Verizon wireline division workers are on strike, which may affect landline operations as well as installation of services like FiOS, its fiber-optic television and Internet lines. The usual, healthcare costs and pensions, are the sticking points. We are going to see more and more strikes, because with corporations across the country making record profits each quarter while still refusing to give up their many tax breaks, all the while asking their workers to sacrifice more just so the CEO can get a bigger bonus.
From Daily Kos:
Verizon’s demands include:
Continued contracting out of work to low-wage contractors, which means more outsourcing of good jobs overseas.
Eliminating disability benefits for workers injured while on the job.
Elimination of all job security provisions.
Eliminating paid sick days for new hires and limiting them to no more than five for any workers.
Freezing pensions for current workers and eliminating them for future employees.
Replacing the current high-quality health care plan with a high-deductible plan requiring up to $6,800 in additional costs.Meanwhile, Verizon is doing just fine:
2011 annualized revenues are $108 billion and annualized net profits are $6 billion.
Verizon Wireless just paid its parent company and Vodaphone a $10 billion dividend.
Verizon’s top five executives received compensation of $258 million over the past four years.
Herman Cain is being attacked by conservatives for his apology to American Muslims. He forgot that to be a conservative, you must hate everyone who is not like you. And he forgot that, to conservatives, apologies for being wrong make you weak and wrong yourself.