What's in it for you?
What does the IAMAW Lodge 933 do for you? Presently, the union has less than 50% membership in the hourly ranks. What do you risk if they go away? What do you stand to gain when they disappear? What beliefs do you hold dear because of those old stories you always heard from old union guys? Who has challenged those beliefs? What is the source of their "truth"? Who is telling you the truth? Why do union guys discourage talk to non-union guys? What are they afraid you will learn? Who is http://www.iam933.net/ ? Are they the Company? Or are they hourly workers like you and I? If they are hourly, what motivates them to fight so hard to free you from the union's grips? Why do they hide their identities? Do they risk union retribution? Is the union just big business tapping your wages? What product does the union sell that's worth two hours a month for eternity? What's the return on your investment? Questions like this and more, you will answer in the coming months as you consider whether or not to vote FOR or AGAINST the continued right of IAMAW Lodge 933 to determine your worth to RMS.
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Orange Shirts ... Solidarity in the Real World
I want to send out a warm thank you to everyone supporting our cause by wearing orange shirts on Thursdays. It sends out a nice warm hug to us for all our hard work keeping this blog going and for the other teams out there working so hard keeping their websites going. Two months before the big vote we can all pull together and show this union just how much they are in the minority. Last Thursday was a big deal for us when we got the reports back about just how many of you support this cause and proved it by wearing your orange shirts. Thanks again!
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Smoke Up Your ...
Okay, the union boys are obviously getting very nervous. We've exposed their backsides and they don't like it. We've told you where your dues go. We told you that they lie by telling you that it is against company rules to discuss getting rid of the union. Chat away have a good time, buy our tee-shirts, and wear them.Just be sure to chat during your breaks and in non-work areas to prevent any impression of a conflict of interest. Put our web address iam933.net on business cards and pass them out to your co-workers to invite them to visit our sites. Spread the word, especially to your neighbors, friends and anyone you know represented by IAM933 at Boeing, HE Microwave, CAE Reflectone, RMS Rescue & Fire and L-3 Communications. Enjoy the revolution.
The union is ashamed to admit that they are the minority. The truth is they have lost over 4% of their membership every year. There are more of us than them. So don't allow them to intimidate you. It's time to push, back and push back hard. We need to tie them up in lawsuits and National Labor Relations Board grievances. We need to get their stewards FIRED! They sure deserve it. They've been mean and stupid. They don't play by the rules. It's time to shut them up.
Tell your supervisors to make them remove their offensive stickers and posters from company property. Educate yourself about NLRB laws so you will know when they violate a law, then report each violation to the NLRB. If they ask anyone to join the union while on the shop floor or if they talk about union stuff on the floor, guess what? DING!!! That's an offense! They should get FIRED! We need your eyes and ears to report, report, report. Let's keep H.R. really busy dealing with union infractions.
The company can and should call for a vote to decertify this worthless union since less than 50% of the workers are actually in the union, but they won't because they don't want to look like the bad boys. But with enough complaints against the union it may become impossible to do business by consistently accommodating these sluggards. Let's make our majority voices heard. Wear orange, or green tee-shirts on Thursday to show your solidarity against the union, buy and wear our tee-shirts.The time is now to push back. Let them have a taste of our smoke for a change. I'm tired of living under all their threats. 5+ years in a hostile workplace is FREAKIN' enough! Smoke 'em if you catch 'em! ~rr
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Flash Forward
I just love the comments we get asking us to work "within" the union. We have done that, have the tee-shirt and it still hasn't worked, that's why we are goin' to all this trouble, duh! Here we have people ADMIT that the union is broke and don't work good, well Hee Haw, good buddy at least one spark in your distributor is firing! Bless God, and pass the bucket of pork rinds! You are the very folks that should be canceling your union dues!
Now if you weren't getting cable t.v. would you keep paying for it every month? I don't think so. But your union is broke and you take the wise old Democrat point of view, "if it don't work throw more money at it"! As Dr. Phil would say, "How's that workin' for you"?
We are not your six toed cousins from the hills! And nope we ain't mad at ya'. We are done tryin' to fix the broke tractor. There's work that needs to be done and we aren't goin' backwards and git us an old mule. Daddy tried that and nearly killed his fool self. Now when you've actually plowed with a mule before and wanna come talk about how hard it is workin' for Raytheon then You I will listen to, but not all those other panty waisted girly men out there.
