msmith@topaz.rutgers.edu (Mark Robert Smith) (08/07/89)
Well, the strike has started. Officially, this means that CWA and IBEW are on strike against NJ Bell. Supervisory personnel are covering. Also, the sabotage has continued. About a dozen subscriber lines were cut in Leonia, NJ's central office. United Telephone/com? (the local telephone company for NW NJ) has reported about 20 incidents per day of vandalism, mostly subscriber lines cut in CO's, and fiber cables cut with hatchets. Once again I ask - what are the unions trying to prove here? I can't see any judge or arbitrator taking the union side on anything after all of this. Mark ---- Mark Smith | "Be careful when looking into the distance, |All Rights 61 Tenafly Road|that you do not miss what is right under your nose."| Reserved Tenafly,NJ 07670-2643|rutgers!topaz.rutgers.edu!msmith,msmith@topaz.rutgers.edu You may redistribute this article only to those who may freely do likewise.
bzs@BU-CS.BU.EDU (Barry Shein) (08/08/89)
From: msmith@topaz.rutgers.edu (Mark Robert Smith) >Once again I ask - what are the unions trying to prove here? I can't see any >judge or arbitrator taking the union side on anything after all of this. Why are you so certain it's the union provoking this? Individuals get p-o'd at everyone when they're put out on strike. Not to mention that it's in the company's interest to fill the media with union horror stories. Don't be naive, the BOC's and the union are now at war and the first casualty of war is truth. If you've ever been involved with a union during a strike you'd know that the first thing they tell the membership is that the company will try to accuse them of sabotage and all sorts of things so keep your noses clean because it only hurts their (the union's) cause and try to ignore the propaganda campaign. This whole drama is nearly the same no matter who the union or who the company, don't be naive. And, so I don't appear entirely one-sided, the union will begin screaming that management refuses to even sit down and bargain, that scabs are being brought in by the zillions, that the whole strike was engineered by management for some incredibly clever conspiratorial reason and that union strike leaders and their families are being physically harassed etc etc. And no doubt some of it all will be true, but not much. Come back and report when charges are filed and the union is held responsible for this, not when some manager at NJ Bell calls the press to badmouth the union. I'd prefer if both sides spent their time settling their differences rather than playing media games. Calling information in Boston now yields a recording that it's not available. What fun. -Barry Shein Software Tool & Die, Purveyors to the Trade 1330 Beacon Street, Brookline, MA 02146, (617) 739-0202 Internet: bzs@skuld.std.com UUCP: encore!xylogics!skuld!bzs or uunet!skuld!bzs
miket@brspyr1.brs.com (Mike Trout) (08/09/89)
In article <telecom-v09i0277m01@vector.dallas.tx.us>, msmith@topaz.rutgers.edu (Mark Robert Smith) writes: > Well, the strike has started. [...] > Also, the sabotage has continued. About a dozen subscriber lines were cut in > Leonia, NJ's central office. United Telephone/com? (the local telephone > company for NW NJ) has reported about 20 incidents per day of vandalism, > mostly subscriber lines cut in CO's, and fiber cables cut with hatchets. > Once again I ask - what are the unions trying to prove here? I can't see any > judge or arbitrator taking the union side on anything after all of this. Don't confuse the unions' desires with the semi-rational actions of a few saboteurs. I would suggest "vandalism" is a more accurate description than "sabotage." The union leaders, as well as the rank-and-file, have no desire to have their case soiled by a handful of violent malcontents. Of course, it is the responsibility of the union leadership to control (and preferably prevent) violence and vandalism. The leaders may be guilty of not adequately exercising such control. On the other hand, there is only so much union leaders can do--if some boneheads absolutely want to cut cables, they're going to do it regardless. Most judges and arbitrators know all this and take it into account. When you deal with human beings, a certain amount of nonsense is inevitable. This is not to suggest that officially sanctioned union (or management) violence and sabotage never happens. Sometimes it does, but there's no evidence to suggest that is the case here. -- NSA food: Iran sells Nicaraguan drugs to White House through CIA, SOD & NRO. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Michael Trout (miket@brspyr1)~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ BRS Information Technologies, 1200 Rt. 7, Latham, N.Y. 12110 (518) 783-1161 "God forbid we should ever be 20 years without...a rebellion." Thomas Jefferson
