Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My husband is on strike duty too. It sucks; he's actually been gone for over a week now because he was already away for unrelated training when the strike was called. He's going to miss our son's birthday, and if it extends far enough, our daughter's birthday as well. I'm usually the one who travels for work, so this has been eye opening (and exhausting) for me. I am very very lucky that I have family nearby, an understanding boss, and a flexible job. But it still sucks.

My parent worked at the old AT&T in 60's, 70's and 80's. He said he loved it when strikes happened, a Strike forced his managers to actually do the work their employees would do. It was much healthier for the corporation. More efficient negotiations, more workers covered, and helped balanced the relationship. Managers had to understand what was going on in their department.

i don't know how it used to be, but today's strike duty is mostly lawyers, sales people, financial analysts, and HR personnel covering phone line and FIOS installations and troubleshooting and covering 411 call centers. the managers of the striking employees stay in their management role and manage the lawyers, sales people, financial analysts and HR personnel covering jobs with which they have ZERO connection and max 40 hours of training. the managers of striking employees largely are NOT doing these jobs.

Anonymous wrote:It's hard to feel a whole lot of sympathy for scabs and their families.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My Wife is the breadwinner in our family and is currently on strike.'They are on strike so their pensions they have worked hard for don't get frozen and call centers in the US don't get closed. There are call centers in rural areas that provide jobs for people, these employed people keep rural towns going. Verizon wants to close these centers and outsource to other countries.
This is worth fighting for.
She has no been paid for over a week now, meanwhile the person doing her job is getting $78 an hour, twice what she makes. We also lose our family health insurance at the end of this month.

Sorry your spouse is working extra days/hours OP but my wife would love to be working.

Right, as another PP said,your wife is choosing not to work. She could stay at her job at Verizon and ignore the strike. If she doesn't like Verizon, she can find another job. If everyone leaves these shitty companies, they'll up their benefits to attract more talent.

By the way, I'm a professional, non-union employee who has a pension. It's not great, so I supplement it with the company's 401(k) and a personal IRA. I only make $70,000 a year, so I'm hardly the CEO type your wife rails against. If I don't like a job or its benefits, I move on, or supplement myself (like with the IRA). See how easy that it?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My Wife is the breadwinner in our family and is currently on strike.'They are on strike so their pensions they have worked hard for don't get frozen and call centers in the US don't get closed. There are call centers in rural areas that provide jobs for people, these employed people keep rural towns going. Verizon wants to close these centers and outsource to other countries.
This is worth fighting for.
She has no been paid for over a week now, meanwhile the person doing her job is getting $78 an hour, twice what she makes. We also lose our family health insurance at the end of this month.

Sorry your spouse is working extra days/hours OP but my wife would love to be working.

Right, as another PP said,your wife is choosing not to work. She could stay at her job at Verizon and ignore the strike. If she doesn't like Verizon, she can find another job. If everyone leaves these shitty companies, they'll up their benefits to attract more talent.

By the way, I'm a professional, non-union employee who has a pension. It's not great, so I supplement it with the company's 401(k) and a personal IRA. I only make $70,000 a year, so I'm hardly the CEO type your wife rails against. If I don't like a job or its benefits, I move on, or supplement myself (like with the IRA). See how easy that it?

Anonymous wrote:My Wife is the breadwinner in our family and is currently on strike.'They are on strike so their pensions they have worked hard for don't get frozen and call centers in the US don't get closed. There are call centers in rural areas that provide jobs for people, these employed people keep rural towns going. Verizon wants to close these centers and outsource to other countries.
This is worth fighting for.
She has no been paid for over a week now, meanwhile the person doing her job is getting $78 an hour, twice what she makes. We also lose our family health insurance at the end of this month.

Sorry your spouse is working extra days/hours OP but my wife would love to be working.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My Wife is the breadwinner in our family and is currently on strike.'They are on strike so their pensions they have worked hard for don't get frozen and call centers in the US don't get closed. There are call centers in rural areas that provide jobs for people, these employed people keep rural towns going. Verizon wants to close these centers and outsource to other countries.
This is worth fighting for.
She has no been paid for over a week now, meanwhile the person doing her job is getting $78 an hour, twice what she makes. We also lose our family health insurance at the end of this month.

Sorry your spouse is working extra days/hours OP but my wife would love to be working.

OP here.

your wife is CHOOSING not to work. according to my spouse, there are quite a few union employees who are crossing the picket lines to come to work every day; your wife could be one of them.

jobs today in corporate American suck for a lot of people. there is a lot of job insecurity out there. many, many companies before Verizon have totally outsourced services to India. my spouse, who is also the breadwinner (although i do work FT), has survived multiple rounds of layoffs at Verizon and a possible sales of his business unit, which would have likely ended in job loss. we have had our share of stresses from Verizon.

generally speaking, there are (mostly) no pensions and health care is very expensive even if provided through work. why should Unionized employees have it so much better than everybody else? i agree that the job market should universally be better than everybody else. i am not a fan of corporations generally, but holding people hostage through a strike is NOT the way to make that happen.

Anonymous wrote:My Wife is the breadwinner in our family and is currently on strike.'They are on strike so their pensions they have worked hard for don't get frozen and call centers in the US don't get closed. There are call centers in rural areas that provide jobs for people, these employed people keep rural towns going. Verizon wants to close these centers and outsource to other countries.
This is worth fighting for.
She has no been paid for over a week now, meanwhile the person doing her job is getting $78 an hour, twice what she makes. We also lose our family health insurance at the end of this month.

Sorry your spouse is working extra days/hours OP but my wife would love to be working.

Anonymous wrote:My Wife is the breadwinner in our family and is currently on strike.'They are on strike so their pensions they have worked hard for don't get frozen and call centers in the US don't get closed. There are call centers in rural areas that provide jobs for people, these employed people keep rural towns going. Verizon wants to close these centers and outsource to other countries.
This is worth fighting for.
She has no been paid for over a week now, meanwhile the person doing her job is getting $78 an hour, twice what she makes. We also lose our family health insurance at the end of this month.

Sorry your spouse is working extra days/hours OP but my wife would love to be working.

Anonymous wrote:Can't they just dissolve this Union? Landline business is seriously dwindling - do most people even use landlines anymore? If you are short-sighted enough to invest a large chunk of your career in an industry that has seen a continuous decrease in recent decades ... Whose fault is that?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why can't they just fire the striking employees and hire new ones?

That's what I wondered too?

Anonymous wrote:Why don't the workers who don't like their conditions go get a different/better job like anyone else would have to do? Oh right, because they already have it damn good and likely wouldn't find a better situation.

Unions are outdated and BS.

Anonymous wrote:Blame the CEO with his 15 million a year salary, and the outsourcing of a lot of IT jobs to Mumbai.