said by markopoleo :

"If Verizon is allowed to do this, it will lead to suicides, foreclosures and broken families. This is nothing but pure corporate greed."

So unions are on a decline and they can't figure out why..morons :uhh:

said by winsyrstrife :

It seems that some companies don't want to deal with union workers. What keeps them from laying off all union workers or hiring only non-union workers?

said by markopoleo :

So unions are on a decline and they can't figure out why..morons :uhh:

said by MichaelWacey :

If they do, then, they should bite the bullet and pay it in MA. If no other State makes them pay property taxes, then MA should not be making this change.

said by lorennerol :

Unions were formed to protect against company mistreatment of employees, not to run the companies. They need to get back to their original purpose.

said by winsyrstrife :

It seems that some companies don't want to deal with union workers. What keeps them from laying off all union workers or hiring only non-union workers?

said by MichaelWacey :

It seems to me that much of what people dislike about Unions would go away if they had to compete. Just as Companies are not allowed to be monopolies, neither should Unions be allowed to be monopolies.

That is, there would be multiple Unions with people who can do a job. Then, every three to five years, the company would put the job of supplying labor out to bid. My guess is that the Union would change but most of the employees would switch Unions.

said by markopoleo :

"If Verizon is allowed to do this, it will lead to suicides, foreclosures and broken families. This is nothing but pure corporate greed."

So unions are on a decline and they can't figure out why..morons :uhh:

I love how they pull the "Company is doing good so please don't fire us" ploy. Like the two mean anything in business.

said by firephoto :

Now use the same sentence but use the words federal government, corporations and lobbyists.

You and others seem to miss or ignore the point that Verizon is making boat loads of money while still employing all these costly 'union workers'. It's pretty obvious they only want to share the money with people riding desks.

said by antiphishing :

Evil Verizon is more then likely shipping more customer service and IT related jobs to third world counties like India. :mad:

said by winsyrstrife :

It seems that some companies don't want to deal with union workers. What keeps them from laying off all union workers or hiring only non-union workers?

said by nitzan :

If they [Verizon] laid off all union workers, where are they going to find this many workers qualified to replace them? The answer is they can't.

said by lorennerol :

Companies that do not have the flexibility to RAPIDLY change their direction (product, strategy, tactics, fixed costs ) cannot survive in the fast-paced globalized economy of 2009.

said by major marco :

Sure they can. They don't have to innovate/change anything. They just tell Congre$$ that the sky will fall if they don't get bailed out and voila! Instant bailout. Just ask the Big Three in Detroit.

said by antiphishing :

Evil Verizon is more then likely shipping more customer service and IT related jobs to third world counties like India. :mad:

said by markopoleo :

"If Verizon is allowed to do this, it will lead to suicides, foreclosures and broken families. This is nothing but pure corporate greed."

So unions are on a decline and they can't figure out why..morons :uhh:

said by lorennerol :

Things have changed with the former big-3. If you need proof take a drive around Detroit and check the unemployment rate in southeast Michigan.

said by major marco :

As to the union, it was a very small part of the blame for not being willing to take reasonable cuts during lean times, however, the union did not make the executive decisions to continue building gas guzzling SUVs meanwhile the Japanese innovated and changed to accommodate the economic reality of peak oil.

said by nitzan :

CWA (Communication Workers of America) represents something like 700,000 telecom professionals. Verizon probably has at least 200-300k of them. If they laid off all union workers, where are they going to find this many workers qualified to replace them?