ijk@violin.att.com (Ihor J Kinal) (08/09/89)
In article <telecom-v09i0280m05@vector.dallas.tx.us>, bzs@BU-CS.BU.EDU (Barry Shein) writes: > And no doubt some of it all will be true, but not much. > > Come back and report when charges are filed and the union is held > responsible for this, not when some manager at NJ Bell calls the press > to badmouth the union. I've been scanning the news articles, but I HAVE NOT seen any BELL MANAGER accuse the UNIONS of sabatoge. From the nature of Barry's article, though, it would appear, since the UNION is not culpable, and that the UNION MEMBERS are not culpable, that either the GENERAL PUBLIC or MANAGEMENT of the BELL CO are doing this to make the UNIONS look bad. It's possible - I'm sure that some COMPANIES have done that in the past, but I suppose most people are unlikely to accept that as the likelier of the possibilities in this particular case. Ihor Kinal STANDARD DISCLAIMER about my opinions being my own. [Moderator's Note: It appears we here in Ameritech territory will get off lucky this time around. Strike-talk was in the air at Illinois Bell, but apparently they are very close to resolving the few minor difference which remain. PT]
msmith@topaz.rutgers.edu (Mark Robert Smith) (08/09/89)
I seem to have forgotten a few points that lead me to exclude the general public from responsibility for the vandalism, and point the finger at a Bell employee - union or management. Most of the individual lines that were cut were cut IN the Central Office, which is a high security area. They were not cut in the boxes on the street - though in Englewood, 50 of these boxes were vandalized. Therefore, I believe that an NJ Bell employee was responsible. Mark -- Mark Smith | "Be careful when looking into the distance, |All Rights 61 Tenafly Road|that you do not miss what is right under your nose."| Reserved Tenafly,NJ 07670-2643|rutgers!topaz.rutgers.edu!msmith,msmith@topaz.rutgers.edu You may redistribute this article only to those who may freely do likewise.
cattley@ntvax.uucp (Gary Cattley - CEMI) (08/09/89)
Mark Smith comments, >>Once again I ask - what are the unions trying to prove here? I can't see any >>judge or arbitrator taking the union side on anything after all of this. In article <telecom-v09i0280m05@vector.dallas.tx.us> bzs@BU-CS.BU.EDU (Barry Shein) responded: >Come back and report when charges are filed and the union is held >responsible for this, not when some manager at NJ Bell calls the press >to badmouth the union. Irregardless of the source of the damage to telco equipment, it seemingly is more than coincidental vandalism. I found Smith's postings informative, more for the explanation they offered for results that I got when trying to place calls to the affected area(s), than for the political interpretations. The latter, just take with proverbial salt in any posting, media source, etc. If there are more service interruptions, please continue to post. gary Gary Cattley - CEMI email: cattley@dept.csci.unt.edu or bitnet id48@vaxb.acs.unt.edu
bzs@BU-CS.BU.EDU (Barry Shein) (08/11/89)
