17,000 AT&T Workers Go On Strike In California and Nevada (fortune.com) 172
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Fortune: Approximately 17,000 workers in AT&T's traditional wired telephone business in California and Nevada walked out on strike on Wednesday, marking the most serious labor action against the carrier in years. The walkout -- formally known as a grievance strike -- occurred after AT&T changed the work assignments of some of the technicians and call center employees in the group, the Communications Workers of America union said. The union would not say how long the strike might last. A contract covering the group expired last year and there has been little progress in negotiations over sticking points like the outsourcing of call center jobs overseas, stagnant pay, and rising health care costs. The union said it planned to file an unfair labor charge with the National Labor Relations Board over the work assignment changes. "A walkout is not in anybody's best interest and it's unfortunate that the union chose to do that," an AT&T spokesman told Fortune. "We're engaged in discussion with the union to get these employees back to work as soon as possible."
100% of landline customers affected by strike (Score:2)
Re:100% of landline customers affected by strike (Score:4, Interesting)
Worst case scenario for the unions: what if nobody really notices?
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Re:100% of landline customers affected by strike (Score:4, Insightful)
Yep. Boss Trump is rallying the fans in Kentucky [nytimes.com], promising to bring back coal jobs. Or, at least, bring back coal by letting up on silly environmental rules [forbes.com] like the Stream Protection Rule [wikipedia.org].
Trouble is, giving coal companies a break doesn't necessarily mean good things for coal miners. Like everyone else, coal companies are heavily investing in automation and mining techniques that require fewer pesky workers. At the same time, strip-mining and poisoning the water and the land makes it suck worse to live in coal country, either as a miner or even as a crazed live-off-the-land survivor type.
Further, Trump is a big friend of fracking, which lowers the price of natural gas, which, like, lowers the demand for coal. Uhhh, right.
My guess is there's gonna be a lot of disappointed folks in coal country in a coupla years when the jobs don't come and Trumpcare takes over. Maybe by then AT&T will be hiring scabs to replace all the folks on strike. Can you run some fiber before that black lung gits ya, or will the heavy metals in the frogs and the river trout git ya first?
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Yep. Boss Trump is rallying the fans in Kentucky [nytimes.com], promising to bring back coal jobs. Or, at least, bring back coal by letting up on silly environmental rules [forbes.com] like the Stream Protection Rule [wikipedia.org].
Trouble is, giving coal companies a break doesn't necessarily mean good things for coal miners. Like everyone else, coal companies are heavily investing in automation and mining techniques that require fewer pesky workers. At the same time, strip-mining and poisoning the water and the land makes it suck worse to live in coal country, either as a miner or even as a crazed live-off-the-land survivor type.
Further, Trump is a big friend of fracking, which lowers the price of natural gas, which, like, lowers the demand for coal. Uhhh, right.
My guess is there's gonna be a lot of disappointed folks in coal country in a coupla years when the jobs don't come and Trumpcare takes over. Maybe by then AT&T will be hiring scabs to replace all the folks on strike. Can you run some fiber before that black lung gits ya, or will the heavy metals in the frogs and the river trout git ya first?
In fact, the Stream Protection Rule originated [npr.org] with coal miners. Coal miners, after all, presumably have to live somewhere nearby to the coal mine.
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Not everything [wikipedia.org]. Apparently, this shit sandwich is such a shitty shit sandwich that even the king of shit shandwich shitty isn't willing to put his name on it.
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How come Trump isn't riding to the rescue of these workers and setting the company on the righteous path of ensuring their employment at AT&T? Surely this should qualify for his alleged deal making skills. He's been telling us about them for years. He's also been telling us how smart he is, and this is a no-brainer kind of deal he could make.
Re:100% of landline customers affected by strike (Score:4, Insightful)
Then clearly the companies shouldn't be employing any of them... which is fine, but probably not the case since companies are pretty slick when it comes to figuring out if they still need employees and cutting down labor costs if the answer is "no" so really this is just about your hatred of unions because you know damn well that if these people weren't needed the company would have laid them off a long time ago
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such is why you can call 911 on locked cellphones and those without service.
