These are not government workers, but private business worker thuggery who resort immediately to outrageous behavior on Day One to bend the curve toward their own demands.
Who can sympathize with these people? Certainly not most American workers who are afraid to look at their 401ks these days.
Certainly not the employer.
So the point of this behavior is what? Apparently it is simply to bully the employer using violent tactics until they scream "Uncle."
What's interesting about this particular strike by CWA and IBEW is that it immediately was violent and aggressive. Often the violence is a result of increasing tension over time; not so this time.
The strike began on August 7, but the union ramped up excitement for the strike by having a huge rally on July 30. They are also chronicling their actions (albeit missing the violence) on YouTube which can be seen here.
The immediate action within 24 hours of calling the strike included sabotaging Verizon lines and picketing in front of Verizon executives' homes.
- Ten incidents of fiber-optic lines being deliberately cut in the Bronx, Pomona, Farmingdale and Guilderland in New York; two separate incidents in Tewksbury in Massachusetts; incidents in Bel Air in Maryland, and East Dover, Oakland and Plainfield in New Jersey.
- An outage due to stolen electronic equipment in Cedar Grove, N.J., affecting a local police department, among other customers.
- An incident due to tampering with a heating system at a central office in Manhattan.
Unionists have picketed the home of a customer receiving service.
These lawless acts increase, as social media is being used to harass and threaten those who would replace them or use Verizon's service.
From Big Government we see the Facebook threats of a "noose" around the neck of anyone who replaces workers:
…Pretty tricky trying to get the jump on us, but we’re a lot smarter than you think. Can you see how are tactics are changing? How it seems like you can’t shake us? Can you feel the noose tightening? That noose is called union brotherhood….
[snip]
See you tomorrow…unless you man up and GO HOME!!
The Noose Around Your Throat,
IBEW-CWA
Heritage notes the increasing intimidation of Verizon workers who are not part of the strike:
Under the National Labor Relations Act, it is illegal for a picketing union to prevent non-striking employees from entering company facilities. But in the last couple days, there have been numerous apparent instances of Verizon strikers doing just that.
Now it appears that someone with keys went into an underground vault at Verizon and cut the phone service to the entire town of Lemont Furnace for 29 hours.
A complete list of incidents can be found here.
While the FBI is deciding whether these striking workers are terrorists because of the illegalities of which they are accused, no word yet from the Obama administration.
President Obama was widely ridiculed for his comments about technology's effects on unemployment:
President Obama explained to NBC News that the reason companies aren't hiring is not because of his policies, it's because the economy is so automated. ... "There are some structural issues with our economy where a lot of businesses have learned to become much more efficient with a lot fewer workers. You see it when you go to a bank and you use an ATM, you don't go to a bank teller, or you go to the airport and you're using a kiosk instead of checking in at the gate."
Why the ridicule?
We would never have started using automobiles if this mentality had been in place. This is not a "structural issue." The mentality is simply ignoring progress and its influences on the culture.
The company has to cut costs because of society's changing technological needs, again from the LUR:
In fact, according to the Atlantic, “between 2006 and 2011, Verizon landlines have declined from 47 million to 25 million — nearly a 50% collapse in five years.” This dramatic decrease in Verizon’s landline business is likely a key motivator in the company’s desire to have its unionized workforce begin
contributing more toward their health care costs.
People aren't going to go back to landlines. It's nearly impossible to find a public phone, and fewer people are tethered to home phones anymore.
The video that the CWA put up for the July 30 rally is entitled, "Whatever It Takes."
Apparently that's the philosophy. They'll do whatever it takes to get what they want, regardless the reality of changing societal needs and technology.
Oh, for a Reagan.
Yes that is right they still have 25 million lines. There are many reasons for that decrease in lines. One 4.5 million of those losses are fios adds. The company counts a customer that signs up for fios as a pots loss even though they just move them from copper to fiber, never actually losing a customer. Two, many of the loses are brought on by the company. Many people would keep their landline , except believe this or not, the company is short staffed. Sometimes it takes up to a week to get your phone fixed. This is because we do not have enough people to do the work. This is easy to figure out when our base pay is about 75k but eveyone makes 90k ++ because they do not want to hire people. Three that number 45 million was very inflated from when many people still had a second line from dial up internet. Verizon is growing and should be growing even more with the fios service. FYI verizon actually has PROFITTED 600+million this year alone on the wireline side. Check page 13 of their quarterly financials. So whatever Verizon is leading you to believe is very much a smoke screen. They are adding fios customers, they are not losing money at all, They have cut or bought out 35k jobs in last three years , to keep their workforce in line with customer base, and have put such a smoke screen in front of everyone that you have no idea what the truth is. the wireline workforce does alot more than just service copper residensial phone lines. We put in fios lines on poles , change poles , service the millions of businesses that rely on wireline. We put in and splice the fiber lines that feed the cell towers. Yes believe that. Cell towers do not work without wireline service. All the calls route through the switches that wireline takes care of. There are dozens of other things we do. So before you all jump on Verizons smoke and mirrors bandwagon, do a little research or ask your neighbor that works for verizon. Maybe they can help get you a good paying job like the 45k of us are fighting to keep.
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