The answer is they can't. This is the real power unions possess.

said by woody7 :

Most union workers are not lazy and useless, on the contrary. Do we still need them? That is debatable. What rights do you have in a non union shop? None! Your rights are like managements, you serve at the will of the company , unless you have an employment contract. can you be fired for any reason, most likely unless it is prohibited by state or Federal law. Can you be fired out of seniority ? Sure. Unions don't protect useless and lazy incompetent workers, they protect the system. I am not an advocate of unions, but I respect what they have done for the worker. If you need to fire someone, there usually is a procedure that has to be followed. Which is where the problem arises. Someone has been with company A for x amount of years, and they have a problem getting rid of them. Has management followed the correct procedures? evaluations per contract, letters to file, etc etc, it is called progressive discipline. I had union employees and had no problem getting rid of them. There is just a little dog and pony show you have to follow. And document document.......that is where the problem is, management doesn't do this and can't understand why there is a problem. You don't get rid of anyone after years and just say they are useless, if they did true performance appraisals, this would be a no brainer. Peace. And yes Obama has a birth certificate

said by elbm :

With out the union we would be worse off than management around here. Management is rif'ed all the time, management's benefits/insurance gets reduced regularly, the have lost vacation days, schedules change, they get reassigned, they pay a big chunk of their benefits, they lost their pension and they are generally just abused.

said by wdoa :

Sorry you Obama haters, but if we allow a totally free market like you want 2/3rds of this country wouldn't have phone service or electricity. The public needs to be put back into these public utilities.

said by nitzan :

This was for just one position. Imagine going through this for 300,000 positions. They'd have to hire an army of HR workers just to handle all the hiring and firing - not to mention there is NO WAY they could find people qualified enough to replace the previous worker immediately. Even experienced techs take between a few weeks to a few months before they work at full capacity.

Sure, we have a ton of laid off IT guys on the market, but picture this: you take a Java developer who used to make $80k/year, and try to teach him to climb telephone poles and how to properly punch lines in a PBX, and then pay him $40k/year. You'll end up with a worker who's less efficient than the previous one, spends months being dead weight until they actually learn everything, and has lower moral because they hate their new life. (the mortgage they took when they made $80k didn't look too bad - until they started making $40k and suddenly the mortgage eats up half their salary)

I think the point I'm trying to make is- a Verizon executive would be literally insane to try and replace all union workers at once with non-union. It cannot be done without losing 90% of your workers - and customers.

said by ReasonVoice :

CEOs make 1/3 of all the pay in this country just to play golf and wine and dine with their executive clients...

said by dboswell :

I don't care if its cheaper to hire someone from India. If nobody has a job in the U.S., then how are any of these greedy corporations going to sell their product?? I am in a union and yes there are those ultra high seniority members that are lazy and worthless, but 98% of the remaining members are very dedicated and hard workers.

said by nitzan :

Sure, we have a ton of laid off IT guys on the market, but picture this: you take a Java developer who used to make $80k/year, and try to teach him to climb telephone poles and how to properly punch lines in a PBX, and then pay him $40k/year. You'll end up with a worker who's less efficient than the previous one, spends months being dead weight until they actually learn everything, and has lower moral because they hate their new life. (the mortgage they took when they made $80k didn't look too bad - until they started making $40k and suddenly the mortgage eats up half their salary)

I think the point I'm trying to make is- a Verizon executive would be literally insane to try and replace all union workers at once with non-union. It cannot be done without losing 90% of your workers - and customers.

said by Flibbetigibb :

Simple solution there: do what thousands of other companies have done, and move to a right-to-work state where union thugs don't run the show.

said by nutcr0cker :

If these republicans/neocons/whiners were even slightly less hypocitical they would start competing with the Indians/Mexicans/Chinese. Open up all markets and lets see how competitive most of you sorry asses are.If Americans are stupid enough to vote for Bush twice...anything goes

said by kleinml :

If they commit suicide then Verizon down head count and they are not burdening the un employment system. I don't see the problem.

said by patcat88 :

They aren't, the unions bankrolled Obama's campaign, and he is their puppet now (looking at UAW).

said by wdoa :

I didn't say strictly by population, geographically certainly 2/3rds would be an accurate figure, but as a absolute free market advocate who cares about them. The market knows all. yeah right.

said by wdoa :

Do you believe that the corporations should be able to determine that they are not profitable and deny service?

said by FloridaBoy :

No doubt Verizon as a whole is doing ok but the Landline division has been taking it in the chin for the last few years.

