Hundreds of AT&T Wireless Workers and Supporters Plan To Protest at iPhone 8 Launch at Apple HQ 103
Hundreds of AT&T wireless workers and members of the Communications Workers of America (CWA) will protest outside the launch of the iPhone 8 at Apple HQ on Tuesday, we were told. "Marking the start of a critical sales period that's expected to bring in billions for the telecom giant, workers are calling out AT&T's pay cuts for its retail employees and the company's rampant outsourcing and offshoring that undermine their job security and ability to provide quality customer service," the Communications Workers of America said in a press statement. Over the years, AT&T has increasingly handed over the operations of its retail operations to third-party dealers that now represent over 60 percent of all AT&T branded stores. On top of this, AT&T retail employees allege that they are seeing their pay decline by thousands of dollars because the company manipulates their commission structure.
The pricing is not helping (Score:4, Interesting)
You can get an AT&T phone cheaper at virtually every store other than a AT&T retail store. Best Buy, Target, Costco all have sales. AT&T wants you to have Direct TV for virtually any promotion at a AT&T retail store.
Re:The pricing is not helping (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple sets pricing on their phones especially to prevent one seller to undercut another. (They're still expensive but get lots with them, IMO).
In my view, AT&T workers protesting at Apple is just retarded (in the most demeaning way you can take it). It's not Apple's fault AT&T workers are underpaid.
Re: The pricing is not helping (Score:1)
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24/3 DSL? LOL, try 3/1. But at least it's only $40 a month.
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So I don't pay 40 bucks a month for 15/1?
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Depends on the Province. If you're lucky enough to have a publicly owned telco, things are cheap. Even without, some Provinces are quite a bit cheaper then others. Telus just opened a cell tower here, $120 for 10GBs seems like the best deal I can get, though it does sound like the bandwidth is good enough that I can use that up pretty quick and get into the 20 cents a MB thing.
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I only know of Ontario and Alberta, I'm with a 3rd party bell/telus? reseller (lightspeed.ca). It's $40 for 15/1 with 325GB a month or an extra 5 bucks for unlimited bandwidth.
I do also recall getting some pretty decent deals back in Toronto.
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I'm 40 miles out of Vancouver, only dial-up until last Friday when Telus lit up a new cell tower, now they're finishing shutting down the dial-up ($39 a month for unlimited + phone line) as I can get cell data, which is not cheap. When I first looked it up, I accidentally went to their Ontario page, it was quite a bit cheaper and Saskatchewan is supposed to be cheaper again.
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Ouch only dial-up available? You can't get DSL out there?
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26.4kb/s on these old phone lines. I'm lucky, my neighbour canceled her phone in frustration, whenever it rains and it rains a lot here, no dial tone, with Telus swearing everything is good. Mountain blocks satellite as well here.
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What if they offered a 1Gbps symmetric fiber connection for $80/month to your house?
Seriously that's the only reason I have an account with them.
I would take it grudgingly. AT&T is an entity spawned by Hell, IMO.
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What if they offered a 1Gbps symmetric fiber connection for $80/month to your house?
On my rural neighborhood I can always tell the AT & T cell customers because they're gathered in one particular corner of a strip mall parking with their phones held over their heads. That is the only place where AT & T's one local tower squeezes its signal between a mesa and a butte to bestow a second power bar upon the hapless customers.
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best buy has iphones on sale all the time. price depends on carrier and it's not apple setting the prices all the time. meanwhile same iphone at a AT&T retail store is a lot more money.
Re:The pricing is not helping (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The pricing is not helping (Score:5, Insightful)
It's simple marketing, really. AT&T is treating their employees just like they treat their customers: not listening to them. Apple is likely to enact some corporate NIMBY-ism and tell AT&T to deal with it the eyesore of a protest.
The protesters get publicity. A protest of the iPhone launch will get a LOT more press than protesting outside of some random AT&T store. Even if Apple does nothing, the story still reached a greater audience this way and we're now aware of the situation.
The protest hasn't even happened yet and this strategy is paying dividends. Looks like a 100% win so far.
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Apple is likely to enact some corporate NIMBY-ism and tell AT&T to deal with it the eyesore of a protest.
Apple is likely to call the Cupertino police to clear them out.
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Or Apple could have them sent to secret iPhone manufacturing facilities to have their organs converted into the latest "Samsung supplied OLED screens."
Conspiracy, or FACT?
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The protest hasn't even happened yet and this strategy is paying dividends. Looks like a 100% win so far.
Not exactly. Their strategy makes me dislike their union even more, and I hope they don't get what they want. I don't protest in your front yard to complain about the job that I voluntarily accepted, right? AT&T employees have no business protesting in my backyard, your backyard, or Costco's parking lot. Or Apple's for that matter.
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Yeah, makes no sense to me for them to protest Apple...seems they should be protesting in from of ATT stores,
No one goes into AT&T stores. As a publicity stunt, it would fail.
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Apple is successful, and unions hate success hence they hate Apple.
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Re: The pricing is not helping (Score:2)
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Buying from a carrier store (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Buying from a carrier store (Score:5, Insightful)
I still don't see why the AT&T workers would feel this is Apples fault though.
