Do you think we'll ever again have it at AT&T?
I'm just so tired of not being to relax or make any long term plans for fear that I might end up without a steady income at any point in time.
I'd have left by now, but from everything I'm reading here and around the web, this is not a uniquely AT&T issue.
The company has several declining businesses so do not expect it to change.
Automobiles are going semi-autonomous and electric. All non-dealer repair shops now have a new need - how to repair them, how to install software downloads, or, go out of business. At one time, coal and oil were delivered to homes; with natural gas, that ended. AT&T is doing the same think, modernizing and changing their business. And It means we're vulnerable. What can we do? Keep our skills up and hope for a better job elsewhere. They hold the Aces.
For forty years we've been sold this 'trickle down economics' lie. Just remove all regulations on businesses and lower their taxes and wealth will shower down on all of us!!
Well it has not. The rich keep getting richer while life for the rest of us keeps getting more financially stressful and insecure.
A nation where the working population live in a constant state of job anxiety for the profit of the privileged top fraction of one percent is not a healthy or sustainable society. Things need to change fast.
Oh, and f* y for being a big part of the problem Randall.
"It is not simply neoliberalism to blame- all of the problems we have are the result of unchecked GLOBALISM. "
Neoliberal economics drives globalization not the other way around. The market gods decree that there is insufficient labor supply to drive down wages and increase executive and shareholder payouts. How do you get more labor inputs? Open the market up to India, China, Bangladesh, etc.
It is not simply neoliberalism to blame- all of the problems we have are the result of unchecked GLOBALISM. Globalism causes companies to constantly drive to the bottom in terms of cost structure, constant pressure to outsource and offshore. And our govt has not checked this. NEITHER party gives a sh--. This wall? Will not help save your job if you are a skilled worker. What we need is comprehensive reform and a complete end to the VISA program and severe penalties to offshoring. The AMERICAN telephone and telegraph company should not have a presence in BANGALORE INDIA!!!!
What part of the company have some been working in? Been this way in parts of the company for years. 20 years ago was the first time I was told to find a job. Surpluses, reorgs, down grades. Biggest difference is now that so many jobs have shrunk over the years and the company is/has run out of landing spots. Lot of the Legacy business is gone and will never come back. Automation is eliminating a lot of other slots.
Negative. But it’s everywhere. And if you are young in work in IT- my advice is to find another line of work...
No...those days are over. Employees are now disposable like a broken tool.
"The only advice I have is be mindful of your skill sets that may apply outside of this telecommunications business, it is such a niche business. There is hardly job security, but only opportunity."
This is, unfortunately, advice that ignores reality and furthers the "every man for himself " ideology of neoliberalism. The reality that this ignores is that job insecurity is everywhere, not just in telecom. Also changing jobs for opportunity is not a sustainable plan for employees in every phase of their career. Glib statements that opportunity matters as much as some level of job security is executive talk. They want to employ a workforce of itinerant and contingent proles for which they have no responsibility. The result is the one-way loyalty we see but that is falling apart fast.
The only advice I have is be mindful of your skill sets that may apply outside of this telecommunications business, it is such a niche business. There is hardly job security, but only opportunity.
You are correct. AT&T is not the only company that has destroyed any sense of security among its employees. It is just one of the more egregious cases because of Randall's unwise debt fueled buying spree. Make no mistake however, your job insecurity is seen as a good thing in a neoliberal economic system (look up neoliberal--both Republicans and Democrats adhere to its principles) like ours. Workers that are insecure are more compliant and less likely to demand higher wages. Since the goal is to make the 0.01% more wealthy the fact your salary cuts into the bonus and salary of Randall et. al. is an abomination in their eyes. For 40 or 50 years we have been propagandized into thinking this travesty of inequality of wealth and power is the source of America's strength. It was a lie but most of us swallowed it. Now, even the most blinkered among us are beginning to realize that neoliberalism is based on faulty economics and bad faith. AT&T is so deep in the neoliberal muck that I doubt it can be saved. One problem with such concentration of power is that it allows executives so much leeway that they can destroy a lot of value before they can be stopped.
I joined South Central Bell in 1983 - one year before the divestiture of the original AT&T company. The first "separations" from the company (by now we were BellSouth Telecommunications) that I recall was around the 1987 timeframe, and these separations continued throughout my 24 years with BellSouth and 6 years with the "New AT&T". The telecommunications industry never figured out how to offer employees a secure future in the world of CLECs (Competitive Local Exchange Carriers) and now, as a previous poster stated, automation adds another layer of uncertainty to many industries.
Any long term plans should be focused on what is next for YOU. The layoffs will continue do to task automation and off shoring ..oh and corporate greed.
Not as long as Randall runs the company.