I have worked in restaurants, and retail. Yes, I have worked at Wal-Mart, and you know what? Those jobs are fine for unskilled labor. If you don't want to go to school and work hard at getting a skill then Wal-Mart is what you deserve. Yes, Wal-Mart would need a union if people didn't have a choice in who to work for. Wal-Mart isn't such a great place to work. I was a manager there and thought the hourly folks needed a union. It was so bad I thought the managers needed a union. But I did Wal-Mart the favor of quitting and living without the joy of my presence. There are plenty of retailers out there, if you find one that treats its workers well then that is the one you should shop at. Please send me a comment and let me know which retailer treats its people well so I can shop there too.
And stop trying to tell us that if we don't like being hourly then we can just become salaried. Really? Do you mean if I go ask H.R. to make me salaried that they will just do it? If I could I would, and I hate working a salaried job! If Raytheon did that then the union would slap them with a big old grievance, so guess what that's never going to happen. Don't think of us as black sheep of your little family. We don't want your representation, nor do we want your permission to exist. We only want the union to go away. We do not want to co-exist. We are the majority. We will not make the same mistake we did during the last contract. We are better organized, and do not cave in to your fear tactics. There are more of us than there are union members and we will decertify this union. We just want to help you to feel better about the transition when it happens.
There was a day and time when people were loyal to companies and worked there their whole lives, but today people are smarter and just quit! Companies that don't take care of their people need to spend a lot of money constantly training new workers. Those companies can't compete as well as companies that retain good workers. Wal-Mart can stay in business because it doesn't take any special skill to keep them going, so they can afford to fire all their Christmas new hires every year, and they usually do. The really good workers they keep and make certain to give them 39 hours a week or less so they don't get any benefits. Welcome to the savvy low life scum of retail! When those good workers quit there are over 400 applications waiting in personnel for a phone call from folks who don't understand retail. In 6 months they will get the best education of their life and go back to college, get an MBA and probably treat their employees like Wal-Mart treated them because they didn't learn the 'real life lesson'. Take care of people and that is how you are a success. You aren't successful by having an inflated bottom line, a big bottom means you need to go to the gym more and push yourself away from the dinner table.
A lot of my co-workers are scared and rightfully so. What will happen to me in two years when the union is decertified and they won't be there to save my slacker butt from the unemployment line? Well, if you are a slacker, you deserve the unemployment line, since somebody else has been doing your work for you. Good workers get rewarded, and if they don't pay you well enough then guess what? There are other places to work for like Boeing and Lockheed. If you haven't stuck your head out the hole you're in for awhile then guess what? There is an EXTREME shortage of aerospace workers. Read the article for yourself, and rejoice! We are dinosaurs that need to be highly compensated or the aerospace industry will crumble. The industry is learning the hard lesson of how much harder they need to work to keep people. The millennial generation tells employers to give them more or they will leave and work somewhere else. Well good for them and better for us. I think Raytheon needs to give me the massages and the lattes to keep on working until I'm 70 so they don't have to put up with the millennial kids coming to work these days (about noon - if the employer is so lucky)
Okay let's flash forward to two years from now when the union is decertified. For die-hard union supporters it will suck. It won't suck because Raytheon will be a worse place to work, but it will suck because of the mental stronghold of union folks. They will be grieving that their little "family" is dead. It's the same syndrome that gang members go through when they wake up and realize that they have to figure things out on their own and think for a change. There won't be someone holding their hand telling them who they should hate. Now they will have to figure out who the enemy is and hopefully they won't look in the mirror, because they will come to realize all too soon that they are their own worst enemy. I got a pretty good taste of how pleasant it was to work at Raytheon during the strike. There weren't a bunch of bitter old slackers standing around complaining about how horrible it is working under the torturous conditions at Raytheon.
Those whiners never worked in retail.
Some folks complain that their 401K will go away. Well good riddance, a 401K is a sucker investment anyway. Folks that bother to educate themselves know that 401K plans only offer extremely safe venues which do not pay very well. During your working lifetime you can lose over $1 million by investing in a 401K instead of having that same money work for you in a multitude of better mutual funds available outside of a 401K plan.