It's not about 'fault.' It's about eyeballs. They're trying to hijack an Apple product launch and get some media attention.
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I still don't see why the AT&T workers would feel this is Apples fault though.
It's not about 'fault.' It's about eyeballs. They're trying to hijack an Apple product launch and get some media attention.
It seems to be working.
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Well, what do you expect them to do - picket outside one of the AT&T carrier stores? That's not going to get anyone's attention.
On a side note... I don't really get how carrier stores of any brand makes any sense. I suppose if you want to have distributed customer service centers, then maybe there's a reason to have a few - but as "sales first" businesses, no way.
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I don't really get how carrier stores of any brand makes any sense.
The only occasion I've had to go in one is to get my old, larger SIM transferred to my new smaller SIM for some new phone I bought online. That's happened twice in my history with mobile phones and the cards are now so small I doubt it will happen again, so I'm fine if they just close them all down now.
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You don't need to go in to the store for that. You can just physically cut your SIM down to size.
They sell cutters and converters of all sorts on Amazon if you're afraid. $5-$10.
Personally, I've taken a micro sim and cut it down to a (working) nano sim. There are templates online, but I mainly did it freehand.
I got some thin carboard and cut it roughly to the size and shape of the nano sim carrier, the touched it up until it was a good, but not perfect, fit. I then took that cardboard and placed on top
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Is the MOST EXPENSIVE way to do it. Oh, but I only pay x per month...Yeah, and over that time, you pay MORE for the phone if you paid in full.
Not for me with T-Mobile. My monthly payment for the phone * 24 plus $20 up front (plus sales tax on the total price) is exactly equal to what it would have cost to pay in full up front. And it was on sale at the T-Mobile store, so I paid quite a bit less than Newegg was selling it for at the time.
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Zero interest as well, so if one is staying with T-Mobile, it isn't a financially foolish choice. Downside is that until the phone is paid off, T-Mobile will not unlock it.
ATT & Customer service (Score:3)
Marking the start of a critical sales period that's expected to bring in billions for the telecom giant, workers are calling out AT&T's pay cuts for its retail employees and the company's rampant outsourcing and offshoring that undermine their job security and ability to provide quality customer service,
They do know who they're working for, right? AT&T is worse than Comcast when it comes to customer service.
Slashdot fell for it, hook, line, and sinker (Score:5, Insightful)
So, AT&T employees are protesting AT&T's business practices. Nothing they're protesting has anything to do with the iPhone 8 or Apple at large. Nonetheless, they're protesting at the launch of the new iPhone, simply because they know that places like Slashdot can't resist posting clickbait articles that mention Apple in the headline, thus bringing attention to their cause, despite the fact that nothing they're doing has anything to do with Apple.
Even worse, it looks like Slashdot is "breaking" this news, since I don't see a link or article mentioned anywhere, so that means that Slashdot is solely responsible for authoring the headline. Shame on you.
Re:Slashdot fell for it, hook, line, and sinker (Score:5, Interesting)
They are striking on iPhone launch day because that is when it will hurt their employer the most. Any other day of the week, it would be a blip on the radar. On the day that there will be people camped out in front of the store relying on the striking employees to get them their precious iPhone 8s, that is the day the retailers really need all hands on deck.
Getting Slashdot or others to take more of a notice is a side benefit because it is Apple's launch day, not the main benefit.
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On the day that there will be people camped out in front of the store relying on the striking employees to get them their precious iPhone 8s, that is the day the retailers really need all hands on deck.
So, while that seems intelligent at a glance, it's factually incorrect in ways that completely undermine what you're saying. For instance:
1) No one is camping. This is an product announcement, not a product launch.
2) No one currently needs all hands on deck. Again, it's a product announcement, not a product launch.
3) Perhaps most important: Apple Stores don't rely on the employees who are striking, since AT&T employees don't work at Apple.
4) Given that Apple hasn't announced an iPhone 7s or 8 yet, it's
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Followed by pedantry. Pedantry that doesn't change the fact that the protest is designed to gain the maximum amount of attention possible. By chance does your employer set up "free speech zones" to keep protestors out of sight, out of mind during presidential election years?
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I don't think its pedantry to point out that someone is wrong about the time, location, and company that the protestors work for when those pieces of information are foundational to the person's argument that the protestors chose that (incorrect) time and that (incorrect) location specifically to cause the most damage to their (incorrect) employer.
I have no problem with them protesting, and I think they're smart to do so where and when they actually are protesting, since they know it'll get bigger headlines
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Their busiest day is a random Tuesday when no new products are launching? This is the iPhone announcement, not launch. Perhaps if you had understood that, the remainder of my post would have made more sense to you.
Re:Capitalism Will Help You (Score:5, Informative)
"If a company like AT&T treats you poorly then QUIT! Go work for another company that pays you better and treats you well!"
People love to say this whenever workers try to claw back some power. The honest truth is that all employers treat people poorly to some degree. And they love it when more people say that anyone who complains about it should quit, because it just makes their job easier. Compared to today, the 50s and 60s were a golden age of employment because there was a balance in the employer/employee relationship, things were stable, and employers grudgingly agreed to allow workers to follow a career path.
