11 ms·

Good. If only tech workers had the spine to do the same after finding out their CEOs had conspired to suppress their wages and targeted those who wanted to lea

Good. If only tech workers had the spine to do the same after finding out their CEOs had conspired to suppress their wages and targeted those who wanted to leave...

mtgx 11y ago
Probably because they are still paid well enough to "bother" going out and protesting. Most Verizon employees are probably paid closer to min wage.
- whatok 11y ago
  The article says that 99% of the people striking are wireline employees; not wireless. They're more than likely making well over minimum wage.
- function_seven 11y ago
  > Most Verizon employees are probably paid closer to min wage. You have a misconception here. The average Verizon wireline employee is making more than $70,000 a year. Not minimum wage or even close.
  - kspaans 11y ago
    What about the median wage of Verizon employees?
    - whatok 11y ago
      If you combine wireline and wireless you would get the same skewed statistic as combining Apple Store and corporate employees.
      - spacecowboy_lon 11y ago
        You need to split it between the blue collar side ie Line men and the M&P (managerial and professional) grades.
    - function_seven 11y ago
      I misused "average" above. The average is probably north of $100,000. Median is up there as well. These are well-paying jobs.
  - rayiner 11y ago
    http://www.fiercetelecom.com/story/verizon-proposes-three-year-agreement-38000-union-workers/2015-06-23 http://www.fiercetelecom.com/story/verizon-proposes-three-ye... > Verizon said that the average annual salary and benefit package for an associate in their Eastern region is $130,000. In the New York City/Long Island region, Verizon technicians currently have an average total wage-and-benefit package worth in over $160,000 a year. > Verizon said that the cost of medical coverage for an East employee and one or more family members currently averages nearly $20,000 a year. In one of the company's East plans, the annual cost for this coverage is over $23,000 a year. The company said these costs are higher than the national average for family healthcare coverage of about $16,800. These are well-paying union jobs. The problem is not the union, or Verizon itself. The problem is the constant Wall Street pressure on companies whose workers are unionized and enjoy good pay and benefits. From the perspective of investors, having a division that returns under a billion dollars in net income annually on tens of billions of dollars of invested capital is a huge drag on the whole company.
    - ArkyBeagle 11y ago
      Then they should think about going private.
    - ryao 11y ago
      I never would have expected Verizon to pay technicians that well. That level of compensation on Long Island is roughly 3 times the median for the region.
  - LargeCompanies 11y ago
    In 2006 I made $28 an hour working as a Verizon business customer service rep. Prior to that I worked at Comcasst doing the same thing for about $20 an hour($12 hourly rate plus commission) after being there for four years. Overall both jobs bored me to tears and prompted me to learn how to code. Now happily a coder for a living.
  - LargeCompanies 11y ago
    In 2006 I made $28 an hour working as a Verizon business customer service rep. Prior to that I worked at Comcasst doing the same thing for about $20 an hour($12 hourly rate plus commission) after being there for four years. Overall both jobs bored me to tears and prompted me to learn how to code. Now happily a coder for a living.
ryao 11y ago
Technology workers tend to value interesting problems more than money. In my case, my motivation has always been trying to make a positive impact on the world rather than money. I have turned down plenty of job offers, including ones that pay better than I am paid now. I even spent two years unemployed because I felt that that being an independent OSS that worked for free allowed me to have a greater impact on people's lives than I could have at any of the jobs that had been offered to me during that time. That gamble paid off because it enabled me to help lay the groundwork for adoption of ZFS by major Linux distributions at a time when the amount of development to make ZFS production ready on Linux was more than employers were willing to stomach. The integrity of the world's data is better off because of it and in hindsight, nothing else that I could have done would have had such an impact. My OSS development had started as a hobby, but at some point, I began to realize that it could make a positive impact on the world and focused entirely on it, with ZFS taking the bulk of my time. That serendipitously resulted in job offers where everything I do would be OSS and I could continue working on the ZFSOnLinux code as part of it, which I had not anticipated. I was lucky enough to have supporting parents that I could fall back on for me to pursue that. Not everyone does and a certain amount of money is definitely important, especially for those with dependents. If people who need it find they are not compensated well, they can find an employer that does compensate them well. Trying to force an employer that does not value you like they should to behave otherwise instead of finding one that does is masochistic.
- butterfi 11y ago
  Working on interesting problems and being paid a fair and competitive wage are not mutually exclusive.
  - ars 11y ago
    Not directly related to what you said, but this "a fair and competitive wage" jumped out at me. What's a fair wage? It's a competitive wage - it's a wage similar to what other people doing that job get. What's a competitive wage? It's a wage high enough that you are willing to work there, rather than somewhere else. Or in other words, both conditions already happen automatically. That's kinda the whole point of capitalism.
ASinclair 11y ago
If only we'd band together to kill open office plans.
- p4wnc6 11y ago
  I am all for this. Open plan offices need to be dead.
home_boi 11y ago
It's very hard to complain about wages when you make $200k+ on flexible 40 hrs/week with free food. From the outside, tech workers would look entitled.
- spacecowboy_lon 11y ago
  Doesn't stop CEO's or beter known Actors does it and they earn a lot more than $200k. You may earn $200k but your still a worker and most do a lot of unpaid OT
  - eitally 11y ago
    You need to weigh this perspective with the alternative point of view, that the US tech industry wouldn't have developed as quickly or be as world leading as it is if it wasn't for what has been accomplished because of the long hours. I don't disagree with you entirely, but I think we ended up in a good enough spot that it's much more productive to focus on the future than dwell on the past. What gets me is the dichotomy between "big tech" and everyone else employing programmers/designers/UXers doing exactly the same kind of work but for 1/3-1/2 the pay. But hey, when those companies have quarterly EPS above $5, they might start paying better, too.
    - _delirium 11y ago
      Did the U.S. tech industry actually have long hours during the period when it became world-leading? The U.S. was dominant in technology by the 1970s, and as far as I understand the '50s-'70s tech work culture, it was more of a professional engineering culture. 9-to-5 jobs, everyone wore a tie, etc.
      - ArkyBeagle 11y ago
        As it is known now, there sort of wasn't a "tech work culture." People just topped out at fairly low salaries relative to now. People were mostly "lifers". There was very little hope of a replacement job. I had relatives caught up in the early 1970s aerospace bust and they were out of work for a while and had to retool. As a view into it, see "Moon Machines" - that's what it looked like as a child to me. A lot of the "work long hours" thing is cargo culting / social signalling to project the image of "high performance." The first step is admitting you're not John Carmack. I have tendencies that way; I'll get caught up in something at home on the weekends and completely lose track of time. But it must be managed. I know better than to do that at work. You have to let the work breathe ( a metaphor for letting all your cognitive processes catch up after a burst ). It's fun to do... beer/coffee-fueled sprints far into the night but it's not very responsible nor sustainable. I learned this looking carefully at what I'd done in those.
Shivetya 11y ago
the real test if they have a spine is if they take their talent elsewhere rather than congregating around digital water coolers. Look, most of us have been guilty of it one time or another but in the end the simple truth is, the hardest part is going after another job.

