Working Fer The Man

Nothing more than a Knuckle Dragger

Posted on April 29th, 2008

I just read something that will be no surprise to folks at Verizon and many other US corporations. Employer-provided health insurance (EPHI) isn’t disappearing because people are being laid off and being forced into different jobs. No-siree, corporations and the Masters of the Universe types (MOTUTs) who run them are making the choice to take hard working folks health benefits away.

A recent report from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) found that employer-provided health care benefits are being cut pretty much across the board in all industries and job categories.

“But the big story is taking place within sectors: regardless of which industries or occupations have been adding or losing jobs, changes in EPHI are driven by employer decisions as to whether to provide coverage or not. Similarly, when we look at worker characteristics, we find that, while there have been some “between” gains in worker demographics that have led to higher EPHI (namely, educational upgrading along with the workforce getting older), we also find that there have been significant declines in coverage within categories across the entire age and education spectrum.”

Transportation, communications and other “public utilities” have seen an 8.5 percent drop in EPHI between 1995 and 2006, the time period that the study examined. There’s a little irony here in that the, “white collar” executive, administration and managerial jobs have seen a greater decrease 4.1 percent than “blue collar” jobs, technicians and related support, which have only seen a slight decrease of 0.4 percent.

Using Verizon as an example we can make a sound hypothesis that the reason for the disparity is largely union vs. nonunion workers. The management folks at Verizon saw their benefits get slashed in 2006.  The previous year, 2005, CEO Ivan the Terrible gave himself a 48 percent raise. So even if executives are feeling the steel of the switchblade when it comes to health care — and we all know that the big ones, the real MOTUTs, are still getting their’s — they can afford to buy their own insurance or in many cases pay cash. It’s the lower and mid level managers and administrators who are being forced to reattach the severed limbs of their coverage with their own needle and thread.

The only solution for the health care mess is a national single payer system. The unions and Verizon need to get together – not something I would usual recommend – and support HR676, the Medicare for All Bill in the congress. But while we’re waiting, I’d like to invite all the management folks who had their benefits slashed to join us on the picket line in August. Walk out and the rank and file will support you. We’ll stay out on strike until the company agrees to give you back your health benefits and pensions. If we all stick together the MOTUTs who run the company will drop to their knees lickedy split! Alright, so it’s unlikely that this could happen, but wouldn’t it be great?

I may be nothing more than a knuckle dragger, but I think us union folks and the majority of the “managers” have similar interests — the economy, the earth, a secure future for us and out families. Together we can evolve into the next level of consciousness. It is really all about us – 97 percent of the population of the world – verses them — the Master of the Universe types and the corporate stooges and politicians who are their minions. If we stick together we can open up a can a whoop ass that they’ll never forget.

Stay tuned for more on why single payer health care is right for you.

 

****** Thanks to John Jonik for the cartoon ********

Posted in CEO's, Health Care, Strike, unions, verizon | No Comments »

The Big Bossman Speaks on Immigration

Posted on April 22nd, 2008

I’m the big bossman, and I’m fat.

Some people think I’m a no good rat.

Today I’m white, and that’s all right,

But I can be as dark as night.

 

I have many tricks up my sleeve.

Sometimes I just can’t believe,

How so many are so naïve

To the deceptions that I weave.

 

Ya’ll fight over crumbs, scraps and such,

That’s why I pay dope-fiend Rush,

Hannity, Al Frankin too,

They all add spice to my stew.

 

Immigrants they ain’t so bad.

They’re the best workers I ever had.

I treat them lousy.

They no complain,

Or I call La Migra, and they’re on a plane.

 

I’m not stupid, no-sir-ree.

I pay them dirt in their country.

They come up here, and they’re a starvin’.

Work for me, it’s a friggin’ bargain.

 

Productions up and wages are down.

And if that’s not enough to make you frown.

CEO’s making mad, mad money,

For guys like me it’s always sunny.

 

But the best I save for last.

Just look at the price of gas.

Got ya’ll a blaming each other,

One enemy falls I invent another.

 

So point the finger, but not at me.

Cause I run this damn country.

And this my friends will always be,

You’re just wage slaves and I’m free.

 

I’ll send jobs around the world,

Speak of freedom while the flags unfurl.

Send your kids to fight and die,

Salute that flag up in sky.

