Newspoem 5 January 1995: I'm Glad They Are With Us Now

• William Gillespie - Newspoet

When AT&T announced its intentions to lay off 40,000 workers, the shit really hit the fan. Those Wall Street Analysts who applauded the job trimming were pretty surprised when 40,000 AT&T workers showed up in their neighborhoods to dismantle their houses and cars in a matter of minutes. You should have seen them storm the company's headquarters. They really fucked shit up: it wasn't pretty. The thousand meter high neon acronym whitened the sky with showers of sparks as 40,000 AT&T workers dragged it from its foundations. When they sang their song in 40,000-part harmony it drove bats crazy and coastguard ships collided with oil tankers. It sure didn't take 40,000 AT&T workers long to rip down every telephone cable from Newark to New Brunswick. 40,000 is a lot of disgruntled AT&T workers, especially when compared to a leap in the Dow Jones Industrial Average of a measly 60 points. What if 40,000 angry AT&T workers got together with 3000 furious MCI employees, 5000 screaming General Motors employees, and 22,000 pissed Times-Mirror employees? They could do a lot of damage pretty quickly, especially when some of them are entitled to health care for an additional year.

1995