At a riotous final concert at San Francisco’s Winterland auditorium, The Sex Pistols’ frontman Johnny Rotten notoriously trolled the crowd with a final line, “Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?” as the band walked offstage after a fifteen-minute set. That phrase came to mind when stories surfaced last month in Pro …

AT&T has agreed to a new contract with 17,000 union workers who were threatening a strike. The deal will cover both AT&T and DirecTV workers who handle the telco's network and services in California and Nevada. It will run for four years, should it be approved by union members. According to the Communication Workers of …

A union representing 40,000 AT&T Mobility workers is threatening a nationwide strike this weekend after negotiations with the telco stalled. The Communications Workers of America (CWA) said on Wednesday that union members in 36 states are set to join picket lines outside of AT&T retail stores this weekend if the company can't …

The beleaguered rank-and-file at Fujitsu are downing tools this month over long-running proposals to chop jobs and the pension pot, Unite the union has revealed. Fujitsu put 1,800 people, or 13 per cent of the UK workforce, at risk of redundancy back in October. Staff will be pushed at different stages of this year and early …

Unionised staff at Fujitsu are downing tools for 24 hours from midnight in protest over cuts to jobs, pay and pensions. It appears the conciliation service ACAS failed to find a common ground that suited all parties. Trade union Unite was unable to say how many of its 1,200 members employed at Fujitsu will be on the picket …

US telecom giant Verizon says it will be closing seven US call centers and tossing the jobs of 3,500 employees in limbo in the process. The mobile service and network carrier says the sites in California, New York (two locations), Maine, Nebraska and Connecticut (two locations) will be closed and the jobs moved into other call …

Nashville's Google Fiber rollout has hit a pair of snags: rival carriers are, and this may surprise you, stalling the installation of lines needed for Google's new broadband network. AT&T in particular is battling Google's efforts to run cables from telephone poles around Music City, in Tennessee, US. The issue centers around …

Students from around the US gathered recently in Louisville, Kentucky to take part in a series of contests based on installing, maintaining, and troubleshooting lines for telco networks. The SkillsUSA Telecommunications Cabling Championship brought high school and university students together to compete in events including 25- …

Last month, Verizon staff along with the Communication Workers of America (CWA) decided to go on strike as union and the US telco failed to agree on a new contract. Now, as the strike enters its third week, both sides are hunkering down for what they believe could be a long and ugly battle. Verizon employees on the Eastern …

The workers who handle Verizon's wireline services in the Eastern US have gone on strike. At 6:00am local time Wednesday morning, the Communications Workers of America (CWA) said that members in districts ranging from Maryland and Delaware up through New York and New England were officially on strike barring failed …

The Teamsters Union is lobbying Facebook to recognize a unionization of the company's bus drivers – the ones shuttling FB'ers to and from work in Menlo Park every day. The union said in an open letter [PDF] to CEO Mark Zuckerberg that it was looking to include the private coach drivers in its Local 853 group in hopes of …

IBM has instituted a new, mandatory training program for some US employees whom management claims don't measure up in the skills department – and participants will be required to give up 10 per cent of their salaries for the privilege. The program was announced in a memo issued to the affected staffers, all of whom work in the …

HP has refused to rule out making roles redundant in the UK and shifting them to parts of Europe where average salaries are lower. Cost cutting HP last week entered into consultation with the works council and yesterday engaged with union types over plans to slash 7,100 roles across the region, the last tranche of 34k job cuts …

HP has confirmed it will convene with unions reps in a bid to thrash out the number of UK workers that could get the heave-ho over the next 90 days. Consultation began on 30 January "regarding potential workforce changes" that have been pencilled in by management for HP's fiscal Q2, which started this month. "Collective …

Greenpeace and the International Trade Union Confederation are the latest to lay into the UN International Telecommunications Union for trying to grab hold of the internet, blithely unconcerned by the complete lack of any such plan on the ITU's part. In an open letter signed by the Director and Secretary respectively (pdf, …

Ailing telecoms kit maker Alcatel Lucent is facing a typically robust response from French unions as it tries to slash costs, and over 5,000 jobs, in a bid to compete better - especially against low-cost rivals from China. The firm first announced plans to cut more than six per cent from its 78,000 strong global workforce back …

Amanda Palmer, the often scantily clad popstrel performer who raised $1.2m from fans on Kickstarter to finance a tour, has yielded to criticism and agreed to pay her backing musicians in a recognised convertible currency - rather than embraces, T-shirts and beer. Palmer, whose most noteworthy achievement in many eyes is being …

AT&T's acquisition of T-Mobile USA will attract huge scrutiny, and the battle for public opinion is already underway, but if the deal is rejected, it won't be T-Mobile which suffers. AT&T is pulling out all the stops in its effort to secure regulatory approval for its acquisition of T-Mobile, pointing out that it is securing a …