Message From CWA: Verizon Strike

My mother & her fellow CWA workers at Verizon would like me to get this message out.

Who we are and why we're out here

Thanks for taking the time to read about who we are.

We are the unionized workers of Verizon. We install and maintain both the traditional copper services and the fiber optic network based Fios; and it's associated services, such as high speed Internet & television programming.

This strike is not due to "greedy union workers", as some would lead you to believe, his strike is the result of a multi-billion dollar corporation thumbing it's nose at the workers, who have been productive and instrumental in allowing Verizon to reap and maintain BILLIONS of dollars in profit. We do not work for a cash-strapped municipality or in an industry in need of a government bailout. We work for a company who, even in this economy, has made BILLIONS of dollars in profit.

As a unionized workforce, we have been able to negotiate and fight for decent pay and benefits in exchange for our hard work. It is important that you know we were not given these things, we earned them. We have worked in adverse, and often, dangerous conditions and we have been on strike numerous times.

As our contract with Verizon expired, the unions involved attempted to negotiate, in good faith, as partners in a bargaining and negotiation of a new & fair contract. Verizon, however, felt that the time was ripe and the economy was bad enough to force our hands and REFUSE TO EVEN COME TO THE TABLE AND BARGAIN AS THE CONTRACT EXPIRED. We didn't walk out the door, we were pushed.

Verizon has forced us to fight, so that we can raise our families and pay our bills and taxes with the help of a decent paying job. We hope that you can show us some support, with a fist pump or a wish of good luck. Perhaps you could delay that Verizon Wireless visit until our strike is over, but if not - we understand. If you need a Verizon service call, perhaps you could tell them that you want a unionized worker from your community to perform it. If you don't wish to show your support, we are sorry for any convenience our struggle causes you. If you could show your support for us, it would be greatly appreciated.

CWA

30's the new 20, I'm so hot still!

So, I was listening to Hov today, specifically "30 Something". It is a great premise for a song and it also adds to my disdain for niglets. Jay-Z said "I'm from the era where niggas don't snitch / ya'll from the era where snitching is the shit", a well stated point. These niglets don't have respect for the "G Code". Not to romanticize the street life or the hustle, but in the words of Charlie Murphy as Gusto in CB4, "I'm three generations deep in gangster-dom, three generations". A brief history of my lineage is needed at this point, my father was a hustler, my uncle, my aunt's husband (not a good one), my grandmother's husband and numerous other kin. As a youth, I observed the game and learned the parameters and rules of engagement. The eighties and early nineties had rules, those were the years of the "Ten Crack Commandments". But these "Timberland Hustlers", that do it to buy Air Force Ones, they don't live by the same rules. When did going to jail make you a good hustler, staying out of jail means your games on point. Why do these niglets respect the niggas that get shot, that means somebody got the drop on them (again, game not on point). Why are you walking up to me telling me you have weed for sale, learn the rules of supply and demand, the hypes come to you (what are you trying to get indicted?). I know that currently I am breaking one of the rules, "the game is to be sold, not told", but in the words of KRS-One, "you must learn". So if anybody reading this is trying to get their hustle on, respect the game and the game will respect you.

Peace, I mean WAR!

I Get's The Job Done!!!

I've realized that it's the idea of working that I hate, it's the bullshit that comes along with working in this capitalist society. It's the hierarchy of the business world. It's the indecisive management that you have to put up with. It's the idiotic regulations that employers come up with. Currently I'm working this little retail gig, it doesn't pay that well, but it's enjoyable and I don't feel like an idiot when I'm at work. My former jobs made me hate working. I was in the Air Force for four years. I loved the actually work I did, repairing airplanes, I hated everything that comes with being in the military. That "rank and file" bullshit was very fucking annoying. How can I actually respect a person that got to outrank me just because he spent four drunk years in college? My immediate officer studied English in college, fucking English, and he oversaw me repairing an airplane. I studied auto repair in high school, which is almost parallel to aircraft repair, and this dude studied English (how can you study English, that's a cop-out major). Another officer I met studied Latin and some other dead language in college, yet he oversaw a field he knew nothing about. I trained people that outranked me, this is because sucking up and hanging out with superiors leads to promotions (I hated most of my superiors, so why would I hang out with them). I got kicked out of the Air Force for misconduct, it's just that I rebel against stupid people outranking me, it's outrageous. Rank is achieved by being popular or becoming buddy-buddy with your superior, and that's below me. Anyway, my next gig was also in the federal government (did I mention I hate the feds, and I worked for them twice, what a damn shame). I worked for the Department of Homeland Security (what a waste of taxpayers money). We check people and their possessions for bombs and illegal items (and bottles of shampoo). It would seem like a good thing, but check all the statistics, no terrorists put bombs on American planes (the only bombs on American planes were put on by T.S.A., what a bunch of fuck-ups). These people assigned to protect America were stealing out of peoples bags, using hard drugs while on duty, and other acts that should be considered terrorism. This job is protecting America less than Border Patrol on the Mexican border (the terrorist all come from the northern border, Canada, Mexicans would never let terrorist ruin their entry into America). We worked crazy hours on busy days, not because we needed everybody on duty, but because the superiors spent all the money to hire more people on million dollar holiday parties. The suit wearer's in the offices were at ballrooms drinking up our raise and new funds to hire more people (that money came from you, the taxpayer). They kept telling us to act a certain way to keep passengers respecting T.S.A., but every week there was a new scandal in the news (nobody respects T.S.A., not even T.S.A.). So this November, I decided to quit this meaningless job and take a pay cut and sell retail. I get to wear a suit instead of green BDU's or an ugly uniform (the badges were fabric and sewn to the shirts, and they tried to tell us we were Federal Officers). I might not make as much as I did at my other jobs, but I feel better when I get dressed for work and I even though I'm not "protecting America" (by checking for bombs that are not there or fighting in a war against a word), I feel better about what I do. Also I'm training to join the FDNY (they really save lives). So for the first time I realized it's not the idea of work that I hate, it's the idiots that I worked for (federal jobs are under President Bush, the idiot and chief). Hopefully I can successfully build a way for me to work for myself in the next coming months, where I don't have to deal with having an idiot as a boss.

On a side note, most of my comrades from the Air Force have left the Air Force (must say something about the Air Force, or me and my friends). And T.S.A. loses 1.5 employees per day at Newark Airport where I worked. So it can't just be me, it has to be something wrong with these jobs.