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More like 1%. I still know a few people with landlines for copper phone and DSL services.
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I dumped AT&T two years ago. They wanted $39 for basic telephone service (no long distance).
I bought a dedicated Tracfone and linked it to a bluetooth gateway. I plugged the gateway in to my house wiring and transferred my landline number to the Tracfone. My monthly cost is running about ten dollars now.
Screw ATT and screw their union.
They are a dying business model.
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Are you really that ignorant, or just being obnoxious?
I'll leave as an exercise for the student to google up how much revenue is in landlines. And btw, sound quality on almost any landline makes your stupidphone sound like two paper cups and a string between them.
Baby Goes Whaaaaaaaa! (Score:5, Insightful)
A walkout is not in anybody's best interest and it's unfortunate that the union chose to do that
I'm generally anti-union because they almost always devolve into pieces of shit, but fuck AT&T and fuck the obvious bullshit line about a strike not being in anyone's best interest. It's in the best interest of the union (and hopefully of the employees).
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All this is gonna do is accelerate AT&T's desire to outsource call center personnel.
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That train is going to be run. You have no choice about that. But you can choose whether it’s going to be run by one of your men or not. If you choose not to let them, the train will still run, if I have to drive the engine myself If you think that I need your men more than they need me, choose accordingly. If you know that I can run an engine, but they can’t build a railroad, choose according to that.
It's in the best interest of the union
Not if striking lets the union find out that the employees they represent are no longer needed and the union's membership suddenly no longer pays union dues.
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Good, thats exactly what should happen... but probably wont because, you know, if they weren't needed the jobs would have been cut long before this.
Re:Baby Goes Whaaaaaaaa! (Score:5, Interesting)
In its rules was the cause that we could NOT go on strike. The employer could not do a lock out.
What took it's place was that any negotiations over pay and conditions that could not be resolved in 12 weeks would be taken to an independent Arbiter. That arbiter was a member of the judiciary, their job was not influenced by elections, employer payments, etc etc etc
Both sides put their final offer to the arbiter and defended it, justifying why their position was the most fair and reasonable. There arbiter required proof of any claims, and that could include looking at the employers books.
The arbiter could then take a further 2 weeks and choose EITHER the union OR the employer offer. No chasing bits from one and bits from another, they had toe make a choice which offer was the most reasonable. And that decision was binding on both parties
This forced both sides to start from a position of reason right from the start and most negotiations took less then 3 weeks to negotiate and ratify.
Sadly that union was consumed by a larger union and all that went away.
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Still corporatists, though. Either because they had to run for election at some point (and had to pander for campaign donations), or because they were appointed by a corporatist politician, who had to pander for campaign donations to get elected.
Re:Baby Goes Whaaaaaaaa! (Score:5, Interesting)
Our Judges are not elected, nor government appointed. They either put their name forward themselves or the firms they work for nominates them. However the MUST have a law degree, must have at least 7 years experience as a practicing lawyer, and they get chosen based on their work experience, character , social awareness, fairness etc etc etc by the Attorney-General's Judicial Appointments Unit.
Our civil service is also non partisan, senior appointments are not political appointments and dont change when there is a change in government.
Equally our news media is less partisan then US media, and it has been rated as far more free (as in free speech) than US media too.
New Zealand is also one of the least corrupt countries in the world, the lack of political interference in the courts, police, civil service may also account for this.
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But you all put that Kim Dot Com guy through the wringer didn't you?
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"Changing work assignments of technicians and call center people".
OH NO! We can't have that.
In the real world, people get asked to do different things on a daily basis.
In a union environment, we get a lot of "It's not my job to do that".
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Right. In the same way that if you start your own business, it will mean you will sexually harass your secretary while defrauding your investors, killing your employees with unsafe working conditions, selling fake products to customers and dumping toxic waste in the river. Because reasons.