 

So blame each other, that’s okay.

I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Immigrant and native too,

I don’t care who I screw.

 

Ya’ll keep on fighting over crumbs.

Seems to me you’re pretty dumb.

I’ll just laugh and be on my way,

To another big bossman phat payday.

Posted in CEO's, Corporate Profits, immigration | No Comments »

Bear Stearns Bankers: The Weapons of Mass Destruction

Posted on April 21st, 2008

Hey I finally found the weapons of mass destruction and guess what? They were right here in the good ol’ USA all the time. They’ve been hiding in plain sight, and quite frankly I’m sad to say that only a country that has been blinded by a government and media in collusion to obscure reality could have missed the obvious for so long.

The weapons have not been buried in the sand. Oh no, they’re high in the sky in the corner offices of corporate headquarters and in the consecrated corridors of “America’s” financial institutions – the genuine underbelly of terrorism. Yeah, these are the perpetrators that are pushing the buttons on the C4 charges destroying the infrastructure of today and the foundation of what we hope to achieve tomorrow. They are the “enemy within.”

Enron, WorldCom, Tyco and all the other scoundrel CEO’s have been ripping off working folks with thievery – legal and illegal – since the dawn of capitalism, but more particularly since the turn of the current century. They have been inflicting mass destruction on our livelihoods with credit schemes, offshoring and compensation packages, all the while nickel and diming us and filling their prodigious piggy banks, while we scramble to pay the bills. Osama Bin Laden is a corner boy. These people are the royalty of terror — the kingpins.

Bear Stearns bilks us regular folks, and then we bail the bastards out with our tax dollars. This “bailout” is no more than a subsidy for the multimillion dollar bonuses of scumbag stockbrokers who would sell our babies to the kiddie porn industry if it would keep them in their posh apartments in Manhattan’s trendy neighborhoods and other hot spots where their ilk congregate. The average bonus for Wall Street kingpins in 2007 was $180,000. Believe it or not, that’s a 4.7 percent decrease from 2006. Of course the big bankers by lending money to people who really couldn’t afford to pay it back pumped tens of thousands of buyers into the market thereby pushing up all the property values with “unqualified” competition. After reaping the rewards of this sleazy strategy these self proclaimed titans were willing to pay ridiculous prices for their own would be palaces. This helped to inflate all the property value and caused all of us to pay more for our homes than they were actual worth. These masked marauders were wearing multi-pronged strap-ons gleefully impaling us suckers in every crack and crevice of our lives. I haven’t even mentioned the oil war!

As the economy heads for the crapper and more folks loose their jobs and the equity in their homes decreases and health care cost rise to the sky, along with food and fuel, the Big Boss Men and the corporate stooges and bankers and brokers who do their bidding laugh their way to the next scheme or caper. They continue to get over, and we continue to get screwed.

Nope, no need to go to Iraq to find the weapons of mass destruction. They’re in the corner office.

Posted in Bankers, CEO's, Corporate Profits, Wall Street | 2 Comments »

Big Ideas (BI) x 0 = 0

Posted on April 6th, 2008

Do you ever scratch your head and wonder what the hell these Masters of the Universe types(MOTUTs) are thinking, and how the frak they come up with some of the moron infused ideas that dribble from their over endowed cranial areas? Peon that I am, I guess I just don’t have the higher order thinking skills of a MOTUT. Hey that’s why they make the big bucks. They’ve got the BIG IDEAS! Here’s a big idea from one of the MOTUTs at Verizon.

Very cagey this character, very cagey indeed, “Let’s take the ticker symbol for Verizon (VZ) and add in some slogans to make a catchy little equation that defines the direction we want the company to go in,” says he. At first glance one might say, “Oh my, that’s cute.” But what happens when we examine the content of the equation.

VZ, well that’s ok. R = revenue alright, I buy that one. C³ , now wait a minute, C = competition, customer and culture. Uhohh, can C in C³ equal three different values: competition, customer and culture? It can if we take the letter out of the word that it represents in the equation, but C by itself has no meaning other than it’s the third letter in the alphabet. So then C x C x C = 0. It’s meaningless. P² is the same, P x P = 0. So VZ = R + 0 + 0 or Verizon equals Revenue. For MOTUTs that’s what it’s all about. The only logic they understand is the logic of how much they get paid, and that’s probably why no one caught the stupidity of this equation. My friends the worst thing is the guy who came up with this brainstorm makes millions of dollars a year.

