It’s good that striking aircraft workers will be getting back to doing what they do best — building aircraft — after union members voted Monday to approve a new contract with Bombardier Aerospace.
The contract offer included, among other incentives, a $1,500 lump-sum bonus for each worker and an extra half-percentage point wage increase in the second and third years of the contract. The deal ends the first work stoppage in the Learjet plant’s history. We hope it’s also the last.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
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44 Comments
The strike was a disaster for the Union.I feel sorry for everyone on all sides and I am glad they are all going back to work.(Well, to be honest, I don’t feel sorry for the radicals who lied about the HSA plan or the radicals who mistreated their fellow workers who could not afford to walk off the job.)
I see the greedy union workers finally realized the unemployment line isn’t the “greener grass” and decided to suck it up and go back to work to provide for their families.
Howza ’bout our fine newpaper running an article about how long it will take for the Union Dopes to get the return on their strike?Unions- Another lib idea that stinks, stank, stunk.Come on Scholfield, start writing.
Well, it didn’t take long for the whiners that didn’t have a stake in the strike to post comments about “how bad it was”.
Let’s see here. Paul “don’t have a life” Rosell is up at 2:00 AM just waiting to say “how sorry he is” for everybody except the radicals. For once I can agree with Paul! He is a sorry bastard. I sure didn’t see him giving any support to ANYONE during that time. What’s the matter Paul? Was your conscience keeping you awake?
Then a couple of more losers chime in telling us about the “greedy Union workers” and how long it will take for them to make back the money they lost in the 3 weeks they were off. Let’s see: If I read the offer correctly, the signing bonus and strike pay will give them just shy of $14:00 per hour for a standard 40 hour work week. Most of the strikers added to that by working part time jobs while they were off. How much do you losers make?
Now, having said that, I have to say there have been many gains. There were risks, and it might not have worked out as well as it did for them. The Union is democracy in action. Each member could look at the proposal for himself and he had one vote. When the first proposal failed, all but a handful of people stood with the majority. Through that, they also learned to stand on their own 2 feet. Many people have learned that they can depend on their friends and coworkers to stand with them. As a group, they can accomplish the seemingly impossible and help each other through uncertain times. They have become more resourceful, more enthusiastic about supporting one another, and less dependant upon a weekly paycheck. Many have learned the importance of personal management and planning for the future.
How can that have been a bad thing?
Well, duh … the unions (Machinists, Auto Workers, Teamsters, Longshoremen, Garment Workers, all of them ) have been screwing their members since John L. Lewis. How many of those on the union payroll who claim to be “one with the members” gave up their paychecks during this or any other strike ? How many of them have ended up in prison for stealing from their “members” ? How many of the “members” were invited to join their respective unions with the business end of a baseball ball or a .45 ?
Last night on one of the local news shows, some unidentified woman was complaining about how long she would have to work to reclaim her “lost wages” with only a $1500 cash bonus and 0.5% additional wage raise over each of the second and third year of the three yer contract. Why does this suddenly occur to her ? Did the union outline several hypothetical outcomes before the strike. I think not.
Since the political attitude with the upcoming elections is “throw the bastards out”, why not take it one step further? Throw the criminal unions out right along with them.
Aerospace workers, across the board, are the best paid workers in Wichita. The companies cannot survive without their employees’ skills and experience. They’ll go out of business, period. So do your job well, show up every day, simply do as you promised (and contracted) to do they day you were hired, and the wages will take care of themselves. Collectively, the company depends on each of you for their very existence … more than you depend on them for a paycheck. The union depends on collecting your “dues” to finance their lavish lifestyles, and outrageous conduct lying to their “members” about how much they’re doing for you … instead of telling you the truth about how much they’re doing to you, without even getting as kiss. Were your “dues” waived while you were out on strike … just wondering, as I know they weren’t in the past and curious whether that was still the case ? Get a grip, folks, you’re too damned good and valuable to be extorted by these thugs.
Glad the Bombardier folks got things worked out. Now, be sure and put some extra clinkage in the Salvation Army Kettle this year.
About time Bombarier had a strike. An old-time Machinist told me once on the picket line at Boeing, or what used to be Boeing, that strikes were necessary every once in a while just to clear the air. Sounded good to me then, still does. The depth of anti-unionism always surprises me. Folks, the corporate world (and Republicans) don’t have your best interest at heart. They band together to screw the working man, why shouldn’t the working man (and yes, women) band together to keep from getting shafted too badly.Ya gotta stick together or you’ll hang separately.
What a charming little anecdote, Dennis. And with a moral, too. Let’s band all the pro-unionists (and the Democrats), and screw the guy that’s signing our paychecks !!And pay our hardearned money to do it! Great plan, Dennis, great plan !
So, rm6046, we should just lie down and let them walk over us? I think not. Sorry you can’t see that.
Why is it when a union member fights for THEIR self interests they are radicals but when CEO’s…..CEO pay: Sky high gets even higherA new report shows top-dog pay bites shareholders, and alleges war profiteering among some CEOs.August 30, 2005: 12:24 PM EDTBy Jeanne Sahadi, CNN/Money senior writerNEW YORK (CNN/Money) – If sky-high executive pay at publicly traded companies gives you vertigo, you might want to read this sitting down.