There is fear that people will lose their job when the union is decertified. That just will not happen with the shortage of aerospace workers today. Only the extreme slackers will go away and the union shouldn't be protecting those folks anyway, since it just makes the union look stupid. There are very few people willing to move to our lovely oasis here in Tucson. It is the desert and they just won't come here because it seems formidable. A lot of folks have worked in awful factories and will never allow themselves to take on an assembly job ever again. Raytheon can not legally lower your pay either. They can pay new hires less money, but they won't do that for long since aerospace workers are retiring faster than they are being trained. Millenials won't work at Raytheon, ohhh PuhLeeezze! We make bombs and your hands may get dirty and you can't wear flip flops, oooohh like No way, dude!
Now when Raytheon can figure out how to serve lattes on the production floor and will let you wear pajamas and flip flops then you might have to worry about the millenial generation competing for your job, but that won't be until they've worked at Wal-Mart, Starbucks and Hooters for a out 10 years and realize, omg I need more $$$ or I can't text my bff Jill and hang out in Boca 4ever!
Life will be great without the union. People can only take so much negative us against them propaganda. Especially after this election year. The only thing we hear from talking heads is blah blah blah. We tune out the rhetoric and look around and realize, I don't have it so bad. I could be existing in China, or some other God forsaken communist regime instead of the best country on earth where you have the freedom to choose where to work instead of having it mandated to you by the bureaucrats in your government. Some union supporters don't even get that. There are a bunch of whacked out union folks that think communism is far better than freedom. They are so used to being told what to think that they truly want the government telling them what to think, do and how to live. Stop smoking your rope, crawl out of your sweat lodge and see what life is like outside in the real world. It's like beautiful out here baby!
Now if you weren't getting cable t.v. would you keep paying for it every month? I don't think so. But your union is broke and you take the wise old Democrat point of view, "if it don't work throw more money at it"! As Dr. Phil would say, "How's that workin' for you"?
We are not your six toed cousins from the hills! And nope we ain't mad at ya'. We are done tryin' to fix the broke tractor. There's work that needs to be done and we aren't goin' backwards and git us an old mule. Daddy tried that and nearly killed his fool self. Now when you've actually plowed with a mule before and wanna come talk about how hard it is workin' for Raytheon then You I will listen to, but not all those other panty waisted girly men out there.
I have worked in restaurants, and retail. Yes, I have worked at Wal-Mart, and you know what? Those jobs are fine for unskilled labor. If you don't want to go to school and work hard at getting a skill then Wal-Mart is what you deserve. Yes, Wal-Mart would need a union if people didn't have a choice in who to work for. Wal-Mart isn't such a great place to work. I was a manager there and thought the hourly folks needed a union. It was so bad I thought the managers needed a union. But I did Wal-Mart the favor of quitting and living without the joy of my presence. There are plenty of retailers out there, if you find one that treats its workers well then that is the one you should shop at. Please send me a comment and let me know which retailer treats its people well so I can shop there too.
And stop trying to tell us that if we don't like being hourly then we can just become salaried. Really? Do you mean if I go ask H.R. to make me salaried that they will just do it? If I could I would, and I hate working a salaried job! If Raytheon did that then the union would slap them with a big old grievance, so guess what that's never going to happen. Don't think of us as black sheep of your little family. We don't want your representation, nor do we want your permission to exist. We only want the union to go away. We do not want to co-exist. We are the majority. We will not make the same mistake we did during the last contract. We are better organized, and do not cave in to your fear tactics. There are more of us than there are union members and we will decertify this union. We just want to help you to feel better about the transition when it happens.
There was a day and time when people were loyal to companies and worked there their whole lives, but today people are smarter and just quit! Companies that don't take care of their people need to spend a lot of money constantly training new workers. Those companies can't compete as well as companies that retain good workers. Wal-Mart can stay in business because it doesn't take any special skill to keep them going, so they can afford to fire all their Christmas new hires every year, and they usually do. The really good workers they keep and make certain to give them 39 hours a week or less so they don't get any benefits. Welcome to the savvy low life scum of retail! When those good workers quit there are over 400 applications waiting in personnel for a phone call from folks who don't understand retail. In 6 months they will get the best education of their life and go back to college, get an MBA and probably treat their employees like Wal-Mart treated them because they didn't learn the 'real life lesson'. Take care of people and that is how you are a success. You aren't successful by having an inflated bottom line, a big bottom means you need to go to the gym more and push yourself away from the dinner table.
