What the Hell is with this Phone Bill?

Ever wonder what all those sneaky little fees are doing on your phone bill.  Well guess what, it’s the telecom companies playing paddy cake with the FCC and other government agencies.  More subsidies for the one percent.  Here’s a good piece from AlterNet by David Rosen and Bruce Kushnick.

As a New Year’s present to its subscribers, Verizon Wireless announced a plan to start charging a $2 “convenience fee” for payments subscribers make over the phone or online with their credit or debit cards.

To Verizon’s chagrin, and in the spirit of the spreading Occupy Wall Street movement, people across the country railed against the new fee. Molly Katchpole, who had led a campaign against Bank of America’s effort to impose a $5-per-month fee for debit-card use, kickstarted an online petition against the Verizon fee on Change.org. The petition generated nearly 100,000 signatures and pushed Verizon to drop the new fee.

Read the rest

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WorkingFerTheMan supports the Strike against SOPA

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Don’t believe the Bosses;Rudolph was a Red

The bosses are so afraid of left ideas that they even changed one of the songs in the classic Christmas story of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.   To recap the story, Santa is a fascist boss who doesn’t like “Red Nosed” folks, and he tells Rudolph  you’ll never amount to anything because of your  blinking red schnozzola.  The head reindeer coach Comet chases my red nosed brother out of reindeer practice telling him, he can’t play in any reindeer games.  Turns out  Rudolph  knew how to get his mack on so he already had laid some ground work with a fine looking little doe name Clarice.  But when he tries to walk her home her papa puts the snatch on her and tells Rudolph to keep his fluffy tail away from his daughter.

Rudolph is bummed out and alone until he meets this blond elf named Hermie.  Now Hermie has been bounced from his toy making slave by one of Santa’s henchmen — the straw boss elf — because he wants to be a dentist.  Here’s where they change the story.  In the original 1964 version these two brothers  bond around being “misfits” and break into a song called “We’re a Couple of Misfits.”  At the end of the song,  Hermie makes a snowman replica of his elf boss and punches him in the nose after singing, “you can’t fire me I quit.”

Watch it.

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One year later the misfits song is replaced with the song “Fame and Fortune.”  Instead of singing about how they are being kept from achieving their potential by a rotten and prejudice system, they sing about how they are going off to find fame and fortune.  They don’t punch the stinking boss in the nose.  They climb over him instead.  The message is clear.  Don’t fight the system join it and “climb to the top.”

Watch it

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Maybe you think I’m crazy, but remember this show premiered in the heat of the Cold War.  Back then the  big bosses were still scared of reds.   The height the “Hollywood Blacklist” was 1956.  That’s when the bosses and their flunky politicians purged and prosecuted  progressive film makers and actors.  They also attacked radical union leaders in this time and sent many of them to jail.

Beware the bosses culture, brothers and sisters. It is full of lies and teaches us to be passive and try to work with in the system.  But we need a new system and a knew economy — an economy that works for workers.  You’re not a misfit. You’re a revolutionary waiting to be born.  Happy Holidays!  All power to the working class.

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IBEW 827 and People’s Organization for Progress Rally for Jobs and Justice

IBEW 827 joined People’s Organization for Progress (POP) at their daily mobilization  for jobs,peace,justice, and equality.  Occupy Newark members also attended.  POP is  leading the working class by rallying everyday since June 27, 2011.  They are commemorating the Montgomery bus boycott and will continue until they reach 381 days — the length of the boycott.  Hundreds of community groups and unions have endorsed their campaign.

