Verizon Workers: Why they won
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/06/verizon-strike-contract-deal-cwa-ibew-union-pickets/>>>
The unions beat back the company’s demand to be able to send workers away from their home cities to work anywhere in the Verizon system for weeks at a time. The company agreed to make 1,500 new hires — most of them call-center workers — which would counter the trend towards outsourcing.
And Verizon caved to the demand of sixty-five Verizon unionized retail store workers for a first contract. The number of new CWA members is small, but this is an important foothold in Verizon’s massive wireless operation, which is almost entirely non-union.
Another big win for tech workers in New York City in particular was the abandonment of the hated Quality Assurance Review (QAR), a productivity program that in reality was a disciplinary tool that led to unpaid suspensions, often thirty days long.
>
Management also dropped a number of other aggressive demands, such as a cap on pension credits at thirty years and measures intended to strengthen management’s hand and harass high-seniority workers into early retirement.
The proposed deal, which will now go to all locals for a ratification vote by June 17, does contain important downsides. According to the contract summary released by the CWA, workers will have to pay significantly more in health care costs, both in insurance premiums and deductibles.
>>>
Good read with info on some tactics used by the strikers, such as picketing the hotel where scabs were staying.
= new reply since forum marked as read
It was a win for the Wireless employees
"According to the contract summary released by the CWA, workers will have to pay significantly more in health care costs, both in insurance premiums and deductibles. "
The executive team knew they couldn't come back to wireless yet again - and ask us to make up he difference for wireline missing their numbers - Again- without assuring us we weren't getting something out of the deal. Our annual cost has gone up every year since 2011. By spreading it out across the business it enables a Wireless analyst to take home the same amount of money on January 13, 2017 as they did on December 30th 2016. For the past four years we've been taking pay cuts every January.
Now in the big picture - CWA made a big mistake. They advised wireless analysts, specialists and coordinators with advanced degrees (Masters in Business, Marketing, Engineering etc etc) with ten/fifteen years experience making 80K a year that that 130K a year skilled technician jobs in NJ, NYC, Greater Boston area were "solid middle class jobs". By putting that figure out there - and early - they put management in a position of quelling an insurrection on their Work Horse side of the house.
In the meantime their peers on wire line (in labor speak "Management"
:
Come into HQ at 9 am.
Go get breakfast.
Turn on their laptop at 9:30.
Attend a conference call.
Write/Respond to a few emails.
Go to the gym for an hour.
Eat lunch in the cafeteria.
Attend a conference call.
Write responded to a few emails.
Go to the on campus coffee shop.
Write/Respond to a few emails.
Log off between 3:30 and 4:30 and go home.
They get the same benefits as the Union employees. Compared to -
6:30 to 8:00 AM and leaving between 3:30 and 6 pm. There's flex time in that.
A back up at the microwaves at lunch time.
The "win" of having those "one cup" coffee machines we've brought from home in the kitchen areas. We don't have time to walk to the coffee shop. Some Concerned Citizen tried to stop that because they weren't in all of the places Union Employees worked. At 130K a year they can all chip in and buy one for their location.
Salaried employees getting "overtime pay" is not consistent.
Heart attacks at desks - a buddy of mine died last year at work.
Consistently reducing the Wireless workforce. IE I picked up another job in October last year - the layoffs always come on wireless to make us look as profitable as possible.
Moved (this is very important) Finance and Sourcing to Ireland and some wireless research to India.(CWA never mentioned this during the strike)
Etc etc.
It's not the technicians and and customer service reps on Wireline causing the resentment.
When you paint the picture - the big picture shows glaring differences between so-called "management" employees. The "management" classification does not exist in wireless. If you don't have Mgr after your function in the org chart - you don't get the title - or the pay. The average analyst in wireless should be livid at getting lumped in with their perceived lazy counterparts in suits on wireline side. And they are.
The end result - a lot of cheering for our store employees in wireless. Our front line is critical to our success and we have got to have them happy.
But - a lot of crossed fingers that the long term union deal means wireline can be sold and we can go be a digital media company. The purchase of AOL highlighted how they work vs how we work. It was gobsmacking when I started interacting with that team. Their culture is what wireless was ten years ago. Because "Management" on wireline can't have too much in terms of perks - it holds wireless back from providing the perks our peers at Google, Facebook, etc etc get. I want to work at a tech company - most of us do. We used to work at a company like that - buts it's becoming an unhip, not sexy, behemoth of a drudge.
Those of us in Wireless ten+ years know damn well this deal for the Union employees is going to benefit us in the long run.
And short run - because we aren't taking a pay cut January 13, 2017.
Wireline "Management" got to put in a Hard Days Work . . . For a change.
Now they know what it's like to be a Technician.
Next - this Christmas? The in store help program? They need to be required to participate. I do every year. Let them see what the frontline store rep has to deal with everyday, standing on their feet, with customers threatening them and throwing phones at them. Make them co-listen on a Global Support (customers traveling outside the U.S.) team call. Work the command center the next time a new innovation launches.
I appreciate these worker bees - because I've seen first hand what they encounter.