Re: Baby Goes Whaaaaaaaa! (Score:3)
Just like that. Jobs just magically appear whenever you need them and they always pay better. Let me guess. You're young with no responsibilities and/or in a career with much higher demand than supply.
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No, I'm a grown adult who has made that decision when I needed to on several occasions. I'm just not entitled and whiny when things don't go my way... Know what happens when companies lose their good employees to greener pastures? The companies either learn from their mistakes, or they go under. A strike is a temper tantrum, nothing more.
Re: Baby Goes Whaaaaaaaa! (Score:4, Interesting)
Im a non union electrician for a reason, i may make a lot less but the unions out here promote laziness and shitty work. if you get thrown off of one job, they send you to another, tossed off that one, on to another. as long as you pay union dues they dont really give a fuck. thats not my style. as i said i do electrical work. peoples lives are at stake. i will not be responsible for stupidity.
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Stop wasting our time.
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Entitled and whiny? Common man, just because capitalists feel entitled to gouge their customers while stiffing employees in the midst of high profits (while paying a lower tax rate than either) doesn't mean they aren't people too!
They continue to enjoy the benefits of lowered pay scales, laughing at the unique snowflakes who think their wages aren't lowered for being a tree in a forest.
Re: Baby Goes Whaaaaaaaa! (Score:2)
A strike is a protest. You haven't said what field you're in or whether you've got responsibilities or not so it's hard to say where you're coming from. I will ask you this though: where are the 17,000 better jobs these striking workers can apply for?
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As unions have lost power conditions have begun eroding, especially for unskilled workers. It's fine to think you are self reliant, but you exist in an environment that was shaped by a lot of other peoples effort. You are benefiting from that. Now that that force is fading conditions will continue to deteriorate.
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Heaven forbid an employer has to honor a contract it has with its employees.
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RTFA. There was no contract. They're striking because they WANT one.
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and the Aliens Go Whaaaaaaaa? (Score:5, Insightful)
Alas, as the aliens observing us reluctantly realize, humans have short memories. Like environmental laws, civil rights (and even... democracy), collective bargaining came about because our great-grandparents went through hella crazy Pinkerton shit, and our grandparents stood up and got shot until they managed to force change. But alas, our grandparents died off and our parents grew up not knowing what the fuck, and anyway global markets came along so that everything is cheap in China, and now the politicians are telling us that the only thing between us and a trophy wife and the top-floor suite of the Trump Hotel is unions and job-killing environment and food-inspection laws.
and the aliens say, isn't that the shit these creatures fought so hard for just a few generations ago?
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Likely the aliens would be looking upon the US with, well, that was a stupid idea, with regard to lead in fuels, lead water pipes and firing lead bullets in concentrated doses on gun ranges. Look how stupid in made them, keep in mind the current rank of politicians all are that generation of lead addled fuckwits as are their core of older voters. So yes, bad memories, limited thought, reduced morality and a range of really destructive outcomes (insane greed, high level child molestation, destroying the plan
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Good God yes. Detroit used to make a station wagon with a kid's seat in the way-back, and a back-window that would roll down just perfect to suck in all the leaded fumes from the tail pipe... right into the lungs and brains of the "leaders of tomorrow".
Of course, Dad's smoking his pipe in the front seat and Mom's hittin' the Virginia Slims, so there's really no escape. You can have either lead or nicotine with your carbon monoxide. And you wonder why you can't sit still in math class and those SAT's are
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Tell it to the BBC http://www.bbc.com/news/magazi... [bbc.com] or http://www.abc.net.au/news/201... [abc.net.au] or https://www.forbes.com/sites/a... [forbes.com] or https://cosmosmagazine.com/bio... [cosmosmagazine.com] or http://scholar.harvard.edu/fil... [harvard.edu] or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]. Let me guess, you love firing lead bullets at firing ranges with your buddies, as much as possible.
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Let me guess, you love firing lead bullets at firing ranges with your buddies, as much as possible.
Don't need to... got plenty enough lead from breathing car fumes, like tons of other kids.