A lot of my co-workers are scared and rightfully so. What will happen to me in two years when the union is decertified and they won't be there to save my slacker butt from the unemployment line? Well, if you are a slacker, you deserve the unemployment line, since somebody else has been doing your work for you. Good workers get rewarded, and if they don't pay you well enough then guess what? There are other places to work for like Boeing and Lockheed. If you haven't stuck your head out the hole you're in for awhile then guess what? There is an EXTREME shortage of aerospace workers. Read the article for yourself, and rejoice! We are dinosaurs that need to be highly compensated or the aerospace industry will crumble. The industry is learning the hard lesson of how much harder they need to work to keep people. The millennial generation tells employers to give them more or they will leave and work somewhere else. Well good for them and better for us. I think Raytheon needs to give me the massages and the lattes to keep on working until I'm 70 so they don't have to put up with the millennial kids coming to work these days (about noon - if the employer is so lucky)
Okay let's flash forward to two years from now when the union is decertified. For die-hard union supporters it will suck. It won't suck because Raytheon will be a worse place to work, but it will suck because of the mental stronghold of union folks. They will be grieving that their little "family" is dead. It's the same syndrome that gang members go through when they wake up and realize that they have to figure things out on their own and think for a change. There won't be someone holding their hand telling them who they should hate. Now they will have to figure out who the enemy is and hopefully they won't look in the mirror, because they will come to realize all too soon that they are their own worst enemy. I got a pretty good taste of how pleasant it was to work at Raytheon during the strike. There weren't a bunch of bitter old slackers standing around complaining about how horrible it is working under the torturous conditions at Raytheon.
Those whiners never worked in retail.
Some folks complain that their 401K will go away. Well good riddance, a 401K is a sucker investment anyway. Folks that bother to educate themselves know that 401K plans only offer extremely safe venues which do not pay very well. During your working lifetime you can lose over $1 million by investing in a 401K instead of having that same money work for you in a multitude of better mutual funds available outside of a 401K plan.
There is fear that people will lose their job when the union is decertified. That just will not happen with the shortage of aerospace workers today. Only the extreme slackers will go away and the union shouldn't be protecting those folks anyway, since it just makes the union look stupid. There are very few people willing to move to our lovely oasis here in Tucson. It is the desert and they just won't come here because it seems formidable. A lot of folks have worked in awful factories and will never allow themselves to take on an assembly job ever again. Raytheon can not legally lower your pay either. They can pay new hires less money, but they won't do that for long since aerospace workers are retiring faster than they are being trained. Millenials won't work at Raytheon, ohhh PuhLeeezze! We make bombs and your hands may get dirty and you can't wear flip flops, oooohh like No way, dude!
Now when Raytheon can figure out how to serve lattes on the production floor and will let you wear pajamas and flip flops then you might have to worry about the millenial generation competing for your job, but that won't be until they've worked at Wal-Mart, Starbucks and Hooters for a out 10 years and realize, omg I need more $$$ or I can't text my bff Jill and hang out in Boca 4ever!
Life will be great without the union. People can only take so much negative us against them propaganda. Especially after this election year. The only thing we hear from talking heads is blah blah blah. We tune out the rhetoric and look around and realize, I don't have it so bad. I could be existing in China, or some other God forsaken communist regime instead of the best country on earth where you have the freedom to choose where to work instead of having it mandated to you by the bureaucrats in your government. Some union supporters don't even get that. There are a bunch of whacked out union folks that think communism is far better than freedom. They are so used to being told what to think that they truly want the government telling them what to think, do and how to live. Stop smoking your rope, crawl out of your sweat lodge and see what life is like outside in the real world. It's like beautiful out here baby!
Thursday, January 10, 2008
A Campaign of Hope
These days we hear a lot about hope from all sorts of political campaigns. Their words can fall on deaf ears until you begin to feel a quiet dissatisfaction with the 'status quo'. Hope is a process that slowly gets phased in when you discover that your present situation leaves a lot to be desired.
The first step is recognizing your need for hope. Going along in your day to day life it is easy to become complacent and assume that the decisions you made in the past will serve you well into the future. Your accountant will quickly tell you not to make such an assumption. Sure your Edsel gets you back and forth to work everyday, but maybe just maybe you were sold a bill of goods from a fast talking salesman that makes you look like an idiot every morning when you stand at the gas pump feeding your thankless beast. The portfolio you held last week can very well be worthless today. It is an extreme necessity to question, re-investigate, and refocus to excel and finish the race of life well.
