My Dad's [censored] Union

[lehighguy]

My Dad is part of the teamsters union. He drives a truck for Thomas's english muffins. Tommorrow they will likely go on strike and I'm pretty sure that the new owner is going to break the strike and fire them.

Well, my Dad has a really good job. He makes a lot of money and has great benefits considering the kind of job he has. Generally I can't think of anyone who would ever want to lose thier job.

How did we get here? Well they were supposed to vote on a five year contract. Everyone from NYC, NJ, and Conneticute was suppose to meet at the union building in Manhatten to vote on it. My Dad showed up, but most of the people from his depot were "too busy" to vote on the contract for the next five years of thier lives. As a result the meeting was dominated by people from the NY depot.

We were offered a really good contract. I'm not going to go into details, but to give you an idea the increases in medical benefits were 15%, 13%, and 10% for the first three years. My Dad was pleasently surprised by the contract, and accepting it should be a no-brainer.

However, the people in NY don't like thier new depot manager. So much so they decided they will vote down every single contract until he is fired. The union leader tried to explain to them that the contract was over pay and benefits, and that grievences with a manager had to be filed seperately and dealt with as a seperate process. They didn't care and they voted down the contract (the only union under this companies management to do so under the terms of that contract. every other depot wasn't retarded).

Tommorrow they are supposed to vote on a new contract. Pissed off at how retarded they were the company has made them a new offer. No benefits or pay increases at all in any year. Obviously, they are going to vote this down and strike.

In previous years strikes worked because the company was fairly small and the strike was a threat. Now it is owned by a large multi national that will probably absorb the strike and hire scabs.

I'm just really pissed the hell off. These guys have good union jobs where they are making three times what they would make if they lose thier jobs. But they were too [censored] lazy to show up or too [censored] stupid to think with thier heads.