[VRM]

Jamo,
Those wimmin talking on the phone all day have to push a button to get permission to go to the bathroom. Rather than mocking them maybe you should give them some credit for doing a job you would never want to do.

As for the rest of it - yep I agree. There was a union guy who cut one of the new (back then) fiber cables and knocked out phone service to about 120K people in Brockton, MA for about 18 hours. I spent about 4 hours checking data circuits as things were getting patched up. I have no idea what it cost the phone company, but the guy kept his job because one of the agreements in the new contract was amnesty. There were a couple of other similar instances (that I am aware of) during that same strike.

Out of all the union guys I worked with, there were about 6 that I would be willing to work with again.

I would also be happy if the phone companies gave up their assured profits given to them by regulators in lieu of actually having to compete.

Steve