Last I heard the Wireless side was a non-union shop. So, the layoffs are going into a division that is in decline.

said by visuelz :

My honest opinion is that everyone in the union should get fired. Many of them are slackers of the company. People that work hard should have no reason to join a union.

said by sonicmerlin :

Lol, you're a tool, you know that? $100k+ salaries? Are you nuts? I have never heard of a factory worker or low-level tech company employee making anywhere near 100k.

Perhaps you would like for US workers to live on China-like $25/day salaries.

Thankfully the rest of us are not complete idiots.

Our standard of living is much higher than an underdeveloped country's standard. Large corporation executives already make millions upon millions in bonuses. It is not the job of the people to make less money so that idiotic management who can't see past their noses and are only concerned with immediate, short-term ROI, can make even more millions.

Here's a clue buddy: the current form of the market is NOT meant to ensure that your company can make endless amounts of profit. The market was created and is protected by the government for the sole purpose of ensuring the highest standard of living for society at large. We're don't have a centralized, communist-like economy because we feel that it is ineffective and inefficient, and does not lead to the best outcome for society.

It's a rational choice based on the concept of maximized utility, as any reader of Adam Smith could tell you.

And by the way, by mentioning Korea in your anti-plebeian rant, you demonstrated you know absolutely nothing about world politics or economies. South Korea is one of the most technologically and economically advanced countries in the world. It's on par with Japan. Take your head out of the sand.

said by patcat88 :

What about the unlawful death civil cases?

said by The Truth :

Mr Real Truth seems angry. Would it be that you don't want the general public to know how good you have it?

Your dental is indeed free, minus co-pay.

$100 for an ER visit. Unless you are a stuntman by trade, that would be maybe twice a year, hopefully none. An entire $200! Goodness, where will you get that scratch together?

Tuition. Thank you for making my point. The point was to show how well you folks are treated. Clearly you agree.

Yes, LIBERAL sick time. 2 sick period (1 - 5 days = 1 period) in 12 months gets you a warning on a 5 step program. So you have to be sick quite a bit more than that to get any disciplinary action. Then you have FMLA which saves your job should you have a long term illness.

Yes, outside techs make well over $100K and many do work very hard. However, many do not and enjoy naps, the paper and all sorts of NON work time. The GPS is a joke and rarely enforced. The foreman have to cover 3 times the amount of techs these days and cover hundreds of miles. If they push too hard they get union problems. Too little, upper management craps on them.

As for applying, HAHAHAHAHA, do you think I just know all this by chance? When you are in a family of Bell Heads out here in the midwest, you learn a thing or two. As for me, I'll take your spiders and see you a fully engulfed apartment house. Care to trade?

said by nitzan :

As an employer myself, I can tell you this is not so simple. I was hiring for a support position back in April. Out of hundreds of resumes only a handful of people were even close to being qualified, out of those the majority wanted almost twice the wage we were hiring for. In the end only about 1% of the people were both reasonably qualified and fit our target wage range.

said by ReVeLaTeD :

Another company wanted to hire a developer for $40k. In California. Come on now, that's not acceptable. I could make more money in customer service.

said by nitzan :

We were hiring for a customer service position, actually.

What you're saying is really funny to me. You're somehow expecting jobs to pay six-figures or whatever, and seem to feel a "mere" $40k is below your standards. Good luck finding a six-figures job in this economy if you get "restructed"....

said by nitzan :

Ok, that sounds a bit more reasonable. :)

The reason those applicants wanted more $ was not that we were offering a low wage - we were offering a fair wage for the position. The problem was we were hiring for a VoIP customer support position - but we got many MANY resumes from people who were either non-qualified (no tech experience whatsoever) - or people who were overqualified (developers, experienced sys admins, etc.) - those overqualified obviously wanted a higher wage than we were willing to pay.