In 2004, the ratio of average CEO pay to the average pay of a production (i.e., non-management) worker was 431-to-1, up from 301-to-1 in 2003, according to “Executive Excess,” an annual report released Tuesday by the liberal research groups United for a Fair Economy and the Institute for Policy Studies.
That’s not the highest ever. In 2001, the ratio of CEO-to-worker pay hit a peak of 525-to-1.
Still, it’s quite a leap year over year, and it ranks on the high end historically. In 1990, for instance, CEOs made about 107 times more than the average worker, while in 1982, the average CEO made only 42 times more.
http://money.cnn.com/2005/08/26/news/economy/ceo_pay/
JM,
Regarding your comment to give more money to The Salvation Army: Does the Salvation Army contribute to striking workers? I’m not sure what you mean. Thanks
Just think. All those non-union workers also benefit from whatever advances in pay, healthcare, and safety that come from a union, whether it involves a strike or not.
Bravo for the union workers!
Hey asshat Paul Rosell? Didn’t you say on a previous thread that Bombardier was doing just fine without the “union malcontent”? Apparently you were mistaken. The company caved in just a few short weeks. See Paul? Those folks had guts. They did not sell out and help break their union as you did yours. And even that is not enough for you. You feel compelled to come and attack them again. Truly Mr. Rosell, you are a contemptible bit of excrement. What’s great is everbody in this forum knows it.
“Hotlick”? Is that how YOU get a pay raise? Hmmm….truth in nics?
Those folks will MORE than make up for the money they lost in their work stoppage. More important than money, they have shown management just who really is important in the workplace. I should imagine the clueless mid managers who have been TRYING to build airplanes the last couple weeks will regard the returning workers with a new appreciation and most importantly respect.
“The company caved in just a few short weeks. ”
Ha ha. They threw the union a bone, and they bought it. Unbelievable.
Unions have only two choices.Let their jobs be shipped out of the country or bring in immigrants to do the jobs that Americans won’t do.Yep – them big o’ rich boys have played you and got you by the balls as long as you are willing to blow away your money on the garbage that they supply to you.I am beginning to think that the rich boys have their own secret unions with a mission to destroy the working class unions.Cat and mouse game, paid slavery, who is it that has the real power?
jr-I get a pay raise by negotiating it. If I don’t get what I want I can leave. I don’t need a union to get what I want. What is it worth to buck a rivet or tighten a bolt? A worker knows what he will be paid if he gets hired. You can either ask for the job or not. It’s the libs who think they need “Daddy” to make everything OK. If you don’t like your job, go somewhere else.
Hotlick,
How on Earth do you take care of yourself without the help of unions? Do you mean to tell me that you actually get paid based on your own merit?
Amazing ain’t it?
Yes well with a name like hotlick I can imagine just what sort of “negotiating” you practice. Forgive some folks if they stand up to the boss instead of bending over for him?
Typical folks who don’t have or have never had a union. Beg the bossman.
Without a base of union negotiated wages and rights in a region, you can count on employers to be as exploitive and unfair as they can possibly get away with. It is the presence and actions of union represented workers that elevates conditions for all workers. You whiny brown nosers ought to be thankful for those union members. They are better and braver folks than you will ever be.
Granted many unions in the past were criminal in some of their activiites. But employees need some avenue of unity to insure they get what they think they need or deserve.
There are more industry PAC’s, industry trade associations that can and have conspired to control prices and wages – what other option do employees have – individually walking off the job is virtually pointless, it is easy to replace one worker.
Granted with a strike you run the risk of the company moving to a cheaper labor area, but that can and is usually more expensive than it would be to pay people a livable wage and train them to the tasks needed.
There is much truth to the facts that increases in shareholder equity and exhorbitant executive salary packages have come at the price of the decline in Health and retirement benefits for those that provide the labor to do the riveting etc …. Times have changed since being a loyal dedicated employee was met with some semblance of loyalty to the employee by the companies.
Workers should have the same right to organize as companies and industries have to organize into trade associations.
Way to go JR! With your name calling you have succeeded in diverting the issue to a personal attack.
“beg the bossman” What a joke. When people have an education beyond that of factory work, one can be employeed in a competative market where employers do pay you to keep y ou.
jr-What does my playing guitar have to do with your seeming homoerotic fantasies?Not that there is anything wrong with that. It’s your world, not mine.
If your point is I know where my nose belongs well so what? I’ve gotten a lot further further faster for kissing a little ass. You can’t eat pride.
HEY BEN!I have just had my first troll!Desperate pussies!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
welocme to the club hl …
Come on, guys. Why don’t you just go out and the playground and fight? This is an important subject with varying, valuable and verifiable points one both sides of the issue. This “nanny-nanny-boo-boo” bickering does nothing except invalidate each and every point you might have made, and make you both look like a pair of pre-schoolers in a pissing contest. Or, maybe …. well, never mind.
