Stike Is Imminent

No pay, no insurance, no guarantee of a job after it is over. Negotiations broke down over the past week to the point of not talking anymore.

We moved up the strike voting day to today instead of tomorrow. At least now we will have a full weekend to go back to negotiations if we are actually striking on Monday. The city and Air Force have cleared us some land to picket on even. They had it mowed and prepared for a lot of people.

I'm not a big union guy, they do a LOT of things I disagree with in the political realm where they should have no say so whatsoever. But this is unions working on the ground for real people.

The company chose to take many many things away that were negotiated on years ago without striking. I've already endured two big layoffs in the past year that cut everyone right up to me. We are very barebones right now in our staffing, many areas are understaffed. I had friends who were laid off. I kept in contact with them and told them about jobs to sign on that they were qualified for.

I believe a strike vote will get a contract similar to what we have had over the past three years. That's all we are asking for, nothing outrageous, just a comparable contract to what we have been working for. The pay will go up but by about 3% per year, no more than 4%, never has happened that we received more than that.

In contrast our insurance goes up more than our rate of pay each year so we really don't get a monetary raise that is noticeable because of the insurance rates we pay.

We are not UAW workers with lifetime insurance, massive pensions, or atmospheric rates of pay. We do get paid more than average for this area, that's a fact. We are not rich by any way of measuring but we do get to make a decent living. Most of us live paycheck to paycheck, some have new vehicles. Others like me have twenty year old plus vehicles.

We are just asking for a fair deal, something reasonable we can work for in the next three years.