A Living Magazine - Day 316 - Homecoming - Poughkeepsie: Sun Between the Raindrops

It really poured over night. At about 4:30 a.m. I noticed it had stopped and the deer (don't know if it was the same one as the morning before) stood nearby huffing and barking. I took a piss and then went back to sleep. The next sound I heard was a huge crack of lightning right over the IBM building. About two minutes later the rain began again. I hoped that, since it was a thunderstorm, it wouldn't last long, but it did...

The other thing about thunderstorms in general, is that they tend to pull the moisture out of all the surrounding clouds and then dump it all at once along its track, leaving those other clouds depleted. So, my second hope was that it might clear up for a while. Intellicast was ambiguous about this.

Finally, the rain slowed and stopped. I quickly got my shit together, packed up the very wet tarps and tent, and headed out to that Wendy's I'd used in the last couple of days. Their Wi-fi was fast and they had an AC outlet. It was nearing noon when I got there, and the grey sky had turned a golden white.

I spent the afternoon writing under the Nick Jr. cartoons until noticing sunlight on the table and looking up through the window to see blue skies above. This might be my chance to dry things out. I packed up and left...

What a welcome sight. I knew the sun wouldn't last long,
but it seemed to impart just enough energy to keep me going.

I walked back by the striking workers...

I couldn't figure out a way or find a place to dry my things. It would have to wait. When I got to Starbucks, I looked up the Verizon strike and found a ton of information. It really does seem like a just cause in this case. Verizon (owned by the monster company Telecom) is being ridiculously grabby with the profits it makes, while having a long term plan to cut jobs and decrease services.

One of the best articles I read was by Eileen White, at the site Jobs with Justice. It is obviously biased, but very well-researched. Frankly, media articles on the subject - by trying to be objective and unbiased - leave out a lot of details. And, as I've gone on and on about here before, all of these giant corporations are careful not to step on each other's toes. They prefer to dance around the heart of the problem, and willfully choose to leave out important information, as not to rock the white-collar boat. Sometimes, wrong is just wrong! By giving equal weight to two sides of an obviously unfair situation, the media sanitizes the polluted side of things, and waters down the truth.

It is something like reporting a wildfire at large city park, and saying "Wildfire Hits City Park. Neighboring houses are at risk of being burned down. Yet, scientists have suggested that fire is good in nature as it will clean out the dead brush and allow new pine seeds to germinate..." I mean, obviously, the point is to save the houses, but you wouldn't get that impression from the media.

Here is an excerpt from Eileen's article, Five Reasons to Care about the Verizon Strike...

1. Verizon makes billions each year, yet they still expect people to do more with less.

The corporation raked in $9.6 billion in profits in 2014, $39 billion over the last three years – and $1.8 billion a month in profits over the first three months of 2016. And from 2010 to 2014, Verizon executives made more than $249 million. Apparently, Verizon corporate bosses are unsatisfied with their massive profit margins and want to make working people do more with less. In negotiations thus far, Verizon has asked its loyal workforce for huge cuts to retirement security and benefits to people injured on the job, increases in employee health-care costs, and elimination of job security. Additionally the company wants to uproot technicians to work away from home for as long as two months without seeing and taking care of their families who depend on them. These are life-altering changes to the men and women at Verizon who are just trying to pay their bills and ensure a brighter future for their families.

2. Verizon plays dirty.

Instead of putting forward reasonable negotiating terms, Verizon has invested resources in training 15,000 employees to take over in the case of a work stoppage. Verizon has also given its non-union employees a mobile surveillance app that can monitor and take geotagged photos of union members throughout negotiations. Essentially, it’s a tattletale app with the sole purpose of intimidating people from coming together in union at work.

3. Verizon wants to get rid of good union jobs and outsource instead.

The men and women in union who work at Verizon have worked hard to create better workplaces for themselves and those that follow. But just like in 2011, Verizon wants its employees to give them the thumbs up to contract out work, replacing good, hometown jobs with cheap labor. Since 2005, the percentage of Verizon employees in union has dropped from nearly 70 percent to less than 30 percent.

4. Verizon refuses to expand FiOS.

Consumer demand for high-speed Internet is higher than ever. Several years ago, Verizon got tax breaks and rate hikes in exchange for expanding FiOS, its high-speed Internet, phone and video connection, throughout the Northeast. But in 2012, Verizon announced it would no longer expand its FiOS service, leaving customers in many places without access to high-speed Internet. Why would the company not want to increase its customer base for a popular service? Some believe Verizon is choosing not to repair and modernize its outdated copper wire system and grow FiOS because the company doesn’t want to invest in the people who maintain and install the service.

The company has also been accused of redlining poor and minority communities. In New York, the FiOS expansion was concentrated in affluent city suburbs, while low-income, urban areas were left behind. Other communities that have been excluded from the FiOS expansion include Bethlehem, Pa., Baltimore, Md., and Roanoke, N.C. Verizon is now trying to get out of the business of landlines all together, which will mean poorer service and even fewer options for many customers, especially in poor and rural areas that are already on the wrong side of the “digital divide.”

“On the one hand, Verizon refuses to build its high-speed FiOS network in lower income areas. And on the other, they are systematically ignoring maintenance needs on their landline network,” said Ed Mooney, vice president for CWA District 2-13, which covers Pennsylvania to Virginia. “This leaves customers at the mercy of a cable monopoly or stuck with deteriorating service while Verizon executives and shareholders rake in billions.”

5. Verizon has a long history of ripping off taxpayers through tax evasion.

Verizon isn’t just looking to cut costs by slashing benefits and eliminating jobs; one of America’s most successful businesses is also taking money from taxpayers. From 2008 to 2013, Verizon received a tax refund of $732 million from the IRS, which resulted in a corporate income tax rate of minus two percent. That’s right, a negative income tax rate! Verizon is also culpable of stashing money abroad to avoid paying income taxes. In 2012, Verizon stored $1.8 billion in offshore tax havens.

I couldn't find much support for the Verizon side of the story, except the usual ideologically based (my paraphrasing) "This is why unions are bad! All those customers aren't getting the service they need, because these workers have treasonously abandoned their duty to the company. They should be happy they're not flipping burgers and just get back to work. CEO's deserve million dollar salaries! They make the big important decisions..." Blah, blah, blah...

I looked for well-reasoned argument from Verizon, but found nothing at all. The sense is that they don't really care what is being said about them. And, why should they? They hold all the cards - so they think - and have billions of dollars to weather through any of this. Yes, it will cost them, but they are making a point: If you work for us, be prepared to do a lot of extra things for which you will not be compensated. Yet, when the customers complain, it will be your responsibility to make things right. We aren't going to upgrade services for people who can't afford our plans, even if we would end up a stronger company later down the line. And, remember, if you don't like it and strike, wekeep a reserve corps of nonunion workers on hand to replace you. You know. It's the same old greed thing.^{[See my related posts 1, 2, 3, 4]}

As the sun set, the clouds began to roll in again. I left Starbucks and got over to the sleep spot, having remembered landmarks that would help guide me through the woods.

Instead of hanging things up to dry, I decided to simply reassemble them on the tent and let them dry that way if possible. The rain looked like it would be coming soon, and I just didn't have the time to do a careful drying. If I had hung them up and then had to assemble the tent quickly while it rained, it would have all gotten wet again. Had to use the POMA method--something I'd be relying on more and more...

I stood outside thinking and pacing around until the rain began. Then it was into the tent for me. I was getting quite used to dealing with rain. Nevertheless, that didn't make me like it any better. I was determined, as I lay there nearing sleep, to move on the next day, even if it was raining.