not quite on strike, day to day at CenturyLink

basically in the 14 state Northwestern Bell / USWest / Qwest region that Century Link bought a year ago, CWA and IBEW workers are out of contract, and working day to day.  CTL is trying to screw the workforce down to the level of a bad cable company using the Hewitt Associates playbook.  no need to retype a lot, I'm going to copy my get'Facedbook stuff because, hey, I got it right the first time.

>> no contract. CenturyLink union workers of the CWA and IBEW are working day to day pending a change in the Bain-ish attitude of the company negotiators. the company's stated intent is to screw down wages to those of the cable companies, directly and by jabbing more healthcare costs. that's a disease going around, the only cure for which is a careful eye by consumers, and a straight Democratic vote in November. if you like Syria, you'll love the USA that the million/billionnaires want for you.

>>  The Seven Principles are taking a beating from the company side. Everybody I talk to on both union and not sides in the 14 state region wants to do the best job possible for the customers. We know it's a tough nickel out there and want to win on reliability and service. Had a senior guy couple weeks ago say in a round table that contractors are killing them and they want good stable company employees. The top level apparently doesn't buy that. Time for actions = words.

>> A great deal of blame should go to Hewitt Associates. The celebrated union-buster was brought in by Qwest to run benefits (!) and kept by CTL. Fox in the henhouse. And they can't be there unless they were let in for a reason. 

>> CTL is still shaky with Hewitt disease. Day to day. They're crazy to push everybody not face to face with customers below $8 an hour. Here are some numbers... salary packages are 60% of costs. The 13,000 "classic Qwest " workers, out of 50,000 total CTL staff, get under 40% of that 60%. That looks pretty close to parity to me head to head.

>>  not only do they want to two-tier many of the workforces (to create internal tension between workers) but they've just proposed to hack the old-timers another $300 a week to boot. I don't think this day-to-day thing is going to last that long.

nothing has changed in two days on either side of the contract expiration.  so, business as usual Monday.  no guarantee for any other day.