AT&T workers launched a two-day strike impacting operations in Connecticut, Nevada, and California.

Around 20,000 AT&T workers in Connecticut, Nevada and California are striking this afternoon in a two-day action to protest what union officials call the company’s lack of good faith during contract negotiations talks.

“Contract negotiations are never easy,” said CWA District 9 vice president Jim Weitkamp. “But when AT&T violates the law repeatedly, the process really can’t work. Given AT&T’s record profits, tax breaks and jaw-dropping executive compensation, there is no reason for them to insist on lowering the standard of living of a single worker.”

While 17,000 workers in the west and 3,000 employees in Connecticut walk picket lines, fellow AT&T employees in the southeast are still on the job after the company reached tentative deals with unions representing those workers.

AT&T says the new three-year deals with the Communications Workers of America and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee and North and South Carolina  bring wage and “modest pension increases,” according to the company.

Connecticut workers say AT&T’s proposed package in the northeast is not sufficient to address the high cost of living in the state.

But AT&T says declining numbers of landlines means cuts are inevitable. AT&T said in a statement Tuesday’s walkout was not in anyone’s best interest.

Connecticut picketers have been blocking the entrances of several AT&T facilities including in New Haven, where replacement workers appear to be honoring the picket lines after talking with striking workers. Unions are requesting customers not do business with AT&T during the strike.

Late reports indicate several cars with New Jersey license plates have hit three persons on one picket line. The union claims the vehicles were being driven by replacement workers, but no independent confirmation was available.

[flv width=”480″ height=”290″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/New Haven Register ATT UNION ON STRIKE 8-7-12.mp4[/flv]

The New Haven Register talked with Tim Smith, a union worker on a picket line outside of an AT&T facility. The video shows picketers encouraging replacement workers to honor the picket line and not report for work.  (3 minutes) 

Detroit U-verse technicians are at high risk of being confronted by crooks looking for valuable electronics.

AT&T U-verse technicians carry iPads, cell phones, and other expensive electronic equipment in trucks destined for service calls, and the crooks know it.

At least 10 technicians have been robbed in northwest Detroit in the last week alone, some at gunpoint.

“They’re scared. Afraid to go in certain areas,” said CWA Union President Greg Streeby. “A tech was approached by an individual with a gun who said, ‘Give me your iPad.’

So far, union leaders have been unimpressed with the reaction of AT&T, leading one worker to suggest the company does not care if technicians live or die.

Thieves learned AT&T’s U-verse branded trucks come stocked with expensive electronics, including cell phones and iPads, and they have become magnets for smash and grab robberies while technicians are inside customer homes. Since the robberies began, some technicians have started bringing valuable equipment inside with them.

Thieves learned to adapt, and are now willing to confront technicians as they return to their trucks, sometimes at gunpoint, and order them to hand over the electronics. Technicians have lost phones, laptops, tablets, and whatever else the thieves can steal and resell.

Jim Simons has never seen anything like it, and he has been working for AT&T as a field technician for more than 20 years.

“We are defenseless. We don’t carry any weapons,” Simons told WDIV News. “Not allowed to.”

AT&T workers were told by administrators there is nothing the company can do about the robberies, at which point a group of workers left and began a union-backed protest outside of several AT&T facilities across Detroit.

AT&T promptly locked out those workers and deactivated their ID badges, and their vehicles remain locked and inaccessible inside AT&T gated parking lots.

The company claims it is working on a solution, but union officials want an extra service technician temporarily sent on service calls in dangerous areas to keep an eye on the company’s property while another worker attends to the customer. AT&T has rejected that proposal.

[flv width=”625″ height=”372″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WDIV Detroit ATT service workers robbed in northwest Detroit neighborhood 6-29-12.flv[/flv]

WDIV first told its Detroit audience about the AT&T holdups last Friday in this exclusive report. (2 minutes)

[flv width=”625″ height=”372″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WDIV Detroit ATT techs protesting over on-the-job security concerns 7-2-12.flv[/flv]

Since WDIV’s first report, safety conditions have further deteriorated for AT&T workers, some of whom have now begun public protests outside of AT&T facilities demanding more safety while on service calls. (2 minutes)

The union representing at least 200 service technicians working on behalf of Rogers Communications, Inc., in Ontario are planning to strike this Friday at 8am.