Good. If only tech workers had the spine to do the same after finding out their CEOs had conspired to suppress their wages and targeted those who wanted to leave...

mtgx 11y ago

Probably because they are still paid well enough to "bother" going out and protesting. Most Verizon employees are probably paid closer to min wage.

whatok 11y ago
The article says that 99% of the people striking are wireline employees; not wireless. They're more than likely making well over minimum wage.
function_seven 11y ago
> Most Verizon employees are probably paid closer to min wage. You have a misconception here. The average Verizon wireline employee is making more than $70,000 a year. Not minimum wage or even close.
- kspaans 11y ago
  What about the median wage of Verizon employees?
  - whatok 11y ago
    If you combine wireline and wireless you would get the same skewed statistic as combining Apple Store and corporate employees.
    - spacecowboy_lon 11y ago
      You need to split it between the blue collar side ie Line men and the M&P (managerial and professional) grades.
  - function_seven 11y ago
    I misused "average" above. The average is probably north of $100,000. Median is up there as well. These are well-paying jobs.
- rayiner 11y ago
  http://www.fiercetelecom.com/story/verizon-proposes-three-year-agreement-38000-union-workers/2015-06-23 http://www.fiercetelecom.com/story/verizon-proposes-three-ye... > Verizon said that the average annual salary and benefit package for an associate in their Eastern region is $130,000. In the New York City/Long Island region, Verizon technicians currently have an average total wage-and-benefit package worth in over $160,000 a year. > Verizon said that the cost of medical coverage for an East employee and one or more family members currently averages nearly $20,000 a year. In one of the company's East plans, the annual cost for this coverage is over $23,000 a year. The company said these costs are higher than the national average for family healthcare coverage of about $16,800. These are well-paying union jobs. The problem is not the union, or Verizon itself. The problem is the constant Wall Street pressure on companies whose workers are unionized and enjoy good pay and benefits. From the perspective of investors, having a division that returns under a billion dollars in net income annually on tens of billions of dollars of invested capital is a huge drag on the whole company.
  - ArkyBeagle 11y ago
    Then they should think about going private.
  - ryao 11y ago
    I never would have expected Verizon to pay technicians that well. That level of compensation on Long Island is roughly 3 times the median for the region.
- LargeCompanies 11y ago
  In 2006 I made $28 an hour working as a Verizon business customer service rep. Prior to that I worked at Comcasst doing the same thing for about $20 an hour($12 hourly rate plus commission) after being there for four years. Overall both jobs bored me to tears and prompted me to learn how to code. Now happily a coder for a living.
- LargeCompanies 11y ago
  In 2006 I made $28 an hour working as a Verizon business customer service rep. Prior to that I worked at Comcasst doing the same thing for about $20 an hour($12 hourly rate plus commission) after being there for four years. Overall both jobs bored me to tears and prompted me to learn how to code. Now happily a coder for a living.

