UAW: "No More Concessions"
If we haven't mentioned it before you know we were thinking it: the economic disaster will almost certainly be seen by business as a great excuse to cut labor costs even more and to weaken unions by crying poverty - and this time it may actually have a grain of truth in it, but what the hell. After years of stealing money from consumers, employees, even its own investors, it's cash rich. To mix my fairy tales a little, when you spend years crying "Wolf!" you may have to dip into your Treasurechest to pay the piper even if the teeth are eating through your door. Tough.
And I'm not the only one who feels that way. This week the SPEEA leaders (that's the Society for Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace, Boing's engineer's union) okayed a strike if negotiations failed despite Boing's tardy delivery schedule and the crashing economy that isn't good for anybody. Fortunately, the two sides reached an agreement yesterday and a strike was averted but it says something that they even considered it given the state of the economy.
A more typical situation is the one we have now with the automakers screaming about how badly they're hurting what with economy in a tailspin and can't they please get bailed out, too? No doubt their execs have been days or even weeks without a spa vacation or a skiing weekend and how will they live on their meager $300K salaries without those $$$million$$$ bonuses they've been promised? I tell you, the times is bad over at GenMotChrysFord. They're setting up Executive Soup Kitchens as we speak.






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