The second step after admitting that your life isn't the best it could be is to re-investigate how you got where you are today and begin to question what better choices you could have made years ago. Once you discover the void in your life that can only be satisfied by hope then you begin to reach out in hope to like minded people. It is only then that hope can begin to do its work in your life. Sitting back and watching your loved ones wasting their lives in foolish endeavors is hard to do. But when their eyes become opened to the bondage they sold themselves into then you can be a true friend by welcoming them into their new found awareness.
And the next step is to refocus. When your boat is heading toward the waterfall you need to work far harder to turn around before you become shipwrecked. And it is to this end that we plead with you. THE END IS NEAR! You may see a beautiful rainbow ahead, but that's just the mist coming up from the waterfall that's about to kill you. We see a lot of people who sincerely believe that this union is the pot at the end of the rainbow, but we are here to tell you that the only pot at the end of this rainbow has been smoked in the 'bong of life' a long time ago, dude! Come out into the light (you may need to wear shades for awhile 'cause the future is really brighter out here than in there). Scrape off the mushrooms and dust off the pot-ash.
The reality here is that this union worked well and was needed at one time. It is no longer an organization that we can put our hope in. Our only hope at this desperate crossroad is no union at all. This unions reputation is down the toilet. The company can't take it serious anymore especially after the extreme juvenile behavior exhibited during the last strike. Professional workers need to be represented, we don't need to be laughed at. This union has selected a handful of job skills to make a push for higher wages. This group was chosen not so much because of their need, but more so for the need of the union to gain loyalty from a majority of the workforce. Workers with far more skills and education are left without any realistic pay raise comparable to the national and even regional wages.
So thanks, to all those campaigns out there for reminding us to hope. It's a New Year and we have a new resolve to push even harder. The edge of the waterfall is approaching and we just can't stay on the boat with these folks any longer. Either let us off or we have to scuttle the boat. Now that's worth hoping for.
The first step is recognizing your need for hope. Going along in your day to day life it is easy to become complacent and assume that the decisions you made in the past will serve you well into the future. Your accountant will quickly tell you not to make such an assumption. Sure your Edsel gets you back and forth to work everyday, but maybe just maybe you were sold a bill of goods from a fast talking salesman that makes you look like an idiot every morning when you stand at the gas pump feeding your thankless beast. The portfolio you held last week can very well be worthless today. It is an extreme necessity to question, re-investigate, and refocus to excel and finish the race of life well.
The second step after admitting that your life isn't the best it could be is to re-investigate how you got where you are today and begin to question what better choices you could have made years ago. Once you discover the void in your life that can only be satisfied by hope then you begin to reach out in hope to like minded people. It is only then that hope can begin to do its work in your life. Sitting back and watching your loved ones wasting their lives in foolish endeavors is hard to do. But when their eyes become opened to the bondage they sold themselves into then you can be a true friend by welcoming them into their new found awareness.
And the next step is to refocus. When your boat is heading toward the waterfall you need to work far harder to turn around before you become shipwrecked. And it is to this end that we plead with you. THE END IS NEAR! You may see a beautiful rainbow ahead, but that's just the mist coming up from the waterfall that's about to kill you. We see a lot of people who sincerely believe that this union is the pot at the end of the rainbow, but we are here to tell you that the only pot at the end of this rainbow has been smoked in the 'bong of life' a long time ago, dude! Come out into the light (you may need to wear shades for awhile 'cause the future is really brighter out here than in there). Scrape off the mushrooms and dust off the pot-ash.
The reality here is that this union worked well and was needed at one time. It is no longer an organization that we can put our hope in. Our only hope at this desperate crossroad is no union at all. This unions reputation is down the toilet. The company can't take it serious anymore especially after the extreme juvenile behavior exhibited during the last strike. Professional workers need to be represented, we don't need to be laughed at. This union has selected a handful of job skills to make a push for higher wages. This group was chosen not so much because of their need, but more so for the need of the union to gain loyalty from a majority of the workforce. Workers with far more skills and education are left without any realistic pay raise comparable to the national and even regional wages.
So thanks, to all those campaigns out there for reminding us to hope. It's a New Year and we have a new resolve to push even harder. The edge of the waterfall is approaching and we just can't stay on the boat with these folks any longer. Either let us off or we have to scuttle the boat. Now that's worth hoping for.