Without some universal check on employers' power, employers will just cut and squeeze until there's nothing left to squeeze. They'd love to see everyone working for minimum wage...no wait, let's get rid of the minimum wage...no wait, let's just hire everyone as an independent contractor and offshore everything that can be offshored to TCS or Wipro or Accenture. That universal check would be a union or trade organization. Otherwise, if you try to be the nice employer and offer a few concessions, the other employers will just get more evil in response and drive you out of business.
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in the 50s and 60s, an entry level job, paying minimum wage or close to it, fresh out of high school, was also enough to marry your high school sweetheart (who does not work), have a couple kids, and buy a sweet 3 bedroom with a white picket fence and have more than enough left over to save for retirement, take family vacations, etc, etc..etc..etc..
Yes, and why do you think that doesn't work today? Do you think it's a coincidence that wages are not keeping pace with inflation and such? No, it's the exact thing ErichTheRed is talking about, just compounded over several decades.
Re: Capitalism Will Help You (Score:2)
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I have yet to see a single company change their employee policy for the better [1] because people have quit. If it is changed, it is because of a news media item, the government stepping in, competitor forcing them to change, of the company's ownership changed hands.
[1]: I've seen changes for the worse, where one policy was that if an employee was looking at glassdoor on a company network, it would be grounds for insta-firing, but not really for the better.
After protesting they'll head to Walmart to shop (Score:2)
They want the AT&T of a different era (Score:5, Interesting)
The CWA wants the AT&T from a previous era back, and in some respects I would be behind that too. Companies' power to offshore, outsource and basically get rid of any group that isn't 100% profit-generating is a lot of what contributes to middle class instability.
I'm barely old enough to remember when "old" AT&T and the RBOCs existed...I was 10 when they were ordered de-monopolized. But from what I've heard from people alive previously, getting a job with one of these companies was a guaranteed ticket to lifetime stability. In addition, engineering was actually done correctly because there wasn't constant pressure to squeeze every single cost out of the system. I know everyone's going to say monopolies are bad, but they do provide the most stable class of jobs. Maybe monopolies are bad, but the alternative of a ton of cut-throat competitors isn't good for society either. In the model we have, public companies (and private ones controlled by hedge funds) are forced to implement whatever cost-saving trick is in vogue every quarter to make the numbers. A lot of these tricks, like spinning off "expensive" employees into a separate company to reduce benefits, offshoring to a service provider to hide expenses on a different balance sheet line, or constantly squeezing workers to get the tiniest drop of productivity out of them are detrimental to employment in general. Verizon did similar things as well, when they spun out Verizon Wireless. VZW workers get way fewer benefits than the CWA workers in Verizon proper.
I just wish people would get it out of their heads that unions are bad. Especially in the face of automation and offshoring, they're basically the only chance an employee has against their employer. Employers have spent decades convincing employees that they have their best interests in mind and that we're all friends. I think there needs to be a more adversarial labor/management relationship put back into the mix to swing the pendulum back toward the middle more. There's a big difference between "we can't fire you for any reason" demands and standing up when management says "we're moving 20,000 engineering positions to India effective immediately so that I can buy another mansion, and by the way we're still friends, right?"
So, (Score:2)
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It's bitztream the autism-hating, custom EpiPen-hating, Musk-hating, Qualcomm-hating, Firefox tabs-hating Slashdot troll!
Score:-5, Pwned (Score:1)
Witness BitZtream getting pwned! [slashdot.org]... twice [slashdot.org].....three times! [slashdot.org]
that's the world we chose (Score:3)
- telephone switchboard operators
- ISDN engineers
- elevator operators
- horse and buggy whip factory workers
?
Industries change, and labor changes with it. And each side gets as much as they can bargain for. What more do you want?
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An identification pony. You would have had to keep it with you at all times, including air travel.
I voted for him too.
The world of elitist snobs (Score:2)
Okay, I'll explain the fallacy of your own dead horse for you: right now, the buggy whip manufacturer (AT&T) is enjoying historical profits while at the same time demanding the people who generates said profits work for less money.
I'm confused (Score:2)
The iPhone 8 is responsible for this, how...?
They Didn't See the Penetration Coming (literally) (Score:2)
About 10 years ago, I worked at an AT&T store and made over $60,000 per year. It was a good job, and if you could show people the benefit of a wireless phone, it was easy money. As time passed, market penetration increased rapidly. It became more difficult to sell phones to "new customers". It became more common to see kids at 10, 9, 8, or 5 years old already have a phone. Fast forward, and it wasn't too long before nearly everyone had a cellphone with a data plan.
Back then, AT&T needed a stron
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It would help Trump politically to show up at this rally. The offshoring issue is a "pro-worker" issue that is less divisive than his usual activities. Sure, it ticks off the plutocrats, but they don't vote. Note in general I am NOT a Trump supporter, but believe focusing on "working-class" issues instead of ethnicity and gender would give him more traction.
Re: Fire them all! (Score:2)