Great citations, though. In all seriousness, it's truly insane that engineers and, well, everybody, could be so completely careless of what blows out the tail pipe of an engine, like magic nature fairies just clean it all up as soon as it goes in the air. Lead. Fuck. Because it reduces engine knocking, boosts octane ratings, and helps with wear and tear on valve seats. Lead. Why not throw some mercury, asbestos an
Re:Baby Goes Whaaaaaaaa! (Score:5, Interesting)
I remember when President Reagan fired the Air Traffic Controllers. That didn't work out well for more than a year.
I have also been a union member twice. Unfortunately, one union was run by the company, so it was a pretty shitty union for the most part. The other union was run by ex-union members and were not beholden to the company. That worked pretty well in that "silly" stuff didn't happen. If a shitty boss wanted to fire people for not kowtowing, too bad. But if someone screwed up, the shop steward and the boss delivered the pink slip together. Nobody wanted to do extra work because someone else slacked their assignment. I eventually went management in that job, and I never had a problem in 6 years with union workers. I generally had to hold back the shop steward when I knew things about the employee that he didn't (terminally ill wife, child, substance problems they were being helped with, that sort of thing.) The times I did have to terminate someone, the union guys were in agreement with me and we'd already tried multiple times to get the person back into the fold.
That said, what strikes me are the many people that say "Unions suck" that have never been in one and how frequently the throw out "get another job".
Hm. You must live in the land of good jobs, where the trees of excellent education are right there behind the bushes of golden opportunity and the river of endless paycheck. That's a sweet place to live, but one whose address I've not found.
Re:Baby Goes Whaaaaaaaa! (Score:4, Insightful)
That's the central flaw in the "unions protect the lazy" canard. It's predicated on the idea that Steve is happy to do his own work plus Bob's if Bob starts to slack off. Human beings simply aren't built that way, unless they're in a Biff Tannen/George McFly relationship - in which case Biff could just as easily having George do his work at a non union shop anyway.
Support the Union (Score:5, Insightful)
*Consolidated revenues of $40.5 billion, up more than 22%
*Operating income up 13.6%
*Net income up 10.6%
*Cash from operations of $10.3 billion, up 12.5%
*Free cash flow of $4.8 billion, up 8.4%
*Diluted EPS of $0.55 as reported and $0.72 diluted adjusted EPS compared to $0.59 and $0.70 in the year-ago quarter.
All the while the workers get no increases. Every single worker in the US (outside of a few high pay tech positions) is suffering due to corporate greed. A few people at the top have received all the increases for all the productivity gains since the 1980s. If you care about what this country will look like for your kids, you really should care about this. The reality is, you are likely not someone at the top.
Re: Support the Union (Score:2)
What are ya? Some kinda Commie?
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Tired anti-union nonsense is tired. Unions act as a counter-balance to corporate greed. If corporate greed isn't a problem anymore, and you can trust the altruism of capital, than you can also repeal all the laws on...
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-- enough rum?
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So in order to balance the power between employers and employees, you need an organization of laborers: let's call them 'unions'.
The income disparity in the last decades has only steadily improved, while unionization has steadily declined.
This more or less proves my point.
QED
-- gets some more rum
Re:Support the Union (Score:5, Insightful)
"Change the laws" they said
"It will only increase the price of Apple products" others said
"The government has no rights to Apples money" yet more people said
Well here we are now in the USA, with US workers complaining.
The same basic sentiments apply by the looks of it.
The only people entitled to make more money is "not you", and Trump is not going to change that.
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The only people entitled to make more money is "not you"
But your sentiment betrays what's really going on: pure jealousy and greed. On your part.
Nobody's taking money out of your pocket-- oh wait, yeah the government is totally doing that.
Well, aside from taxes nobody is robbing you or holding you back. If you want to be mediocre and just live your life then don't complain when you get mediocre pay.
Otherwise, provide a good or service to lots of people and make lots of money. Nobody's stopping you.