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Why I Started the Petition
The problem I have with this union is that we share diametrically opposed world views. The real world is not fair, so the expectations of entitlements is unrealistic. I’ve worked in the real world before coming to Raytheon. Most jobs I held didn’t have any “benefits”, and the wages were barely livable.
So I should be glad to join the union bandwagon, right? Not exactly. I truly believe in God and in the free will He instituted. Free will ungoverned by unconditional love always seeks its own. That’s why we have the “me generation”. What’s in it for me? I’m entitled to these benefits. Give me, give me.
Don’t get me wrong I like money and I like stuff, but I believe in earning the money I get. If my employer doesn’t pay me what I think my labor is worth, I quit. I don’t talk bad about them and get other people stirred up and dissatisfied with their lot in life. Eventually the employer will go out of business as he should if no one will work for him or else he will wake up and stop being greedy. This notion of a society based on threats, and intimidation sounds more like a communist dictatorship or al-Qaeda.
Join or die. In the Revolutionary War, join or die meant you can join us or do nothing and die when the enemy comes against you. It was a noble undertaking to join an organization to protect what you worked hard for. Nowadays, join or die means you join us or we kill you. If you don’t join us then you are our enemy. Doesn’t leave much room for free will, does it? I don’t think the God I worship likes that kind of fraternity, the god of al-Qaeda does.
It’s kind of like the concept of democracy which everyone touts as a good thing. Democracy always degenerates into mob rule. That’s why our forefathers chose to have a constitutional republican form of government. People create laws for society to function in, then institute punishment for not obeying those laws. That’s an orderly society instead of one run by every new whim or fad.
I am an independent voter who usually chooses to vote Republican. In the south where I grew up, it seemed that the people with conservative values were usually Democratic candidates, so I voted for them. I don’t like or trust big business, but I trust unions even less. They remind me of things I really don’t like. Things like socialists or communists, remember when those were bad things? Or what about Hoffa and his deals with the mafia, or should I say organized crime since we all know there’s no such thing as the mafia, wink, wink? I like to judge a tree by its fruit, and some trees have really bad root rot.
Maybe Hughes was so poorly managed that it needed a union to keep people from getting hurt on the job. People should stick up for their rights. We have new tools to deal with bad bosses these days. It’s called the internet. We can email them and if they don’t listen we can BLOG them, thank God! Unions’ usefulness has gone the way of the dinosaur, or the dodo. These days we have assertiveness training seminars and television programs that tell us “we’re not gonna take this, anymore”. The little guy has a voice cloaked in anonymity.
I applaud the courage of the union workers to choose to strike. It’s not easy standing up for what you believe, which gets to the point of why I circulated a petition to decertify the union while they were out fighting for me. Well my actions were governed by law. Unfortunately I found out more about that law after they went on strike, and the window of opportunity to act was a short one to collect the signatures according to the National Labor Relations Board rules. I’ve been wanting to get rid of this union for a long time.
I don’t like that they speak for me and I have no choice in the matter. Since the Local 933 has been in existence, I haven’t gotten to vote to get rid of them. I would think that if they are doing such a fine job I should get to give them a report card. They demand the right to rate Raytheon’s performance on how workers are treated. Where’s their report card? Who holds them accountable? When do their books get audited? I don’t like being forced to have the union speak for me.
Raytheon offered performance bonuses for programs that did well. I thought what a great idea, incentive. I work better with incentive. The union said our members (which I’m not) don’t want your bribery (they didn’t really say exactly that, I’m paraphrasing the concept) it would be unfair to people who work in other programs. I’m not even a member of their union, but I can’t take the incentive pay, which leaves me coming to work with no incentive. Actually I have an incentive which isn’t based on money. I have a son in the Army stationed in Korea. Our war fighters need a reliable product and that is what I intend to get them.
I chose to work for Raytheon for the pay and benefits which the union says they got for me. The union thinks I should be loyal to them for that. My loyalty lies in either my personal economics or my personal values. I choose who to work for and for how long based on those loyalties. If Raytheon didn’t offer what it did I would have gone elsewhere. Since Raytheon is helping to keep my son alive, I’d work for a whole lot less, that’s my personal values. Going back to my petition, I want the union decertified because they violated my personal values.
