I worked at the company for almost 10 years at the Piscataway depot and left almost a year ago. I've had many great memories and made many great friends while working there. But amid the talks of Altice buying Cablevision as I was doing my research on Drahi and what was going on with his company overseas, I saw the writing on the wall and it was time to go. I heard about the sick & pay time being reduced and I can imagine that the free cable you get will be going away as well. Contractors will be the next thing coming up as they are much cheaper to have.
If Drahi's comment at a Goldman Sachs meeting, "I don't like to pay salaries, I like to pay as little as possible", doesn't have alarm bells ringing off in your head in terms of what this guy thinks of the lot of you and what is next to come, I'm not sure what will.
I'm shocked the union was not voted in, instead many believing what Goei and Drahi are teling those below them what to preach.
Read this:
Altice's Business Model Will Implode Sooner Or Later
Summary
Altice’s takeover of Cablevision will provide opportunities for Verizon’s FiOS to capture customers in the areas within Greater New York where they are the two broadband operators.
Altice’s characteristic treatment of and actions with respect to its employees and contractors will inevitably result in deterioration in the quality of Cablevision’s services and customer care.
Sooner or later Altice’s business model based on swingeing cost cuts and heavy debt loads will implode, presenting opportunities for short sellers who get the timing right.
Major financial institutions have garnered substantial fees from Altice’s series of acquisitions, so their support for Altice should not be assigned any significant probative value.
Altice (OTCPK:ATCEY) has a well-documented record outside the US of substantial cost cutting and its consequences. These cost reductions improve the cash flow of the network operators Altice acquires to help pay down the debt it incurs. But they are otherwise harmful to the interests of employees, customers, contractors and the competitiveness of the operators themselves (e.g. Altice's Business Model Is Incompatible With The Public Interest, here Reply to Joint Reply Comments of Altice N.V. and Cablevision Corporation (NYSE:CVC), here).
Altice's cost reductions are so deep that they are achieved at the expense of deterioration in services, disaffection among employees, and declines in customer bases. They also include the imposition of substantial reductions in contractually agreed payments to contractors. The latter are presented with the prospect of engaging in lengthy or expensive litigation, which their cash flows often cannot tolerate, or accepting cuts of 30% or more in the amounts they have legitimately invoiced.
In the few cases that have gone to litigation in this context in France Altice has lost, which however has not stopped the practice. Evidence of these practices and their consequences was presented to regulators in the US (the FCC and the New York PSC in particular) but in the end they chose to ignore it or downplay its significance. They apparently believe that the commitments Altice has made with respect to Cablevision after months of negotiation are sufficient to ensure that the public interest the regulators are responsible for upholding and the interests of stakeholders other than shareholders, e.g. consumers, employees and contractors, will benefit from its ownership of this cable operator that owns franchises in the Greater New York area, the largest media center and financial hub of the US.
The labor union CWA that had originally objected to the acquisition (and was embroiled in labor disputes with Cablevision's now preceding owners (and founders) the Dolan family) also was apparently satisfied with the conditions of future employment agreed to by Altice, presuming that they are enforceable and will be enforced.
I disagree with these conclusions. Altice has been very ingenious in finding ways around the spirit if not the letter of commitments it has made abroad about employment, the quality of the services of its acquired properties will deliver and its adherence to policies that promote the public interest. One individual - Patrick Drahi - is the sole and unchallengeable decider within Altice and his position is unassailable within its corporate structure. Some of the same (his) key lieutenants that implemented Altice's anti-employee, anti-customer, anti-contractor tactics abroad under his instructions are in charge of Altice USA.
Sooner or later comparable tactics will become visible within Cablevision, as they have become increasingly apparent within Altice's major European property SFR, the second wireless operator and leading cable operator in France. Developments and trends within SFR were illustrated in a recent report (July 28th) in the French business journal Les Echos, "Patrick Drahi veut supprimer un tiers des effectifs chez SFR (Patrick Drahi wants to eliminate one third of SFR's employees - here) with the subtitle, "La direction de l'opérateur a annoncé en interne quelques 5.000 suppression de postes" (The management of the operator made an announcement internally of the elimination of some 5,000 positions).
Two passages in this article (translated from the French by the author) are especially noteworthy, namely: "A plan for layoffs will be initiated at SFR before the end of the year. But it involves the distribution subsidiaries, an activity that is separated within the group and is not covered by the agreement to guarantee employment. In all according to a union source between 1,000 and 1,500 people would be affected by this plan. Management has found a way to include SFR's salaried staff in this plan: as it envisages to regroup distribution into two units it will transfer into them 240 employees of the operator who are active in distribution." (Author's note: Mr. Drahi's or Altice's commitment to no layoffs at SFR will expire on July 1st 2017. The transfer of employees from a layoff-exempt to another category is a way to circumvent or erode even this provision. The reductions in force foreseen at SFR by 2019 reportedly amount according to a union source to 5,300, or some 37% of SFR's current work force).
If you want to read the full article, go here http://seekingalpha.com/article/3994146-altices-business-model-will-implode-sooner-later
I wish you guys all the best, and hope those that voted no to the union realize you just shot yourself in the foot and now have to deal with the consequences of allowing Drahi complete control over you, of which is not in your best interest.