Local 827 made a commitment to join POP on a regular basis.  Community and labor must unite to fight off the attacks of the one percent.  Better yet we must mount an aggressive campaign around issues that can create an economy that works for workers.  Here’s  POP’s demands.   Definitely a good start:

• FOR A NATIONAL JOBS PROGRAM!
• TO END THE WAR IN AFGHANISTAN!
• TO PRESERVE WORKER’S RIGHTS AND COLLECTIVE BARGAINING!
• FOR A MORATORIUM ON FORECLOSURES!
• TO OPPOSE PRIVATIZATION OF PUBLIC EDUCATION!
• FOR A NATIONAL HEALTHCARE PROGRAM!
• FOR AN AFFORDABLE COLLEGE EDUCATION

IBEW 827, People's Organzation for Progress and Occupy Newark rally for jobs and justice

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Occupy Newark takes to the Streets

Mike Bloomberg’s storm troopers marched into Liberty Square and destroyed the tents, the kitchen and even the people’s library, but they could not destroy the the Occupy movement.  Sorry Mike all those billion$$$ and all you did was make people more determined.  It’s like Mao Tse Tung said, “To be attacked by the enemy is a good thing, not a bad thing.”  And the Occupy movement grows.

#OccupyNewark  is established in Military Park and now building a base for resistance against the one percent’s plan to construct a world economy based on a model that will mean opulence for the few and austerity for the many.

#OccupyNewark is uniting the working class across all the phoney divisions that the one percent create — generation, race, gender,students, workers.  Billionaire Mike has stirred the sleeping giant.

Unity is a Winning Strategy

The movement in Newark is small but growing.  On Saturday about 50 people gathered at Military Park.  Many of them marched down to City Hall to a hold a brief but spirited rally on the steps.

March to City Hall

Folks shopping on Broad Street responded well to the impromptu action.  Many raised their fists in support, some looked a bit bewildered, a few were negative.  But #OccupyNewark and the Occupy movement is changing the the conversation in the US.  People are now talking about class and wealth distribution instead of how they will survive unemployment and the cuts in education and social services proposed by both major political parties.  The Occupy movement is bringing hope that a better world is possible.  And that’s why 99% are listening.

A Better World is Possible

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Verizon is the Poster Child of Corporate Greed

Verizon workers occupied 11-11 on Friday at the OccupyWallStreet encampment in lower Manhattan.   They came to drop a dime on the Telecom behemoth, to let the public know that Verizon is the poster child of corporate greed.

IBEW 827 members drop a dime on Verizon

Toting signs and a large banner, workers from IBEW 827 from New Jersey came to stand in solidarity with the other members of the 99% at OWS.  “Same enemy, same fight, workers of the world unite,”  is a chant that has a particularly in tune ring to it these days.

“I’m here to support the working class,” one VZ worker said at OWS, “to show my distrust for the system we have now and that we need some kind of change.  I’m trying to do my part.”

“Verizon sucks they fired me for speaking up,” another worker said.  He and eight other IBEW 827 members and many more union workers in other states remain fired or indefinitely suspended for strike related activity.  The unions are still negotiating a contract settlement and fighting  to get these workers back on the payroll.

“They talk about cutbacks in healthcare. What they don’t tell you is Verizon is self insured,” the fired worker said.  “They use the insurance companies as front men.  So if Verizon  collects $6000 from each employee and they don’t spend that money Verizon can keep it as profit. “

The battle continues.   In New Jersey, union members are ramping up mobilization efforts with informational picketing and mass leafleting to inform the public just how greedy Lowell McGreedy really is.  Verizon earned $19.5 billion in profits over the last four years and paid its top five executives (the one percent) over $258 million in the same time frame.  They spend millions of dollars on ads and public relations propaganda to try to distort the simple fact that all their profits come from the labor of the 99 percent — the workers at Verizon.

Verizon Workers stand with OccupyWallStreet against Greed

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Occupy Wall Street | What Do They Want? Prosperity WeWantProsperity

Here’s a short video from occupyzine.  It’s pretty cool!  Ron Paul fans will like it.

