Are these unions bad?

[Anonymous]

Private companies shouldn't be unionized. What special trade or skill do these people have that warrants a union? You're right though. Verizon landlines will soon be obsolete if they aren't already and this union will eventually be busted. I don't even think Verizon landline hires new workers anymore.

[jsteele]

I've had quite a bit of experience with Verizon for non-run-of-the-mill services. Particularly, I've worked a lot with high-speed data networks. I have found over and over again that Verizon has brought in technicians from other regions who are not unionized. These guys invariably screw up. They do poor work and then they disappear back to wherever they came from without leaving any documentation. So, nobody can figure out how to un-screw whatever they screwed up. Each and every time this sort of thing has happened, a unionized Verizon employee has showed up, looked very pissed off at what he found, muttered something about workers from outside the region, and then fixed the problem. On one occasion, the unionized guy came on a Sunday on which he was not scheduled to work.

Anyone who thinks Verizon employes are on average doing unskilled work has no idea what they are talking about. Go look in the average corporate phone closet and check out the tangle of wires. Then, imagine something similar that serves an entire neighborhood. Then, think about that for an entire section of a city. Consider the number of computers involved. After all that, consider how you would try to solve a problem involving wires at two ends of the city without causing problems with any other wires. When things don't work, it costs us money. I've lost thousands of dollars a day when a data connection didn't work. A guy who is able to fix the problem damn sure better be getting paid well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When it costs us nothing? Okay, lets have Verizon bust the union and then see if prices go up or down for the consumer.

Wait -- are you really suggesting the Verizon will bust the union and then LOWER PRICES????? Are you serious?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Success and gravy train are two different concepts.

They are doing work and being paid for that work. I agree that if someone is sitting on his / her ass collecting a check that is wrong -- but you can't really be saying that a company that is posting record profits is full of people who are not working. Who do you think is making Verizon successful?

[takoma]

If the posters bitching about the union workers are unemployed, skillful, and looking hard for jobs that don't exist because those unionized workers have them, you have my sympathy. But if you are the posters who bitch about how hard they work for the $500k on which they can barely exist because so much goes to taxes, not so much.

[Anonymous]

The CWA will be obsolete in a few years anyway... Good riddance. Maybe you'll finally find out what it's like to have to climb the corporate ladder on your own!

[Anonymous]

all unions are bad. They once had a purpose - LONG ago. Now they are simply destructive- including self-destructive (google "Twinkie").

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:all unions are bad. They once had a purpose - LONG ago. Now they are simply destructive- including self-destructive (google "Twinkie").

And when you google Twinkie, please take note of the incredibly profligate executive mismanagement.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Private companies shouldn't be unionized. What special trade or skill do these people have that warrants a union? You're right though. Verizon landlines will soon be obsolete if they aren't already and this union will eventually be busted. I don't even think Verizon landline hires new workers anymore.

You fail to understand the idea behind unionization.

[Anonymous]

Unions helped put the US steel mills out of business. The devastating effects to whole cities are still visible. Detroit.

[Anonymous]

And, yes I know that Detroit is automobiles. But, it took years for Pittsburgh to recover and Birmingham, etc.