Then we have the 2011 strike by the Communication Workers of America (CWA) against Verizon, where it appeared the strikers would go back to work before they voted on a new contract. Rae Gomes pointed out in her August 17, 2011 AlterNet article "Can You Hear Us Now? Striking Verizon Workers Rally for Good Jobs and Fair Contracts in New York City" that Verizon was demanding $1 billion in concessions from the CWA, as well as the elimination of pensions for new workers, despite $19 billion in profits over the previous four years. Bob Master, political director of the CWA, points out that, while Verizon had lost almost half of its local phone customer base (landlines) over the previous five years, it was the CWA -supported landlines and Fios systems that had supported Verizon's non-union wireless system and turned profits for the company. Moreover, Verizon's demand for union concessions had been made in spite of the company's compensating its executives with $19 billion in salary and bonuses over the previous four years.
In addition to coming up with the short end of the stick in negotiations, too many unions have also given up the right to strike as part of their contracts.
Jefferson Crowe in his September 5, 2010 op-ed in the New York Times,, "That '70's Feeling," pointed out the changes in attitude that labor has undergone in the last forty years:
"Most workers weren't angry over wages, though, but rather the quality of their jobs. Pundits often called it 'Lordstown syndrome,' after the General Motors plant in Ohio where a young, hip and interracial group of workers held a three-week strike in 1972. The workers weren't concerned about better pay; instead, they wanted more control over what was then the fastest assembly line in the world."
This has always been the greatest error of corporations: to believe that, if you either pay workers enough or make them desperate enough, you can get them to put up with any sort of dangerous working condition or other form of mistreatment.
Later in his op-ed Mr. Crowe points out what happened next:
"When the economy soured in 1974, business executives dismissed workers' complaints about the quality of their occupational life--and then went gunning for their paychecks and their unions as well, abetted by a conservative political climate and the offshoring of the nation's industrial core. Inflation, not unemployment, became Public Enemy No. 1, and workers bore the political costs of the fight against it."
The American people must remember the power of the strike and the peaceful protest. There is nothing that scares the oligarchs of the ownership class more than tens of thousands of Americans shouting,, "Hell, No!"
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