Ceo to worker ratio, pay wise, is now at an all time high. Something like 415 to 1. It seems to me a read where workers pay has NOT kept up with the radical increase in productivity. So, all you non-union lovers, where is the equity? The workers sure arn’t sharing in it. The CEO’s sure are. This is the result of what . . . lets all hear the sound of rush coulter . . . Liberal politics?
If you don’t know, or are unaware of, that business runs washington, you have been living under a conservative tower of babel. The arrogant use of “repubespeak” is finally catching up.
Maybe we can get people in there who arn’t controlled by fortune 500 companies and who will remember what this country is about:Of the people; by the people and for the people.
Unions have been a necessary thorn in businesses side, and they still have a job to do. That is if you conservatives don’t send all jobs overseas.
Who cares what the ratio is? The CEO has his own boss to answer to. The share holder. If it was up to you people, you’d have everybody in America get paid $50 per hour. Isn’t that what socialism is all about? You should worry about yourself.Luckily, I have your commie “equity” hangin’.
Mr. Walker: Thank you for your cogent and well stated position. Some CEO salaries are outrageous and even offensive, without question. The late Ken Lay was the poster boy of GREED, and won’t be missed by me. But for every Ken Lay, there are 1000’s of CEO’s who never make the news, don’t have umpteen millions in stock options, make a comfortable and reasonable living … and go to bed every night knowing that were it not for his employees, his good fortune would be not nearly so good. A sucessful company’s greatest asset is not its building nor equipment. It is its people, from the CFO to the person who sweeps the floor at night. It doesn’t take a Harvard MBA and twenty years experience to know that happy employees are productive employees, and the converse equally true. Take care of your people and they’ll take care of you. The CEO’s that don’t will be out of a job, in prison, or, as in Mr. Lay’s case, just out …permanently. May the Lord have mercy on his soul. I sure as hell don’t.
How would you like it, rm.Nanny nanny boo boo.
Great comeback, coldick. Yer iq is showin’, an its bout 3 below zero. Maybe you should pay more attention to the little head on your ‘hangin’ equity: it obviousy has more brains than the big head.
Posted by: SM | October 24, 2006 at 11:07 AM
JM,
“Regarding your comment to give more money to The Salvation Army: Does the Salvation Army contribute to striking workers? I’m not sure what you mean. Thanks”
Not that I’m aware of SM. Just remember to give during the holidays to help out those less fortunate.
It’s really just shrinkage. Really!
Wouldn’t it be poetic justice if only the striking union members received the benefits of the strike? I wonder how long it would take for the non-union scabs to join the union?
Thank God for Right-to-Work. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if people were paid for what they were worth?
There is one person in the work force who is being paid what he or she is worth. That person is the “statistical median”. Everyone else is either being paid less than they are worth, or more than they are worth. Don’t blame the messenger.
hotlick,It seems you post to this thing at all hours of the day. Either your 400 pounds sitting at home on disabilty milking us tax payers, or you sit at work doing nothing all day milking your job. Either way, I don’t think you move from the computer much.
LOL Paul you rock! I just pictured hotlick as a 400 pounder sitting at the computer all day eating oreos and drinking big gulps. :) You made my day.
JM-I agree with you on the Salvation Army. Everyone should give. They do a tremendous amount for the community and we never know when we might need their services ourselves. I don’t always agree with their views on gays but to me thats beside the point. I met the major from the Topeka Chapter not long ago and I was amazed at how much work they do. I think he said they feed over 4,000 people a month. They also provide affordable day care to those who need it as well as assistance to those needing help getting back on their feet.
All the more reason not to bash on the union folks.
When I was working aircraft, I used to drop a 1 or a 5 into every single Salvation Army bucket during the Holidays. On Dec. 24th, I would drop in a 20.
The aircraft employees where I worked also had a “golden rule” charity.
Too, when an employee had difficulties or a death, an envelope would be sent around. Personal observation here from a union rep who used to do the collecting. The office folks dug in their pockets for change. The supervisors would actually run away and hide til I passed by! The union folks got out their wallets and gave at least a dollar and usually more.
LOL good observations on hotlick! First time I ever saw a poster “troll” themself.
Hot Lick
Then you must tell us what does the bosses shit taste like?
“Wouldn’t it be poetic justice if only the striking union members received the benefits of the strike? I wonder how long it would take for the non-union scabs to join the union?”
Well, all the union has to do to make that happen is allow workers who don’t want to be a part of a bargaining unit to opt out. Want to take bets on what the union’s answer to that would be?
Want to take a bet on how many non-union workers will opt out of the bennefits of the strike or donate the bonus to help the strikers?
Um Todd?
Kansas is a “right to work” state. No one is compelled to be part of a union. I can tell you from personal experience that it is those who pay no dues and do not belong to the union that came crying to me the loudest. This usually happened after the particular mid manager whose ass they were sucking moved on and they lost their “benefactor” and had to deal with someone new.The ususal pattern was 2 or 3 grievances before they would figure out how to please the new “he bull”.