Me and a Dove

Alternate title: Me and a Found Painting

Hibachi Last Sunday

Yumm!!!

AT&T Workers in Califonia, Nevada Walkout

Photo by Anonymous

In support of a friend's effort to stand with her union to renegotiate a fair contract, here's an article from the Los Angeles Times about an AT&T workers' protest that started last Friday, and a photo to go with it.

Thousands of AT&T workers in California and Nevada have walked off their jobs, the latest development in an acrimonious contract negotiation that has dragged on for months.

AT&T landline workers in hundreds of locations gathered to protest what they saw as AT&T's unfair contract demands, which they say include "massive healthcare cost-shifting to workers and their families," as well as reductions in AT&T worker retirement security, according to the Communications Workers of America, the union to which the employees belong.

The contract for 40,000 AT&T workers around the U.S. expired two months ago, and the company has since failed to reach an accord with the CWA. The CWA’s 9th district, which includes California and Nevada, covers 18,000 AT&T landline workers.

Libby Sayre, a CWA spokeswoman, said that the actions on Friday did not amount to a full-blown worker strike, and were only likely to last through the day. Although the contract negotiations have been "excruciatingly slow and time-consuming," she said, "we'd much rather get a contract without a strike."

Workers have been further incensed by remarks made in a memo from an AT&T executive, Betsy Farrell. In the memo, obtained by the Times, Farrell writes that when workers leave their jobs, "The company doesn't suffer. In fact, these actions help us financially when we don't pay you."

Heavy Quote from Dawna Markova

I was quite taken with this quote and inspired by it, but when my father called and left a message for me saying, "The first line from this quote you sent me is heavy, as a matter of fact, all of it is heavy," then I knew I had to post it. Here it is:

I will not die an unlived life. I will not live in fear of falling or catching fire. I choose to inhabit my days, to allow my living to open me, to make me less afraid, more accessible, to loosen my heart until it becomes a wing, a torch, a promise. I choose to risk my significance; to live so that which comes to me as seed goes to the next as blossom and that which comes to me as blossom, goes on as fruit.

-- Dawna Markova