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Bertram31.com General Bulletin Board
Re: Frank- are you walking to work?
Posted By: Harv In Response To: Re: Frank- are you walking to work? (Frank Fimmano)
Date: Thursday, 22 December 2005, at 12:53 p.m.
Frank,
Glad to hear you are fairing well during the strike. Personally I find myself on the fence with this topic. As most people know, I drive a truck for a living. I am also a Teamster. I have noticed whenever a discussion, no matter where it is, regarding unions, labor, management, and ceo's.....there's always many sides to the story. However, one point that always remains fairly constant comes from people outside the labor groups that call us greedy,lazy, money hungry, selfish sob's. Meanwhile, we are the ones usually making the sacrifices, taking the cutbacks, making the money for the company and unappreciated. However I have yet to see a ceo with a multimillion dollar salary and benefit package ever cut his salary while asking his employees (that will never see in a lifetime what he makes in a year) to take less of this and less of that. The bottom line is, we all want to get as much as we can for the services we provide.
Now as for this particular stiuation, as a union member, all I can say is this. I will always support a union member's right to strike. However in this instance, there were 40 year old laws prohibiting them from striking...The Taylor Law. They all knew this law was in place and by taking this job they thus gave up their right to strike. If they felt they needed strike protection language as part of a job they should have taken work elsewhere. However, I personally feel all parties involved need to share the blame. Police, teachers, fire, sanitation, and transit workers all have worked at some time or another without a "living" contract. This is just the way NY City treats it's labor force knowing the Taylor Law is their crutch. If the city were afraid of striking workers, deals would probably be done on time. Now if no one took strike threats seriously, then answer me how did Bloomberg have contingency plan signs ready to go on highways and roads as soon as the strike started? How long ago were they produced and installed if he wasn't expecting a strike?
Now with that said, I'll just add one other point. It is true we are living in a new world financially. Fortunately, my union has been able to negotiate contracts ahead of deadlines, usually by weeks or months. Now mind you, I do not get earth shattering raises or raises in my benefits. Usually it's like 25cts/hour here, 30cts/hour there, but I know what it was like to work on a job where the corporate cronies asked the workforce to take a 10% cut in pay to keep the company afloat. Whenever the boss has to dig into my pocket like that it's time to move on. I never did see or hear about a cut in his pay, like I mentioned earlier, they never do. And by the way....that company folded anyway 3 years later. And the ceo had his pocket lined with about $8 million of our so called pay cuts when we closed and his VP had about $5 million. That was their golden parachute...sheeeesh!!
Recently, we had to start making copayments on medical and prescription plans, but they are minimal at best as long as we stay inside our "network". Secondly, our pension plan has just been redesigned. Where I used to need 1000 hours of service per year I now need 2000 hours to make my yearly pension credit or else I am penalized. Also where the pension value was roughly $115/month/year, it is now down to $92/month/year, plus retirement criteria has changed....length of service and age at retirement. Thank god I am at a point where I will still fill those criteria without having to work longer than I was planning. 7-1/2 years to go. But at least I have a union that realizes some changes need to be made in order to survive. Even strict language regarding work rules has changed making for a more flexible and hopefully more profitable workplace. Am I happy with all of these changes? Not really. But the alternatives seem so much worse.
Harv
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