---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message-ID: <ner118$8c9$1@dont-email.me> Date: Fri, 15 Apr 2016 11:26:41 -0400 From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> Subject: The Verizon Strike Signals a Larger Economic Battle As profits increasingly flow to the top, workers have had enough. BY DAVID DAYEN When you push workers hard enough, eventually they're going to push back. That's what we've seen this week, as Verizon workers initiated the largest strike in America in several years - actually since the last Verizon strike in 2011. Thirty-six thousand landline phone and broadband employees walked out on Wednesday after contract negotiations broke down. The Verizon case incorporates big themes in the economy - outsourcing, monopolies, automation, and inequality, to name a few. It reflects the gradual thinning out of good-paying, middle-class U.S. jobs. And in this election year, it forces politicians to choose - not just between labor and management, but between a future of shared prosperity for workers and one in which a lot of low-paid service employees cater to the bidding of the ultra-rich. https://newrepublic.com/article/132707/verizon-strike-signals-larger-economic-battle -- Bill Horne (Remove QRM from my email address to write to me directly) ------------------------------ Message-ID: <ner0lf$6pm$1@dont-email.me> Date: Fri, 15 Apr 2016 11:20:22 -0400 From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> Subject: A Verizon Worker: Why I'm Striking BY ISAAC COLLAZO On Tuesday night, I put my boys to bed and made the trip from Brooklyn to Manhattan to work my last shift at Verizon before our strike - the biggest U.S. strike in years. If it had been a normal day, I would've left work at 7:30 a.m. and headed home to make sure my boys were ready to start their day. But on Wednesday at 6 a.m., I joined my co-workers on the picket line. Many people wonder how I can afford to strike. I can't. It's because of my boys that I have no choice but to strike. Verizon is pushing to eliminate good, middle-class jobs and make it impossible for someone like me, a technician with an associate's degree, to earn a decent living for my family in New York. http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/isaac-collazo-verizon-worker-striking-article-1.2601649 -- Bill Horne (Remove QRM from my email address to write to me directly) ------------------------------ Message-ID: <ner0pr$6pm$2@dont-email.me> Date: Fri, 15 Apr 2016 11:22:46 -0400 From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> Subject: Sanders, Verizon CEO spar over striking workers Mike Snider, USA TODAY Fresh from several successes and ahead of New York's primary next week, Bernie Sanders is expanding his attack on America's CEOs. America's CEOs are fighting back. Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam became the latest chief executive to spar with the Democratic presidential candidate after Sanders accused the telecommunications giant of "corporate greed" for its plans to "outsource decent paying jobs" while paying high executive wages and avoiding federal taxes. http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2016/04/14/verizon-ceo-bernie-sanders-spar-over-strike/83021704/ -- Bill Horne (Remove QRM from my email address to write to me directly) ------------------------------ Message-ID: <ner17j$8c9$2@dont-email.me> Date: Fri, 15 Apr 2016 11:30:06 -0400 From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> Subject: We must protect workers' right to walk out By Alex Gourevitch The ability to stop production is the ultimate source of worker power. But the right to strike is far from guaranteed. Given the new politics of inequality, there is every reason to think that strikes will become more common. So long as the economy is as radically unequal and oppressive as it is, workers have a right to go on strike. This is an uncomfortable thing to say because of what it means to defend that right. The 40,000-person, Verizon strike on Wednesday and the Fight for $15 strikes on Thursday are just the latest examples of worker walkouts. The Verizon strikers are protesting about a host of issues, including the company's demand for reduced compensation, loss of job security, work relocations and schedules that would require workers to spend months at a time away from their families. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/apr/14/fight-for-15-verizon-strike-protect-workers-right-walkout -- Bill Horne (Remove QRM from my email address to write to me directly) ------------------------------ Message-ID: <ner06m$3o6$1@dont-email.me> Date: Fri, 15 Apr 2016 11:12:33 -0400 From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> Subject: The Verizon Strike Is Already Hitting New Customer Installations A one-day-old strike by nearly 40,000 Verizon Communications employees is causing equipment installation delays for new Internet and TV customers, a Verizon executive acknowledged on Thursday. Workers of Verizon's Fios Internet, telephone and TV services from network technicians to customer service representatives walked off the job on Wednesday in one of the largest U.S. strikes in recent years after contract talks between unions representing them and the company hit an impasse. http://fortune.com/2016/04/15/verizon-strike-customer-installations/ -- Bill Horne (Remove QRM from my email address to write to me directly) ------------------------------ ********************************************* End of telecom Digest Sat, 16 Apr 2016