In a time of war they chose to strike rather than negotiate, if what I’m hearing is true. Raytheon offered a $500 bonus which the union refused, then they counter-offered with a $1000 bonus which I’ll bet the members of the union didn’t know about before they chose to vote to strike. I don’t like that kind of manipulation. Be true to your word. Stay on the job. Finish the course. We have men and women who need “Rosie the Riveters” while they are putting their lives on the frontlines. I say shame, shame. These folk aren’t cut from the same cloth as old Rosie was. She left home to keep her man alive. These folk left work to keep their paychecks lively. To me it just ain’t right.
Yeah, I circulated the petition and I appreciate all those who signed it. They are what makes America truly great. I takes a lot of courage to cross a picket line just like it does to walk one. You can call me a scab if you want to, but name calling don’t make it so. When two thirds of folks you thought were your friends took to the streets in protest, it’s awful hard not to join them. I really wanted to, but my son is in Korea and that’s personal. And shame on me for thinking only about MY son. I think about all my sons and daughters out there in the streets of Iraq. I may not be their father, but they are America’s sons and daughters and I’m an American, so they are just like my sons and daughters. And I am so proud of them.
Do I want to see this union, Local 933, broken up? I surely do, if they insist on speaking for me. They don’t share my beliefs. They support political candidates who oppose this war with union money. I don’t oppose the war. Saddam made promises after the first time we kicked his butt to allow inspectors and to respect the no fly zones. He shot missiles at our pilots. To me that’s all it took. He didn’t keep his word. It doesn’t matter if there were WMD’s or not. You don’t shoot one of us without stirring up the whole lot of us. We need to give Iraq back to their people.
Look how long it took America to get right after the Revolutionary War, and it was a document that represented our belief system. A modern day society is much harder to govern. The people of Iraq need a lot of help, but they will probably need a civil war before they truly figure out that freedom isn’t free and neither is free will. Somebody has to pay for freedom, just like the one who hung on a cross.
Don’t tell me what you’re entitled to. Grow up. Be glad you have a warm bed and food on your table. Take care of your own first and help people who need it. And don’t tell my boss that I don’t want more money if he’s willing to pass it my way. I can do a lot of good with that money in my pocket instead of theirs.
Maybe I’m entitled to it! HA!
So I should be glad to join the union bandwagon, right? Not exactly. I truly believe in God and in the free will He instituted. Free will ungoverned by unconditional love always seeks its own. That’s why we have the “me generation”. What’s in it for me? I’m entitled to these benefits. Give me, give me.
Don’t get me wrong I like money and I like stuff, but I believe in earning the money I get. If my employer doesn’t pay me what I think my labor is worth, I quit. I don’t talk bad about them and get other people stirred up and dissatisfied with their lot in life. Eventually the employer will go out of business as he should if no one will work for him or else he will wake up and stop being greedy. This notion of a society based on threats, and intimidation sounds more like a communist dictatorship or al-Qaeda.
Join or die. In the Revolutionary War, join or die meant you can join us or do nothing and die when the enemy comes against you. It was a noble undertaking to join an organization to protect what you worked hard for. Nowadays, join or die means you join us or we kill you. If you don’t join us then you are our enemy. Doesn’t leave much room for free will, does it? I don’t think the God I worship likes that kind of fraternity, the god of al-Qaeda does.
It’s kind of like the concept of democracy which everyone touts as a good thing. Democracy always degenerates into mob rule. That’s why our forefathers chose to have a constitutional republican form of government. People create laws for society to function in, then institute punishment for not obeying those laws. That’s an orderly society instead of one run by every new whim or fad.
I am an independent voter who usually chooses to vote Republican. In the south where I grew up, it seemed that the people with conservative values were usually Democratic candidates, so I voted for them. I don’t like or trust big business, but I trust unions even less. They remind me of things I really don’t like. Things like socialists or communists, remember when those were bad things? Or what about Hoffa and his deals with the mafia, or should I say organized crime since we all know there’s no such thing as the mafia, wink, wink? I like to judge a tree by its fruit, and some trees have really bad root rot.
Maybe Hughes was so poorly managed that it needed a union to keep people from getting hurt on the job. People should stick up for their rights. We have new tools to deal with bad bosses these days. It’s called the internet. We can email them and if they don’t listen we can BLOG them, thank God! Unions’ usefulness has gone the way of the dinosaur, or the dodo. These days we have assertiveness training seminars and television programs that tell us “we’re not gonna take this, anymore”. The little guy has a voice cloaked in anonymity.