ryao 11y ago

Technology workers tend to value interesting problems more than money. In my case, my motivation has always been trying to make a positive impact on the world rather than money. I have turned down plenty of job offers, including ones that pay better than I am paid now. I even spent two years unemployed because I felt that that being an independent OSS that worked for free allowed me to have a greater impact on people's lives than I could have at any of the jobs that had been offered to me during that time. That gamble paid off because it enabled me to help lay the groundwork for adoption of ZFS by major Linux distributions at a time when the amount of development to make ZFS production ready on Linux was more than employers were willing to stomach. The integrity of the world's data is better off because of it and in hindsight, nothing else that I could have done would have had such an impact. My OSS development had started as a hobby, but at some point, I began to realize that it could make a positive impact on the world and focused entirely on it, with ZFS taking the bulk of my time. That serendipitously resulted in job offers where everything I do would be OSS and I could continue working on the ZFSOnLinux code as part of it, which I had not anticipated. I was lucky enough to have supporting parents that I could fall back on for me to pursue that. Not everyone does and a certain amount of money is definitely important, especially for those with dependents. If people who need it find they are not compensated well, they can find an employer that does compensate them well. Trying to force an employer that does not value you like they should to behave otherwise instead of finding one that does is masochistic.

butterfi 11y ago
Working on interesting problems and being paid a fair and competitive wage are not mutually exclusive.
- ars 11y ago
  Not directly related to what you said, but this "a fair and competitive wage" jumped out at me. What's a fair wage? It's a competitive wage - it's a wage similar to what other people doing that job get. What's a competitive wage? It's a wage high enough that you are willing to work there, rather than somewhere else. Or in other words, both conditions already happen automatically. That's kinda the whole point of capitalism.

ASinclair 11y ago

If only we'd band together to kill open office plans.

p4wnc6 11y ago
I am all for this. Open plan offices need to be dead.

home_boi 11y ago

It's very hard to complain about wages when you make $200k+ on flexible 40 hrs/week with free food. From the outside, tech workers would look entitled.

spacecowboy_lon 11y ago
Doesn't stop CEO's or beter known Actors does it and they earn a lot more than $200k. You may earn $200k but your still a worker and most do a lot of unpaid OT
- eitally 11y ago
  You need to weigh this perspective with the alternative point of view, that the US tech industry wouldn't have developed as quickly or be as world leading as it is if it wasn't for what has been accomplished because of the long hours. I don't disagree with you entirely, but I think we ended up in a good enough spot that it's much more productive to focus on the future than dwell on the past. What gets me is the dichotomy between "big tech" and everyone else employing programmers/designers/UXers doing exactly the same kind of work but for 1/3-1/2 the pay. But hey, when those companies have quarterly EPS above $5, they might start paying better, too.
  - _delirium 11y ago
    Did the U.S. tech industry actually have long hours during the period when it became world-leading? The U.S. was dominant in technology by the 1970s, and as far as I understand the '50s-'70s tech work culture, it was more of a professional engineering culture. 9-to-5 jobs, everyone wore a tie, etc.
    - ArkyBeagle 11y ago
      As it is known now, there sort of wasn't a "tech work culture." People just topped out at fairly low salaries relative to now. People were mostly "lifers". There was very little hope of a replacement job. I had relatives caught up in the early 1970s aerospace bust and they were out of work for a while and had to retool. As a view into it, see "Moon Machines" - that's what it looked like as a child to me. A lot of the "work long hours" thing is cargo culting / social signalling to project the image of "high performance." The first step is admitting you're not John Carmack. I have tendencies that way; I'll get caught up in something at home on the weekends and completely lose track of time. But it must be managed. I know better than to do that at work. You have to let the work breathe ( a metaphor for letting all your cognitive processes catch up after a burst ). It's fun to do... beer/coffee-fueled sprints far into the night but it's not very responsible nor sustainable. I learned this looking carefully at what I'd done in those.

Shivetya 11y ago

the real test if they have a spine is if they take their talent elsewhere rather than congregating around digital water coolers. Look, most of us have been guilty of it one time or another but in the end the simple truth is, the hardest part is going after another job.