No News

The negotiating committee and the company have been holding their cards close to the vest. We know nothing right now and not only that but there is quite a bit of confusion about when the vote to accept or reject is. Originally it was supposed to be tomorrow, June 9th. Now it might very well be Sunday, or tomorrow.

Our union has dropped the ball on communication for sure this time. One of those in charge needed to iron out this date...like a month ago instead of the day before the weekend we are supposed to vote! There is a fundamental problem that means one of two things has occurred.

One: The union leaders are inept and it never crossed their minds to set a solid vote date for the rank and file to vote on.

Two: Negotiations aren't going in a good direction and that means there are some bad things in the new contract that they can't settle on or are bad for the membership but can't or don't want to do anything about. This is called ramrodding by the union. Meaning they will ramrod a bad deal down the throats of the rank and file and don't want to give us any time to read the contract in it's entirety.

This has happened before and it was over twelve years ago. They instituted a pay freeze for three years on grades one through four but got everyone else got pay raises. This was unfair to those that work pretty darn hard but the union didn't see it that way. So those that made the least amount of money got the shaft and the union let it happen. They didn't give anyone time to digest the contract, they didn't want you to think about it, they wanted you to vote and screw your fellow brothers and sisters that didn't earn as much as you did.

So now the game is afoot so to speak, our committee that is representing us has kept things quiet. Our main leader, Johnny Friendly is retiring this year. He used to be a mechanic where I work but got elected into the business representative office and hasn't looked back. He has about thirty contracts he works on or negotiates on a regular basis. However he hasn't worked under one of those contracts at all. He is as union as union can be. He's not a popular guy to most people as when he wants something he tends to leave out facts to get his way on something. When he wants something to happen, it happens no matter what the committee wants. What he usually wants benefits the International in some fashion like the insurance company they want to bring in.

It's of course a health insurance company that's administered by the....union. You guessed it! We'll see how that plays out this weekend.