying society as we know it?
Re:2 weeks? (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't you understand that when you take a job, you negotiate for a "Total Compensation" package. If the value of that is $100,000, and $25,000 of it is in 'benefits', if you cut the 'benefits' by $10,000 you need to INCREASE TAKE HOME PAY by ten grand PLUS the lost tax benefit...
In other words, you don't SAVE any money by cutting benefits, because unless your goal is to FUCK PEOPLE OVER, then you're going to be increasing their take home, so your "Total Comp" package remains the same....
Re:An offer you can't refuse. (Score:5, Insightful)
There's quite a bit of editorializing in the OP...
Re:Sounded like a Verizon corporate press release (Score:5, Insightful)
How does that change anything? They'll just hire new people who do like to be fucked in the ass financially.
That's what happens when you work a job that anyone can do. If you quit, they will hire anyone to do it, probably for less pay. I guess they should be thankful that the company keeps them around when they could easily fire them or lay them off and hire someone else to do the job for less pay.
See, the trick is to find a job that no one else can do or that no one else wants to do. The first one requires skill and a lot of hard work to get to that position. The second just requires that you are willing to do crap work. Management fits into the first category. People that clean up crime scenes, for example fit into the second. Both get paid well. Everyone else is expendable and doesn't get paid much.
Re:2 weeks? (Score:5, Insightful)
In the real (non union) world you don't negotiate for 'Total Compensation' in dollars, you negotiate for salary (which is usually a fixed amount) and benefits (which are usually not fixed).
Re:Slashdot has never been a neutral reporter, but (Score:4, Insightful)
It is interesting that you simultaneously think that it is fine that people form corporations so they have a limited liability in their investments, but not unions, to have bargaining power much larger than you could ever have, however competent you may be.
Re:Slanted Summary (Score:2, Insightful)
ok so what you want is news that plays up any crimes committed by corporations, and be silent about criminal acts committed by union workers. glad we got that cleared up. enjoy your fucking distorted worldview.
Re:2 weeks? (Score:2, Insightful)
How cute that you think union workers don't live in the real world.
Re:And the others..? (Score:4, Insightful)
Today, people say, "why should those union guys have it so good? I want them to suffer just like me!" And now the middle class has turned against itself, and the gap widens to historic levels. I hope it'll turn back around some day, but our corporate masters have gotten really good at turning us against ourselves, and at labor unions that exist to help us.
See, back in the Utopian day you speak of, union members were proud of their work and it was well known. You could expect on American cars to be the best, most reliable cars on the planet. An union constructed building would be one that you knew was not only up to code, but surpassed it. Union members were their own foreman and made sure that all union members were doing their jobs RIGHT.
That's not the case any more. Now you have union members standing around waiting for the union electrician to plug something into a wall socket. You have union members enter a "job bank" requesting a job that is not available in their area and sit around and nothing for years waiting for a job that no longer exists. Now you have union members who are completely incompetent, lazy and cocky because they know they can not get fired. Now you have people literally attacking, even shooting [dailycaller.com] and vandalizing non-union shops and their own coworkers who don't join them. To make sure the operations continue, they want to make all union votes completely open, meaning union thugs may see how you voted to make sure you voted right.
Meanwhile, you have workers that still take pride in their job who work hard and put in the extra hours to get ahead only to see their promotion go to some union member that does nothing but has been at the company doing nothing longer than you have and union rules will mandate they get promoted before someone newer. You have small businesses trying to compete getting put out of business because they are getting harassed by union members of their trade or lose out to jobs because a union may provide kickbacks to your former customers to make union work cheaper "Walmart style". You bust your ass to have a job, pay for your own benefits and struggle to pay your taxes only to see those that are paid with your tax dollars go on strike and literally shut down your government because they DON'T want to pay for their benefits. They want you to pay for your health insurance AND theirs. There are even unions that force non-union members to pay union dues.
And you don't understand why people don't like unions any more? I too hope it will turn back someday to a day when a union not only takes care of their workers, but also guarantees that a union product is a BETTER product. When times get tough, a union is willing to make concessions, even if only temporary, to help the company make it through a tough time and ensure that everyone still has a job. I want to see a union throw a member out for showing up late or doing shoddy work. Until that happens, unions will continue to get the reputation they deserve.
Re:2 weeks? (Score:2, Insightful)
well, I live in a different world altogether - I live under a national healthcare system, so the reason these particular strikes started in the first place was solved for us as a nation after WW2.
Here in the real world, everyone but the US solved this problem too, but in 2011 the supposed "leader of the world" is the last major developed nation to have such a backward, broken healthcare system.
I'm certainly not jealous, not even a little bit.
(And disclaimer, I have lived under both systems.)
Don't you understand things change? (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is health care costs are going up, substantially. Verizon cannot shoulder all of it, so they are asking for workers to pay some as well. Verizon cannot afford to give the equivalent of a 10-20% raise to everyone, especially in a bad economy for a field that is losing a lot of customers (wireline access).
The fact is, things change, and the workers cannot be expected to be insulated from all changes. Or at least non-union workers cannot.
Re:Eh, I bet Big Red begs to differ.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Not everybody is a wage slave.
Hint if you NEED your next paycheck you are a wage slave. You don't have the ability to say no. Figure out the difference between needs and wants.
Re:Eh, I bet Big Red begs to differ.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:2 weeks? (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh? You think sharing other people's money actually improves civilization somehow? Government taking money out of private sector and spending the money on what it prefers is what created all of the economic problems since the income taxes were introduced and the Fed was created in USA, while USA became the largest creditor nation and producer of innovation and cheap high quality goods prior to that moment in time.
Having government redistribute profits is what creates the mis-allocation of resources, takes people's liberties away, makes people dependent on government programs rather than having those very people invest their own savings into businesses of their choosing.
Re:Eh, I bet Big Red begs to differ.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Please tell us what country so we know never to invest in any business from there.
Re:2 weeks? (Score:3, Insightful)
As an American, I want to say thank you. Please keep fighting this perception. Every time national health care is brought up it's fought with cries of "SOCIALISM!". Never mind the facts you stated about the UK, or the fact that we already have more than a few "socialized" services (Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, Police, Fire Department, etc.).
It's goddamned sickening how easily some people fall for this shit.