Occupy AT&T: The Big Reward

3 Responses to Occupy AT&T: The Big Reward

1. jaye says:

   January 24, 2012 at 8:36 pm

   Great work Rob! One of my dear friends works as a service tech for AT&T. He says the same – worked to death with no reward. He has a wife and two young children to feed. The reality of how At&T treats their workers is in stark contrast to the cutsie, family-values-style commercials for At&T products. Shame on AT&T! I’m in for standing up for the Communication Workers of America on Feb. 14. Power to the People! Go OA!

   Log in to Reply
2. Jack Jersawitz says:

   January 27, 2012 at 10:23 pm

   The problem is the leaders of the CWA (Communications Workers of America) is that they have no program to fight the lay-offs even though they know AT&T is making plenty of money.

   What they need is a demand that there be no lay-offs. Instead of lay-offs they need to be demanding a sliding scale of hours with the necessary amount of work being distributed among all workers and the working day be shortened with no loss in pay, thus enabling AT&T’s workers to benefit from their previous hard work instead of being victimized with lay-offs.

   AT&T ought to be given a deadline of a week to agree to those terms and if they don’t a strike vote should be taken pointing out that those workers remaining after the lay-offs will certainly face much the same in time to come.

   If the leadership cannot agree to such a tactic then the members of the union need to recognize that a new union leadership is needed and pass motions for new elections of a fighting leadership.

   It is also necessary that the leadership and the rank and file recognize that in order not to face the giant AT&T alone they need the support of all the other unions because as has been proven over the last few years a fight against lay-offs, and ultimately plant closures must be taken rather than simply going along with AT&T on the need for lay-offs as has been the policy, rather than a sliding work-week scale of hours, of virtually all union leaders in the last few years; witness, for example, the closure of two massive auto plants in Atlanta in the last few years.

   There is also a political side to this issue and that is expressed, or will be expressed, by government support for AT&T against any militant strike action of the workers, especially when AT&T’s CWA employees start to ask other unions to support them and to join them in strikes, which is against the law set out in Taft-Hartley as to secondary strikes, but which actions are necessary because in this crashing economy all workers face the same fight.

   That means that rather than continue to follow their leaders in supporting the “friends of labor” of the Democratic and sometimes Republican parties who have refused to overturn Taft-Hartley, the union rank and file members need to push for the establishment of a labor based in the unions so that they can have a real choice as to supporting, not the whores of the bourgeoisie, but rather those chosen by workers to represent workers in government, and that also on the basis of a socialist program.

   It should be recognized that this proposal must be understood not just as a proposal for the Communications Workers but as an outlook, a way of thinking, as to all of labor struggles. The strength of labor is in their national and international unity and Taft-Hartley was devised and passed by Congress to destroy that unity.

   http://www.wrp.org.uk

   Jack Jersawitz
   404-892-1238
   bigjackjj@yahoo.com

   Log in to Reply
3. Jack Jersawitz says:

   January 27, 2012 at 10:28 pm

   An error above. The sentence should read “rank and file members need to push for the establishment of a labor party based in the unions
   j.

   Log in to Reply