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I didn't say that employers are more powerful by law than employees.
But they are more powerful simply due to the fact that they are bigger and more powerful than any (prospective) employee, they are better organized (employees aren't, unless they're member of a union) through amongst others the Chambers of Commerce. So principally they are able to demand an employee to work for a ridiculously low wage in order to be employed, and the single employee can't do anything against t
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Mandatory unions == Extremely bad... but not right away. It always takes a couple years for the real crap to show up. When it does it's bad.
Re:Support the Union (Score:4, Insightful)
C-Levels continually get raises, golden parachutes, and lucrative stock options paid for the by the workers of the company who are only rewarded with less vacation, more expensive health care, lower bonus, and decreasing or no annual raises - and you want to call it "other peoples money".... I say their fair share was stolen.
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Re:Support the Union (Score:4, Insightful)
This country is running trade deficits because manufacturing jobs have been shoved overseas
Nope. America manufactures more today than ever before. We just do it with a lot fewer people. The main reason for the trade deficit is that America controls the world's reserve currency, which is a GOOD THING.
Foxconn, the Chinese company ...
Foxconn is not a Chinese company.
Children are chained to desks
All the evidence for that was part of a hoax. There is no credible evidence that anyone at Foxconn was ever physically restrained at their desk, and they do not employ children.
Now, if that's the world you want here in the US ...
You mean the world of "alternative facts?" We already have that.
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Because the population has grown.
Yes, nevermind that entire industries have been moved offshore (aside from niche players), like textiles.
Not for the rest of the world it's not, as it allows the U.S. to manipulate exchange rates as one of it's tools in its imperial arsenal. But one issue I've yet to see apo
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USA is in enormous debt because the world subsidises its consumption.
Duh. Of course. But that is not going to stop. Trade "debt" is not like personal credit card debt. There is no reason that it EVER has to be paid back. As long as we control the world's reserve currency, we can continue to issue checks that will never be cashed. Besides, it is not "collective debt". If I buy a German made BMW, that adds to our trade deficit, but paying it back is MY problem, not yours.
Trade deficits are a sign of strength, not weakness. It means foreigners want to invest in dollar d
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America exports dollars because they are needed by other countries to buy oil, due to the deal Kissinger struck with the Saudis to demand dollars for payment of the oil. So they manufacture products and send them to the US for dollars, which they then can use to buy oil from the OPEC, which has not much choice than either sit on them, or invest them back into the US.
I think Obama thought, or was to
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You believe this because it worked so far.
No, I believe it because I understand economics. I also understand history: Britain controlled the world's reserve currency from the Napoleonic Wars until WW1. They had trade deficits for a century while their economy boomed and British people enjoyed the highest living standards in the world. Most of the bonds issued to fund this debt were repeatedly rolled over, and eventually inflated away and never repaid in real terms. Now we enjoy those same benefits, and we would be foolish to throw them away in
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In order to keep this scheme going you have to eliminate every single one that threatens to throw a wrench in the gears.
Saddam Hussain, Chavez, Khomeini/Iran, Ghaddafi.
Heck! Why not iceland? But that would involve central banking which plays an intertwining role.
Central banking was the reason that Ghaddafi's gold was immediately shipped off, and why the Libyan 'rebels'' first act was to establish a new central bank.
I mean... what the heck are gen
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China isn't doing 100% capitalism, and USA isn't doing 100% collectivism.
You haven't proven that either 100% capitalism or 100% collectivism is an optimal economic-political system, so I'll have to assume there is an optimum in between 100% capitalism and 100% collectivism.
So, if China and USA have not reached that optimum yet, it's still possible China needs some more capitalism and USA some more collectivism.
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Regarding 'collectivism': do you want a health insurance, or do you want to gamble and pay your health (disease rather) expenses yourself?
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If not, why not?
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I'm starting to think that libertarians aren't serious people with any ideas to contribute. It's a shame because I agree with some of their axioms.
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I'm thinking there isn't, or you would have brought it up the first time I asked. Given that there isn't you should think about why. It is possible that your approach is not valid or it hasn't been tried yet.