The contract employees, represented by the Communications, Energy, and Paperworkers Union of Canada, are employed by Intek Communications and Dependable Home Tech — outsource firms that contract with the cable giant for technicians who handle routine service calls including installations and certain repair work.

The union claims that employees are paid on a “piece-work” system, which typically means on a “per-call” or “per-function” basis. That can create financial difficulty for contractors who cannot depend on a paycheck that remains steady from week to week.

It is not the first strike action against Rogers. Other Rogers’ contractors voted to strike the company last month, leading to tentative settlements.

Rogers employs thousands of technicians in the province, so the strike is not expected to have a major impact on the company’s ability to handle service requests.

Verizilla

The Communications Workers of America has a new, decidedly low-budget video decrying a spectrum swap between America’s largest cable companies and Verizon Communications that will leave Verizon Wireless stores pitching cable television service from one of Verizon’s cable company competitors.

To the CWA, this is nothing less than the birth of Verizilla, a new monster of a telecommunications company that has capitulated on competing with Big Cable and will instead devour the wireless communications marketplace for itself.  The CWA interest is obvious: many of its employees are responsible for constructing and maintaining Verizon’s now-stalled FiOS fiber to the home network.

From the CWA:

The deal, struck behind the closed doors of America’s corporate boardrooms, poses a threat to consumers and workers. If it goes through, it will be the death knell for competition between cable and telecom companies. Verizon Wireless, Time Warner, Comcast, and other cable companies will become a giant, unregulated quasi-monopoly. Verizon will have no incentive to challenge cable by building FiOS into new areas — meaning less competition, consumer choice, and higher prices for consumers.

Less FiOS also means fewer jobs building, maintaining, servicing, and installing the network. This deal will create a corporate behemoth that will use exclusive quad-play market power to shrink its future workforce.

Worst of all, Verizon Wireless and the cable companies are refusing to come clean about the details of the deal. Even as the FCC and Department of Justice review it, we still don’t know what it means for consumers or workers.

The CWA has so far collected more than 135,000 signatures on its petition opposing the current form of the deal. 

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Verizilla.flv[/flv]

America, say hello to Verizilla, wreaking reduced investment havoc on Verizon service areas across the northeastern United States.  (2 minutes)

Verizon Communications, a highly-profitable multi-billion dollar corporation, has not paid a penny in taxes for the past three years.

That charge comes from a new report issued by two non-profit groups that want America’s tax burden spread more fairly.

“Corporate Taxpayers and Corporate Tax Dodgers, 2008-2010,” released by Citizens for Tax Justice and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, scrutinized financial reports from nearly 300 profitable Fortune 500 companies.

At least 30 companies — including Verizon — were found to have maneuvered their way through corporate tax breaks and incentives, exporting revenue offshore, and other creative accounting to avoid paying a cent in taxes over the period.

Some of Verizon’s unionized workforce, fighting company efforts to curtail benefits and reduce pay, call the news a disgusting development.

“We wouldn’t mind if Verizon wasn’t paying taxes if they used the money saved to invest in American jobs,” said Myles Calvey, business manager of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers union Local 2222. “Instead, while they dodge paying taxes in the U.S., they’re eliminating jobs and opening centers in Mexico and India. They wonder why the union hates them.”

Verizon disputes the findings, which do not allege the company broke any laws while trying to reduce the company’s tax bill.  In fact, American corporations have exported billions of dollars to offshore bank accounts specifically to avoid America’s corporate tax rate.  Some of those companies, including Verizon, now want the government to provide a special discount on corporate taxes in return for an agreement to repatriate corporate earnings.

Phil Santoro, a Verizon spokesman called the report “union-orchestrated” and says the company isn’t avoiding taxes, it is deferring them through government incentive programs designed to boost the economy.  The company also says it invested $16.5 billion over the time period in infrastructure expansion.

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/CNN Companies Avoid Taxes 11-3-11.flv[/flv]

CNN reports on the growing number of American corporations that no longer pay taxes thanks to special tax breaks and incentive programs available only to them.  (3 minutes)