From: ijk@violin.att.com (Ihor J Kinal) >I've been scanning the news articles, but I HAVE NOT seen any BELL >MANAGER accuse the UNIONS of sabatoge. Then where exactly are the papers getting this info? Certainly the mere disruption of service is not enough for a newspaper to print "SERVICE SABOTAGED BY UNION!". Someone must be feeding them this analysis. Last I heard it wasn't the practice of non-striking employees to speak to the press for the phone company during a strike (nor the press likely to believe their analysis of an outage.) I doubt the unions are giving this info to the press, so who??? Telepathy? I'm sure if you called one of these newspapers and asked (and they're willing to tell you) you'll find they're re-printing summaries of official press releases prepared by the phone co's PR dept and mailed to all the major newspapers. Either that or interviewing managers as a result of investigating some large service disruption, some reporter looking for an angle, but more likely getting it from "official sources". Maybe you have some fantasy that newspapers do all this careful investigation and would never just reprint some company press release, hah! > From the nature of Barry's article, though, it would appear, since >the UNION is not culpable, and that the UNION MEMBERS are not culpable, >that either the GENERAL PUBLIC or MANAGEMENT of the BELL CO are doing >this to make the UNIONS look bad. I didn't say the union was not culpable, I just said I don't know that they are. How do you even know there was *any* sabotage? Because some phone service got disrupted and the phone co blamed it on the strikers? Maybe, maybe not. In fact the phone co might feel justified in labelling abandoning their posts or half-completed work "sabotage", who knows, be a little cynical, in cases like this it's healthy. Everyone's trying to manipulate the public. -Barry Shein Software Tool & Die, Purveyors to the Trade 1330 Beacon Street, Brookline, MA 02146, (617) 739-0202 Internet: bzs@skuld.std.com UUCP: encore!xylogics!skuld!bzs or uunet!skuld!bzs
msmith@topaz.rutgers.edu (Mark Robert Smith) (08/11/89)
In article <telecom-v09i0289m07@vector.dallas.tx.us> bzs@BU-CS.BU.EDU (Barry Shein) writes: > I didn't say the union was not culpable, I just said I don't know that > they are. > How do you even know there was *any* sabotage? Because some phone > service got disrupted and the phone co blamed it on the strikers? > Maybe, maybe not. > -Barry Shein Well, I do know that there was *some* sabotage. A fiber cable was cut, with a hatchet, with the result that among other things, Rutgers was knocked off Internet for two days. I don't think that NJ Bell would use a hatchet - knowing that they'd have to fix it - if they wanted to make the unions look bad. Mark Smith | "Be careful when looking into the distance, |All Rights 61 Tenafly Road|that you do not miss what is right under your nose."| Reserved Tenafly,NJ 07670-2643|rutgers!topaz.rutgers.edu!msmith,msmith@topaz.rutgers.edu You may redistribute this article only to those who may freely do likewise.
smk@attunix.att.com (S M Krieger) (08/13/89)
In article <telecom-v09i0290m13@vector.dallas.tx.us>, msmith@topaz.rutgers.edu (Mark Robert Smith) writes: > In article <telecom-v09i0289m07@vector.dallas.tx.us> bzs@BU-CS.BU.EDU (Barry > Shein) writes: > > > How do you even know there was *any* sabotage? Because some phone > > service got disrupted and the phone co blamed it on the strikers? > > Maybe, maybe not. > All I know is that my daughter's phone line went dead (not even any power to the phone) last Sunday, she got service restored Monday afternoon, and for about three days, there was work going on at a cross-connection box in New Providence, NJ about 0.9 miles away from my home. And, unless it's really media manipulation, one of the "incidents" that the Newark Star Ledger reported was damage to a telephone box in New Providence that affected 400 subscribers. -- Stan Krieger Summit, NJ ...!att!attunix!smk
ron@hardees.rutgers.edu (Ron Natalie) (08/15/89)
It was almost certainly an inside job, but I snicker about their High Security locks. The last NJ Bell high security area I visited was protected by a "Simplex" pushbutton lock that had the combination that it is shipped with from the factory (which is always the same). Even if they changed these combinations, the phreaks around here know how to manipulate these things open. Actually, the fact that Rutgers was off the net was only coincidental with the sabotage. It did knockoff some of the other JVNC members, but our problem turned out to be that the guys installing the phonelines for the new dormitories tripped over one of the T1 lines in the manhole they were working in. -Ron [Moderator's Note: Its nice to know the phreaks in your community are experienced burglars. That should make everyone feel great. PT]