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If you mean that health care insurance should only cover the costs that one would otherwise in no way be able to cover, then I agree completely with you, but that criterion should not be applied ad absurdum in that you can only apply when all your assets are gone and you've basically become a beggar.
On the bright side... (Score:2)
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The nail that sticks out gets hammered down.
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Read your own link, I think you really need that seminar.
Further it's not totally clear to me why you posted this reply, because it's in the signature of the previous poster that it's a Japanese proverb, so for you there's nothing to add to the discussion with this, unless you misunderstood my reply by thinking I was denying it's a Japanese proverb, which
In other news... (Score:2)
There are 17,000 new job openings in California and Nevada.
Good - hope they get what they want (Score:3)
I hope the union members get what they want. People are all too willing to give up all of their bargaining power and be at the mercy of employers. I happen to be one of those strange people who would like to see a little more loyalty on the part of both employers and employees. It's not good for either side to have a revolving door - employers lose valuable trained people, employees become modern-day Okies migrating from employer to employer with no consistency in their lives. If you have that loyalty, and a good work environment, and good salary/benefits, then you wouldn't need a union. Unfortunately, we're back on the other side of the pendulum now, and I think it might be time for collective bargaining to make a comeback.
Think about it rationally -- even if you're the l33test, baddest full-stack DevOps Ninja out there, you're still at the mercy of an employer who is actively trying to pay you as little as possible. If you work in Silicon Valley, you're in a salary bubble right now because Apps! Wait until the bubble pops and employers have their pick of 500 DevOps Ninjas, some of whom are willing to work for practically nothing. Or, they have their pick of thousands of H-1B candidates who work for even less, or could just have all the Ninja-ing done in India and pay less than that! And of course, all that savings goes directly into their pockets, increasing the income disparity and making life miserable for everyone except the executives. I don't think there's anything wrong with a union standing up and fighting against the offshoring of their jobs...or look how many IT jobs might have been saved had the H-1B visa been lobbied against. This is what unions do.
Face it, everybody needs a job, and everybody needs a job whose salary keeps up with inflation and lets them earn more as they age. Society is set up around this, and it's not going to change easily. No one is going to buy houses anymore once they see they can't count on their employers to keep them employed. People won't even take out car loans if they don't feel they have income to pay them back. Unless we have a nuclear war and have to rebuild the system with 1% of the population, you're not going to get people to give up using money to transfer value amongst themselves. I think unions and professional organizations are a good limiting factor on the unchecked greed of business owners. No business owner is going to be nice and share their profits equitably among their workers unless something forces them to. A union is an employee's best hope of getting as many table scraps from the executive dining room table as possible -- no one employee, not even a DevOps Ninja, will get the management class to give in to anything they want.
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Timing went from bad to worse (Score:2)
Now we have a GOP that is still drunk on power calling the shots in DC. These workers might as well go take a long walk off a short pier at this point.
The good news ... (Score:2)
Re:We'll see what Trump does (Score:5, Insightful)
Well he campaigned on the idea of giving power back to the people, so if he were an honest man, he'd be on the workers'/union's side here. However it's quite obvious that he's the biggest, greatest liar in the world, as well as being a traditional conservative corporate whore, so he's going to be on AT&T's side.
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Trump has always been anti-union, something those white union workers who voted for him have seem to have forgotten.
Many union members in closed shop states (including California, but not Nevada) don't actually like unions, and are only members because paying union dues is a condition of employment.
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Las Vegas here. I can attest that most of our construction unions are shit for people actual skill.
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With actual skill. Sorry about that lil buzzed
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The freeloading "problem" only exists because unions negotiate for closed shops in right-to-work states but Unions don't want employees knowing about their Beck rights. We'll see if the requirement for businesses to post notifications of Beck rights for employees will be reinstated under Trump after Obama had removed it.
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But I don't want to talk to a call center. I want to talk to a human being. Oh, wait. I say that already, even before robots are introduced. Although they seem like robots. Their programming is fairly rigid.
