In My Backyard: Letters D and E.

Here comes letters D and E, kids, recorded on 7/25, a special double header for Dan's birthday!

We discuss Amy Winehouse, Dan's birthday, and more matters of the heart.

Click here, cats and kittens, to be geeked for Letter D.

Click here instead for letter E.

Why Verizon's Strike Is A Big Deal

Unions.

They're under a lot of fire recently, because big business doesn't want you to organize. They don't want you to have a say in what goes on in your workplace. They believe if you don't like it, find a job elsewhere.

In a struggling economy, though, there is no elsewhere. Major telecommunications corporations are taking in money faster than they ever have, hand over fist, and rather than rewarding the hard work of their employees upper management is telling them to tighten the belt. Make sacrifices.

Those sacrifices go straight into management's pocket and we never see a dime of it.

Don't get me wrong--in a tough economy, I am 100% down with cutting costs and saving money wherever we can in order to remain profitable (that's my pension, thankyouverymuch), but when we go to the lengths that we do and the company does turn a profit, we don't see it. That makes me angry.

So we go to the bargaining table, asking to be treated as if we have some value. For AT&T, it didn't come to a strike.

For Verizon, it has.

Verizon's gross negligence is staggering. I can rant all day about how cell phone companies rely on their ability to maintain service (all cell calls eventually go into or pass through the land line system) and how it will take them regularly two or more weeks to complete a four hour job.

Let's not start there. Let's start with the numbers:
http://www.newnetworks.com/UnderbellyVerizonStrike.htm

Then we can talk about employee treatment:
http://www.cwa-union.org/issues/entry/c/verizon


Look, just as an army marches on its stomach, a company's treatment of its customers and the profits they make, the company's very performance comes from the way the corporation treats its employees.

It's time to stop this blame shit on the poor people thing we've been doing. It's time to stop blaming the voters, stop blaming the employees, stop blaming the teachers, stop blaming the unions and start blaming the politicians, lobbyists, and the corporate assholes that are responsible for this mess.

Your actions do have repercussions. Examples need to be made. Accountability MUST become the name of the game.

Sigh. Every day is the end of the world, folks. It's what you do after the end that matters.

Signing off for now, this has been Caeli. Don't burn down your neighbor's house.