Posted in Corporate Profits, verizon | 1 Comment »

Forgotten Where He Came From

Posted on March 24th, 2008

 

The contract between Verizon and the Communication Workers of America (CWA) and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) that has kept labor peace at the communications giant for the last five years expires in August. The unions represent more than 70,000 workers at Verizon, and even though the company has been making money, they are still looking to take health and pension benefits from their unionized workforce. In 2006, Verizon liberated the pensions of the “management” employees. Verizon’s net income in 2007 was more than $5.5 billion with combined assets of $187 billion. But no amount of profit is enough anymore. Now — as it was in the late 19^th and early 20^th century — corporations no longer want to honor any sort of social contract with their employees.

The Man at Verizon, CEO Ivan Siedenberg, makes tens of millions of dollars a year. All though he has worked for Verizon all his adult life, he now believes that companies can no longer offer benefits to workers because most people no longer spend their career at one company. As is typical of the master of the universe kind, Siedenberg has forgotten where he came from. He has also forgotten the main reason that folks no longer spend their entire work lives at one company is because greedy CEO’s have chosen to export jobs to fill their pockets with pay raises, stock bonuses and ironically ridiculous multi-million dollar pensions instead.

It’s no surprise that benefits and pensions are the big “bread and butter” issues in the dispute. But the stakes are way higher than simple bread and butter or rice and beans. The future of telecom workers and others folks could be decided over the next few months. Will telecom move further toward becoming another low paid, no benefits and no security business with a “flexible workforce?” This will mean even fatter paychecks for money hungry executives at the expense of employees, share holders and the economy at large. The working folks who create corporate profits with their hands, brains and muscle deserve a high standard of living, quality health care and the security of knowing that if they live long enough to retire after piling gold in their bosses bank vault for 40 years, they can expect to live comfortably and enjoy the fruits of their labor.

Corporations are making are making truckloads of money and paying working folks less and less. Here’s a graph from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) comparing profit to real wages over the last fifty years.

 

Compare the numbers from 1991 and 2001 and it is quite clear where increased profits have come from. Wages plummeted 25 percent and profit jumped 23 percent. Executive compensation skyrocketed in these years as well. In 1989 the average CEO made only 71 times as much as the average worker. By 2000 it was 300 times us regular folks.

If these multinational behemoths want to continue to exist than they need to understand that first they must guarantee a high quality of life for the workers who generate the profits that make their enterprise successful. They also need to make quality products and services, so when working people buy the things they produce they get what they pay for. If workers are to continue to be consumers than they need to get paid! CEO and executive salaries and stock holder returns need to be secondary. If corporations don’t like this new more equitable way of operating than we need to throw them into the recycling pile and come up with another means of organizing production, one that does not put the irrationality and anarchy of the “free market” a head of needs of people and the other living beings on this planet.

Posted in CEO's, Corporate Profits, verizon | No Comments »

Handcuffed and Gagged

Posted on March 18th, 2008

Who owns our experience? I know for me I spend a lot of time thinking about things that I want to write, unfortunately I often never get around to writing them. Part of this is my own lack of discipline, but there is another more ominous reason. It lurks in the shadows of my consciousness gaining strength by fortifying itself on my fear. It eats at me. Those of us who work for corporations really don’t own our experience. When we write about or talk about our lives we risk our livelihood. In the era of glossy paged and hypertext corporate codes of conduct, we find our selves handcuffed and gagged. A year or two ago the Nation Labor Relations Board (NLRB) gave the thumbs up to a corporate policy that made it a violation for one worker to talk to another worker outside of the workplace – no beers, no ballgames, no girls or boys night out. It sure is a good thing we live in “America,” the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Seriously though, I’m glad to say that I’ve been pushed past the point of fear and into action. It’s time to start speaking out against these corporate stooges and their government flunkies. I’m lucky enough to have a union in my workplace, and while the union movement has buckled at the knees, it still provides a sense of collective power, all though I must admit even that is waning. Our contract with Verizon expires in August, and both sides are gearing up for what could prove to be a donnybrook. I’ll document the saga here along with other musings about wage slavery on the eve of the robot age.

Posted in Uncategorized, verizon | No Comments »