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about 17,000 americans will be murdered by americans.
about 200,000 americans will be killed by the doctor through medical mistakes
and more americans will be killed by sharks, lightening strikes, and falling coke machines than killed by terrorists.
Given that the US imprisons a higher percentage of the population than any other country, has a murder rate much higher than other 1st world countries it would make just as much sense to keep US citizens from being able to go anywhere
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Re:Too bad Muslim terrorists don't go on strike (Score:4, Interesting)
UK 0.9/100,000
Canada 1.5/100,000
Germany 0.9/100,000
France 1.2/100,000
New Zealand 0.9/100,000
Australia 1.0/100,000
Spain 0.7/100,000
China 0.8/100,000
Japan 0.3/100,000
Italy 0.8/100,000
Sweden 0.9/100,000
Iceland 0.3/100,000
And the site I am looking at says the USA is 3.9/100,000 which puts it 108th out of 218 countries
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Almost half the countries in the world are safer than the USA.
And the US imprisonment rate is nearly 700/100,000
Canada 114/100,000
Germany 78/100,000
France 103/100,000
New Zealand 202/100,000
Australia 152/100,000
Spain 131/100,000
China 118/100,000
Japan 47/100,000
Italy 89/100,000
Sweden 53/100,000
Iceland 45/100,000
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
So yeah, most countries could indeed be safer if they kept americans out, they seem to have a high rate of crime and murder compared to other 1st world civilised countries. That wall is looking better and better, not to keep Mexicans out, but to keep Americans in, Canada should take a close look at this, who knows maybe they can get the US to pay.
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Terror attacks are rare in the US because we've kept the terrorists out. Now there's a concerted effort to ship terrorists to the western world. Europe has changed from attacks being just as rare as here, to attacks being common. Let's not have that here. Islamic terrorists killed over 22,000 people last year, and it's an ongoing and increasing campaign. Keep the attacks here rare, please.
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In the period 2004-20013 3066 Americans were killed due to terrorists, 2902 were killed in 9/11
In the period 2004 -20013 over 126,000 americans were murdered by americans.
If you remove 9/11 as a statistical outlier you have are 128 time more likely to be murdered than killed by a terrorist.If you assume half the people know their murderer you are over 60 times more likely to be killed by someone you know than by a terrorist.
Now lets compare this to deaths in Iraq
htt [theguardian.com]
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War sucks. Lets not have one in our homeland. This is not a complicated concept.
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Its not rocket science, when you kill people in another country, those people get pissed off and want revenge
In that regard they are no different to americans it seems
They DONT have drones or planes or missiles, so their "weapon of choice" is suicide bombers and the like, the only effective weapon available for their use.
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Then keep your troops, your drones, your guns, your bombs, etc etc out of other peoples countries.
Sure, we could take the position of weakness. Or, we could keep stomping anyone who annoys us, and protect our borders. That works too. But we can't do half-and-half.
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For good reason, as western imperialist assholes have been fucking with them for the last century. Overthrowing Iran's democracy, installing despots like Saddam and the Shah, killing half a million kids with sanctions and calling it 'worth it' - your shitbaggery started long before Predator Drone strikes.
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Because the United States is hard to attack. It's surrounded by the world's largest oceans and two large, friendly nations.
Oh, do go fuck yourself, racist Western Exceptionalist. It's not Muslims invading, overthrowing and bombing countries on the other side of the planet from them for bullshit reasons- that's what you are doing to them. And all the 'Islamic terro
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That's why there were several attacks in one week in Germany? That's why Parliament was attacked? That's why Turkey says you should be afraid to walk the streets?
It's convenient to blane the US, but it's not realistic.
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Europe has changed from attacks being just as rare as here, to attacks being common.
Maybe European citizens should also establish 'the right to bear arms'?
Let's not have that here.
Then buy all means, keep the guns!
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we've kept the terrorists out
No, we just have a different sort of terrorism here.
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