Verizon Continues Layoffs > Unions

reply to BosstonesOwn

Re: Unions

That is just it man , it's all about who you "blow" not what ya do. Ever notice how people who "got in" to the union via a "friend" never seem to get let go of until the end if they are even let go ?

And they have been there 2 years while they guys that have been there 6 years are gone first ?

I have family in a lot of the local unions and even the auto unions in the midwest.

The unions right now are not the issue. Greed in general is.
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"It's always funny until someone gets hurt......and then it's absolutely friggin' hysterical!"

Your examples show the unions are a huge part of the problem particularly in standing in the way of productivity.

But there are 99 problems ahead of it , you gotta take the heavy issues on right now , not take a weak issue like unions on.

If you take on the harder issues right now , it may eliminate the weaker issues. Once the bigger issues are dealt with you move to the smaller issues.

Right now productivity is not a concern , keeping these companies afloat seems to be the major one. Which to me is minor.
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"It's always funny until someone gets hurt......and then it's absolutely friggin' hysterical!"

And it would be easier to keep them "afloat" if they were permitted to keep the best workers and lose the worst.

I totally agree , but I believe in responsibility , if they dump good workers , then the manages should be held accountable for what happens.

Which is not what is happening in america today.
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"It's always funny until someone gets hurt......and then it's absolutely friggin' hysterical!"

The problem is the union prevents them from choosing between good and bad workers even if Verizon management had enough brain cells to determine which were good or bad or even cared in the first place.

reply to Z80

Quality be damned; the union motto. Last hired first fired regardless of job performance is a great way to protect the lazy and incompetent while ignoring any new hire who is motivated and busts ass.

Labor is subject to market forces as well and a worker is only worth what it costs to replace them, nothing more. The union should do their part to insure that their membership is worth a bundle by insisting on excellent job performance. If the union was synonymous with top quality motivated employees instead of lazy shovel leaners, they could get their membership more $$$ and they would have earned every penny.

As it stands now, hard work counts for nothing so why do it?

You're not getting it. You can be fired for performance irregardless of seniority, but they will have to at least prove it, can't just say "you're fired because I say so."

If you don't work hard here you will have a rough time as your slacking falls on other people to pickup and they WILL call you out for it and then undermine you.
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"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." -- Benito Mussolini

You're not getting it. That isn't what happened here so sayith the union spokesperson.

quote:

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Hetrick said the FIOS technicians had plenty of work to do but were laid off because they had less seniority than other union members.

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If management does their job the the senior employee will not be an idiot. Sure in some cases the better employee loses a job but in a lot of cases it is the management that caused the problem in the first place but they keep their jobs.
I have never thought of the banks and Wall Street as being a bastion of union workers but it was the highest paid managers that brought the economy to its knees. Most of the crowd that made the decisions kept their jobs and got bonuses while the employees that answered the phones and did their jobs were sent packing. People were not kept by their ability but by what department or division they were in.
So your it is the unions fault is just wrong.

Again, we aren't talking about Wall St. We are talking about these particular people who were laid off because they did not have proper seniority and that is what is wrong. No one should be laid off or kept because of seniority, union or non-union.

Except half of your posts in this thread were anti-union rants, completely oblivious to reality or how unions actually work. You make ridiculous assumptions about the function of unions and what caused our economy to fall into a recession in the first place. It`s stupid and to be honest disrespectful, especially considering the reason you`re not working 12 hours a day, 7 days a week is because unions exist.

reply to Z80
What he's really saying is there was plenty of work to do but Verizon decided to lay people off anyway, so the people with the least seniority got the shaft. Not that the people who stayed were lazy suck ups. Basically what he said is the problem was Verizon's decision to lay off people period.
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"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." -- Benito Mussolini

reply to KrK

I see what you're getting at. Are there ways to game the system? Yeah... but the door swings both ways. I think we all can generally tell the difference between good working conditions and unsafe ones.... and who is a good worker and who isn't. Also don't blame the rank and file (union or not) for the problems management creates--- like who they choose to promote. Sheesh, but that's a whole other topic.
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"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." -- Benito Mussolini

reply to sonicmerlin
Except you read only what you choose to read. Stop defending the unions no matter what they do and get some objectivity. There is no excuse for using seniority to select which guys and gals get canned.

We all know all too well how unions actually work. Meanwhile you can skip the attempt at derailing the thread into another political pissing contest. We all know your anti-capitialist positions and they are irrelevant to this discussion of seniority playing a role in layoffs.

Enjoy ignore.

reply to Z80
New workers are obligated to work to retain their positions. Don't forget that they are basically in a trial period where they can be dismissed easily for any reason that the employer dreams up. Todays lazy unionized yob was once yesterday new productive worker.

reply to Z80
YOU KNOW LITTLE ABOUT UNIONS & WHAT IS RIGHT.senior members have paid their dues & that is that.you say that people should be laid off by preformance.well one persons performance is not another's.for instance I am a core tech.the vcs techs bust their butts & do 5 or more jobs a day while we do 2 or 3 in cable maintanence.well we are swamped with jobs that could have been fixed by vcs.some they do not even go out on-just fail it to cable.most times we can not even trust that the cable they fail it to is right.the number crunchers love vcs & hate us.well i know that most customers I see have service at the end of the day.
they had layoffs in the 70's.most got recalled when the times improved.I feel that if it is so slow why not take a gang of techs into an area that has a bad cable situation & switch them all over to fios.they will have great service-we have our foot in the door for tv & we save on dispatching 100 techs into the same area every week.makes sense to me however Verizon management is not known for being too smart[.9 trucks-not getting the iphone-screwing fios customers bills & not correcting it...].Face it Verizon makes money in spite of itself.don't try to figure it out-you never will.
just remember YOU are the union.You bad mouth the union & you loose.How many times did you stand up to management?how many times did you take action?YOU ARE THE UNION & if it sucks you have no one to blame but yourself.It may take a statewide walkout or something as small as leaving 20 dead fish in your bosses office on a weekend to get their attention.
I have told many a vcs tech to do a quality job.they can not fire you for that.they can fire you for stealing or being off base.be on base & do quality work & maybe we will have some customers in the years to come.