118 lines
6.9 KiB
Plaintext
118 lines
6.9 KiB
Plaintext
Unauthorised Access UK 0636-708063 10pm-7am 12oo/24oo
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Contract talks were breaking down between American Telephone and Telegraph
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and three major unions of their employees. As a result, workers walked off the
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ir jobs at midnight on August 7th. The AT&T strike was on!
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We all remember the phone strike of '83. It caused us to hold on directory
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assistance for several minutes. It gave us many unique error messages. It
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made it virtually impossible to make any operator-assisted calls from all
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around the country. For the first time in along while, the voices at AT&T were
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not answe ring the phone.
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As well all know, a strike is an organized work stoppage by the employees
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in order to compel the employer to meet some demand. If the workers go on strik
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e, it stands to reason that the company should suffer. If, for example, the uni
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on of Cabbage-Patch producers was to strike, then none would be made, and consu
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mers would rant and rave. If the local Cabbage-Patch conglomerate had anticipat
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ed a strike, they could step up production, fill several hundred ware houses wi
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th millions of surrogate orphans and, when the strike occurred, they could sell
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the surplus. The workers would lose their bargaining power in this case, unles
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s the Cabbage-Patch truckers' union also struck, or perhaps people stopped adop
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ting the cretins, however unlikely that might seem.
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This analogy leads us back to last summer when 675,000 telephone employees
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went on strike. A walk-out of the magnitude should have devastated any company
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. AT&T though, is the exception to the rule. What AT&T depends on are phones, w
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ires, switching systems, computers, electrictiy, some optical fibers, satellite
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s, microwave towers, and other nifty 21st century things that are all designed
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to run without the interference of human decision. The people are really just t
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here to remove illegal third party phone calls from your bill, to make sure tha
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t your handwritten check matches the computer-read phone bill, or to tell you t
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hat the machine you are at cannot return your dime and that you will get a chec
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k for 10 cents in the mail. 97% of the calls made today don't use any operator
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assistance at all. And most of the other 3% could have been dialed without the
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assistance of a human. More and more "services" of your phone company are becom
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ing completely automated. With ESS, customers can dial overseas direct.
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Android information is popping up left and right. AT&T, a leader in technology,
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doesn't need their workers all that much.
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Glen E. Watts, president of the Communications Workers of America, said, "
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In 1950, for example, total labor costs amounted to about 45% of the telephone
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dollar while in 1980 they amounted only to 29%." John Patrick Phillips (author
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of Ma Bell's Millions) says that the company encourages or even "maneuvers" a s
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trike. According to him, Ma Bell reaps huge rewards from a strike. Phillips, a
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disgruntled ex-employee, who at times compares the phone company to fascism, wo
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uld have presented AT&T's organized scheme last August like this:
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675,000 workers strike for about 3 weeks. 3 weeks out of a year amounts to
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5.8% of a worker's salary. Let's say a phone worker made at the time of the st
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rike a modest $250 per week (operators made $373, while systems technicians, th
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e best paid workers, made $535).
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At this time AT&T provided substandard service to the people for the same
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prices. The 3% loss in phone usage due to lack of operators was proably easily
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made up by people making an extra effort to dial direct and by the fact that so
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me of the calls were being handeled by scabbing supervisory level employees. An
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d so, the company nets pure profit: 3 week strike x $250/week x 675,000 workers
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= $506,250,000!
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Phillips also notes that because managers and supervisors were doing the d
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irty work of the phone company, these people could not work on new projects. Th
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is means that several hundred million dollars would not be invested in expendit
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ures on new projects because there is no one to do the work. So AT&T would get
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interest on this money during the strike and even for some time after it was se
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ttled until work had resumed. This yields several more million dollars in profi
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t for AT&T.
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AT&T proably made out directly over half a billion dollars for the strike.
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At the same time companys like New York Telephone sought to delay a $160 milli
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on rate increase so it could ask for another increase to reflect the new contra
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cts.
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As part of the settlement 21 days later, top craft workers got a 5.5% incr
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ease for the first year of their 3 year contract and 1.5% for each of the next
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two years. They also got a $31 million training fund ($46 per employee) to help
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them deal with new technology and remain employable humans. All of these "gain
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s" are subsidized by the half a billion dollars gaining lots of interest which
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AT&T did not have to pay to their employees. AT&T at first offered a ridiculous
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3.5% increase for the first year and no increase for the next two, but after l
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osing 5.8% of their salary by striking, workers got a 5.5% increase above the c
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ost of living which is probably entirely subsidized by the strike itself and by
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rate increases.
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It's certainly a nifty deal for Ma Bell. Their workers blow off steam and
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pay for their own raises, and stockholders don't have to worry one bit.
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The strike had its effect on the consumer. As we all know, many were diali
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ng, touchtoning, or redialing their calls almost like usual and other were seve
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rely inconvenienced by a few managers and supervisors working as long distance
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or directory assistance operators often for many hours overtime. New installati
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ons came to a standstill and many were backlogged for several months. Any emerg
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ency repairs had to be handled by supervisory personnel. But after all this, th
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e same fat phone bill came to people's homes the next month, without any delay.
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In actuality, users cannot complain to or boycott the phone company as the
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y could the Cabbage-Patch manufacturers, in our earlier scenario. They cannot m
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ake AT&T or their local company do anything because each customer is as unimpor
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tant as each employee. We, as customers, are all dependent on the phone. We hav
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e at least one in each home. We are billed if we use it or not, and are billed
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more to have it shut off for a month or two. We are all so dependent on the lin
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es that run into our homes and on the one and a half million payphones that abs
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orb our money that complaints of any one or even thosuands of us are quite usel
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ess. All of this utility (note the meaning of this word) was until recently cot
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rolled almost exclusively by one company, so in the name of human spirit, roll
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on with the divestiture.
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