So there’s a Verizon Strike going on here. It’s producing lovely scenes like this:
This isn’t exclusive to Verizon’s Union. There was a Union Strike at a Nursing Home I used to live near. It was the same thing. Rude behavior, and disruption of business. Only the union thugs would be aimlessly wandering in the street in front of cars of loved ones visiting sick family members. Our Fed-Ex driver has mentioned he was having people block his truck and hammering on the doors as he attempted to make a delivery. And of course they were calling him horrible names.
Some 45,000 Verizon Communications workers across the mid-Atlantic went on strike at midnight Sunday morning to protest a proposed contract that would freeze their pensions and require them to contribute to their health insurance premiums.
If there is a non public-sector, or non-union Job that has a pension these day’s I’d LOVE to see it. Those of us who work for a living have these crappy things called 401Ks that are right now taking a shit because of the crash of the Stock market. “Contribute to their Health Insurance Premiums”??? You mean what we all do?
That’s it? No wage freezes? No ending of 401K matches? No Layoffs?
So they’re striking because the preferential treatment they’re getting? Is there any wonder why those industries are in trouble, and companies are looking to shed their dead-weight union slobs?
Amazing how few grown-ups there are left in the world….
*who’s husband works for Verizon and is thus currently on the strike line and is thus biased*
the actuality is somewhere in the middle, as usual. I’m unfortunetly not surprised though that one or more immature twits is using the strike as an excuse to commit mayham (and if I catch one at it they’re toast), but at least local to me the large majority just want a contract period so they can get back to work thank you very much. Unions have their good points and their bad points, unfortunetly they seem to be determined at making their bad points known to all involved….
The bad point is the unions want the moon and the stars no matter if their employer can afford it, and if the employer doesn’t cave they throw such tantrums that brings business to a halt (here in Mass Workers cut a bunch of Data lines that made a few hundred homes black out as well), and in the end it either drives prices up for the consumer, or drives the company out of business, or out of the area.
Best wishes to your husband, I know ALL Union people aren’t thugs like this…still they ARE all part of the problem.
Cutting telecommunications cable is a popular tactic for telco unions. It happened to AT&T in California the other year and it’s happened in a few other places. It’s despicable.
See, husband and I discussed it a while ago, and we’d have no objection to paying more for our health insurance (yes, contrary to what Verizon keeps insisting we do pay something, not as much as lot of people, but not nothing), and we’d trade pensions for matching contributions to retirement funds no problem, and we’re not the only ones here. But the union’s being fussy….
I do think that verizon is so stuck on the “oh no we’re loosing money on wired services” rant that they’re getting themselves in trouble, the local call center employees are so short handed that if your call goes to them you’re going to be stuck in a 30 min minimum hold time, and 50min is more average. But I also think that if Verizon could drop the copper side they’d do so in a heartbeat, and so they don’t care if those folks are happy or not. The current bigwigs all came up through wireless and so have no real interest in managing the wired side, even though if they paid any attention to it Fios has the potential to make up for everythng else the wired side loses…..but then who listens to the wife of techsupport….
I now have to contribute a portion of my pay to my health insurance, as my employer no longer pays 100%. No one at The Firm went and got all pissy about it.
Also, I hate it when union protestors use their children in protests. Why block the guy’s van? He just wants to get to work and has nothing whatsoever to do with the decisions of upper management in whatever contract dispute this guy is unhappy about.
Why is he blocking the van? Because he’s a petulant child who doesn’t deserve the job he has….but he knows the union he fights for is the only reason why a crass and incompetent turd like him has work.
Yah, theres alot of those too…..
Call child protective services on him.
If putting your kid in traffic isn’t some form of child abuse…
Huh. I’m a public sector employee, and if I bought health insurance through my employer, it would cost every month, about a hundred dollars more than I take home. (Yes, I’m full-time. ) No sympathy here.
I have worked for three non-public sector non-union companies that all have had both a pension and a 401K. FMC Technologies, Lockheed Martin, and NextEra Energy (formerly Florida Power & Light). I have also interviewed with several other companies that had both pensions and 401K. My guess is most of your Fortune 500 that have been that large since the 401K birth probably still have pension. As for all of the more recent startups (tech companies), they built themselves on several years of losses before profitability and the concept of having a pension sort of requires you to have long term profits.
“That’s who you’re hurting”
Huh, well because I’m not a crybaby, guess whose kids aren’t? Wait, you’re not working at your job to get paid an I’M the one hurting your kid? Let’s re-think personal responsibility again. I love the passenger just sitting there sipping his drink. Meh. I’m getting paid. Awesome.
heh “Union Worker” is quite the oxymoron ain’t it?