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Occupy Wall Street, Occupy Verizon, Occupy Everything

West Street in New York City rocked with the rhythms of worker’s power on Friday night as about 1000 Verizon workers and their allies rallied to stand up for the 99 percent and to say no to corporate greed.  The Verizon building at 140 West Street feeds much of  financial district.  If this building was somehow to be brought offline Wall Street would be crippled.  Trading would come to a halt.  Yeah, that’s right telecom workers can shut down Wall Street and bring the one percent to their knees.

Occupy, Occupy, occupy

The protesters headed out and marched down Church Street to #OccupyWallStreet and then boogied on down to a neighborhood Verizon Wireless Store to hold a rally.  Chris Shelton from the CWA (Communication Workers of America) spoke about the importance of the OWS folks and why union workers were joining with the fight to reign in the outrageous profits of the one percent.

Workers Rally at VZW Store

Most union leaders prefer not to go on strike, but despite that the CWA and IBEW leaders decided to strike in August when the Verizon contract expired.  The strike had a limited goal of getting the company flunky negotiators to get real at the bargaining table and to extend the expired contract while the talks went on.  After two weeks the company agreed to comply, but the talks have gone nowhere in the two months since striking workers have returned to their jobs.

On September 17 a rag tag bunch of mostly young rebels occupied Zucotti Park  and spawned a world wide movement for economic and social change.  They have changed the debate in the country focusing their and the world’s ire on the one percent aka the ruling class.  This of course was  also the theme of the unions from Verizon: that Verizon workers were fighting not only for themselves but for the whole working/middle class against the rapacious corporate greed of Verizon bosses and the rest of effete elite corporate class.   The merging of these two groups is a no brainer.

It’s been a long time coming, but it looks like the unions may be moving to left a bit.  They have no choice because many union members are moving that way themselves.  This is why the one percenters like Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam will loose.  Although many working class folks have had their heads up their asses for many years the bosses have done us a favor by keeping up the  attacks — piling more and more misery on the backs of us who do the productive work and create all the value in the world.  Now the  the workers have awoken and are beginning to rise.  One percenters beware!

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Wanted for Economic Terrorism: Lowell McAdam

Wanted

Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam is a one percenter who thinks that working people make far too much money.  Lowell and his ruling class brothers and sisters along with their flunky and obedient politicians are responsible for the destruction of the world economy and the impoverishment of hundreds of millions of working people around the world.  They are also complicit in the murder and maiming of millions in the racist and imperialist wars that the US has been fighting in the middle east and Africa.  Lowell and his compadres make Gadhafi a small time thug.

i

Warning if you see this man, do not approach him.  He may try to suck the blood from your Veins

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March Against Verizon Corporate Greed Friday Oct. 21. 5:30 PM

This Friday evening, Oct. 21, together with Occupy Wall Street, Verizon and Verizon Wireless workers will march to protest Verizon corporate greed. Please join us.

We will assemble at 140 West Street between 4 and 5 p.m., march east on Barclay Street and then down Broadway. We should arrive at Liberty Plaza around 5:30 p.m. and move on towards the Verizon Wireless store at about 6 p.m.

As you probably know, 45,000 Verizon and Verizon Wireless workers have been on the front lines of the struggle against corporate greed. Their battle for a fair contract continues and bargaining is not going well.

Verizon is the 16th largest corporation in America, with one of the largest unionized workforces. In the past four years, Verizon made $22.5 billion in profits and paid its top five executives $258 million, and over the past two years the company reaped a $1.3 billion federal corporate income tax rebate—yet it wants to eliminate pensions, force workers to pay thousands of dollars more for health care, slash sick time and eliminate job security. The company’s bargaining stance is that no working person is entitled to decent wages with health care and retirement security, no matter how profitable the employer.

Occupy Wall Street has focused the world’s attention on the destructive power of corporate greed. Verizon is the poster child for that corporate greed. Together, we are demanding that the American economy start to work for the 99% again, not just make the top 1% even richer. Verizon workers are part of the 99%.

Please join us on Friday. We are the 99% and we are fighting back!

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