You must work here with that comment you tool. I do my job here and so do many others. I understand you get some bad apples here & there but don't group us all together. We have families and will fight for them.

I was employed by an incumbent local exchange carrier as a first level manager. The Union prevented management from cheating the craft employees out of overtime pay like I was. Management tried to weasel the union into convincing the rank in file into accepting compensatory time off in lieu of overtime pay. That was one hour not one and one half hours off for each hour of overtime worked. Craft personnel shot that proposal down when they asked management when they would be able to use their compensatory time off when they had to consistently work overtime in order to complete their assignments and did not receive a rational answer. Historically employees that are offered compensatory time off never get to use it.

At least most telephone company technicians are competent employees while many cable company technicians are incompetent contractors.

A lot of people only talk about the techs during negotiations, but there are lot of call center employees(like myself) being effected. Right now the busiest call centers are in Tijuana, India and the Philippines. There are also non unions contractors taking calls in the states.

These contractors cause so much frustration to the customers base. They didn't get proper training and the turnover rate is ridiculous. They often give wrong information and sometimes outright lie to customers(not to mentions hang up on them or just blindly transfer them). And what does verizon want to do? Give more calls to these outside contractors.

I work in the Fiber Solution Center doing tech support. I had to pass A+ exam to even get an interview. Then I had to go through 2 months of training and take another test to get the job. My colleagues and I are highly trained and give the customers the service they deserve. Verizon is trying to cut our heads off. FiOS customers pay a premium for the service. The customers should have capable reps to support them

So what exactly happens if CWA walks off the job and Verizon just replaces all of the workers? That's the ultimate union threat, but Verizon seems to be training people to do just that. And then what? We'll have 45,000 or so people joining the ranks of unemployed?