Here's the thing...
...About 45,000 employees went on strike on Aug. 7, after their previous contract expired. They work in the company’s landline division in nine states from Massachusetts to Virginia.
Verizon says that it needs to cut costs in the traditional landline phone business, which is in decline as more Americans switch to mobile phones.
...Verizon spokesman Richard Young said that many of the benefits and work rules were put in place when Verizon faced much less competition in its landline business. “The contracts are not reflective of today’s marketplace,” he said.
...Nearly 30 percent of U.S. homes have dropped landline phone service and rely on mobile phones only, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.
Unions stagnate growth and innovation in so many ways. This is a succinct example. Unions want to protect a pay and benefits package negotiated at a time when the technology supported by their benefactor was completely different than it is now. Even though technological advancement in the marketplace has indicated that what has heretofore supported them is going to eventually cease to exist, they would rather kill the company by forcing it to remain stagnant than allow it to grow.
This they don't get. Everything about them is me, me, me - my, my my, mine; a short-term vision with little to no idea that in order for any company to stay viable is to adapt. Talking to some of these folks brings home right quick the misbegotten notion they have that all companies exist, or should, to provide jobs, without a good grasp on just what a job
is. They do not grasp that a job is a piece of work that needs doing; without the work, there is no "job" to do. There is simply less and less landline work to do and that's not likely to change.
One other thing involved here is that Verizon is contributing toward paying retirees for their prescription costs (Feds subsidize to cover the gap between *here* and Medicare), which I did not know. Shades of GM. Thanks to Obamacare, this is going away.
I witnessed all of this years ago with Western Union. The union was bound and determined that nothing about 'work' should change while the technology had already exceeded the need for so many people. And they were damned ungrateful about everything connected with 'work'. Union contract called for two 15-minute breaks a day and an hour for lunch. Fridays would come, they would take their paychecks, run to the bank during their first break, and then complain bitterly they had to use their break-time to do their banking business.