I applaud the courage of the union workers to choose to strike. It’s not easy standing up for what you believe, which gets to the point of why I circulated a petition to decertify the union while they were out fighting for me. Well my actions were governed by law. Unfortunately I found out more about that law after they went on strike, and the window of opportunity to act was a short one to collect the signatures according to the National Labor Relations Board rules. I’ve been wanting to get rid of this union for a long time.
I don’t like that they speak for me and I have no choice in the matter. Since the Local 933 has been in existence, I haven’t gotten to vote to get rid of them. I would think that if they are doing such a fine job I should get to give them a report card. They demand the right to rate Raytheon’s performance on how workers are treated. Where’s their report card? Who holds them accountable? When do their books get audited? I don’t like being forced to have the union speak for me.
Raytheon offered performance bonuses for programs that did well. I thought what a great idea, incentive. I work better with incentive. The union said our members (which I’m not) don’t want your bribery (they didn’t really say exactly that, I’m paraphrasing the concept) it would be unfair to people who work in other programs. I’m not even a member of their union, but I can’t take the incentive pay, which leaves me coming to work with no incentive. Actually I have an incentive which isn’t based on money. I have a son in the Army stationed in Korea. Our war fighters need a reliable product and that is what I intend to get them.
I chose to work for Raytheon for the pay and benefits which the union says they got for me. The union thinks I should be loyal to them for that. My loyalty lies in either my personal economics or my personal values. I choose who to work for and for how long based on those loyalties. If Raytheon didn’t offer what it did I would have gone elsewhere. Since Raytheon is helping to keep my son alive, I’d work for a whole lot less, that’s my personal values. Going back to my petition, I want the union decertified because they violated my personal values.
In a time of war they chose to strike rather than negotiate, if what I’m hearing is true. Raytheon offered a $500 bonus which the union refused, then they counter-offered with a $1000 bonus which I’ll bet the members of the union didn’t know about before they chose to vote to strike. I don’t like that kind of manipulation. Be true to your word. Stay on the job. Finish the course. We have men and women who need “Rosie the Riveters” while they are putting their lives on the frontlines. I say shame, shame. These folk aren’t cut from the same cloth as old Rosie was. She left home to keep her man alive. These folk left work to keep their paychecks lively. To me it just ain’t right.
Yeah, I circulated the petition and I appreciate all those who signed it. They are what makes America truly great. I takes a lot of courage to cross a picket line just like it does to walk one. You can call me a scab if you want to, but name calling don’t make it so. When two thirds of folks you thought were your friends took to the streets in protest, it’s awful hard not to join them. I really wanted to, but my son is in Korea and that’s personal. And shame on me for thinking only about MY son. I think about all my sons and daughters out there in the streets of Iraq. I may not be their father, but they are America’s sons and daughters and I’m an American, so they are just like my sons and daughters. And I am so proud of them.
Do I want to see this union, Local 933, broken up? I surely do, if they insist on speaking for me. They don’t share my beliefs. They support political candidates who oppose this war with union money. I don’t oppose the war. Saddam made promises after the first time we kicked his butt to allow inspectors and to respect the no fly zones. He shot missiles at our pilots. To me that’s all it took. He didn’t keep his word. It doesn’t matter if there were WMD’s or not. You don’t shoot one of us without stirring up the whole lot of us. We need to give Iraq back to their people.
Look how long it took America to get right after the Revolutionary War, and it was a document that represented our belief system. A modern day society is much harder to govern. The people of Iraq need a lot of help, but they will probably need a civil war before they truly figure out that freedom isn’t free and neither is free will. Somebody has to pay for freedom, just like the one who hung on a cross.
Don’t tell me what you’re entitled to. Grow up. Be glad you have a warm bed and food on your table. Take care of your own first and help people who need it. And don’t tell my boss that I don’t want more money if he’s willing to pass it my way. I can do a lot of good with that money in my pocket instead of theirs.
Maybe I’m entitled to it! HA!
Petition Failed, This Time
On January 13, 2007 the union took another bad turn. They slapped the striking workers in the face by accepting the same contract which they went on strike for. We needed 570 signatures to put the union’s representation to a vote, and fell short of this 30% figure. While our petition to decertify the union failed this go around, we will have another chance before the next contract expires. It is to this purpose that this webspace is dedicated.
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