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toll-collectors' strike
As you know, the Teamsters union organized a strike of the Turnpike toll collectors and maintenance crews to begin on the busiest travel day of the year. The state was forced to let travellers use the road for free on Wednesday, and has been collecting reduced tolls since then.
While many drivers are happy with this turn of events, as a taxpayer I am outraged. In most lines of work, sabotage that costs an employer money would be punished. I have heard nothing of reimbursement from the Teamsters, nor do I expect to.
I read in today's newspaper that the state has hired temporary workers to begin collecting the regular tolls, and that when the strike ends these workers will be laid off. I have a better idea: hire them permanently and fire the strikers. Quickly.
The striking workers are not being taken advantage of, as should be clear from the ease with which you hired their replacements. They make an average of $18.50 per hour, not counting overtime, which is a lot more than other cashiers make. (80% of those on strike make more than $50,000 per year.) Each year they also receive 15 paid holidays and four weeks' vacation. The deal they rejected included fully-paid health care, protection from layoffs for three years, and annual raises.
Their greed is ridiculous, and I urge you to fire these spoiled brats and replace them with people who want to work for the more-than-fair compensation the state has offered. Please restore the Turnpike to normal business as quickly as possible, before even more of our tax dollars have to be diverted to paying for this loss.
Thank you.
I haven't actually sent it yet, so feedback is very welcome. What's the correct way to address the governor, anyway? I don't think it's Dear Governor".
"Open letter" means I'll be sending copies to the newspaper and my representatives, not just whining here. :-)
Update: I may be making some unwarranted assumptions about the terms of their employment; need to check.
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Apparently it is. P-) (<< smiling pirate w/eyepatch)
The envelope is addressed to:
The Honorable Firstname Surname
Governor of Pennsylvania
Street Address
The letter is addressed to:
Dear Governor Surname
If you need to look up anyone else...
http://www.svls.lib.ca.us/SVLS/html/lawmakers/correct_form.html
-- Dagonell
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There's no reason to assume they're paying the temps no more than the striking workers. Do you have information to that effect?
Out of curiosity, for what are they striking?
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Out of curiosity, for what are they striking?
They've been working without a contract for more than a year; I don't know what the proximate cause is. This is the only article I've seen so far that quotes the union's side. (Until then the union was declining comment.) The article says that the workers are upset that the HMO they've been using is being eliminated in favor of Highmark Blue Cross/Blue Shield, but that seems spurious to me. I mean, the details haven't been published, but the phrase "fully-paid health care" has been, and they rejected that, apparently because they don't like the specific flavor. (Note that management has the same health plan, so it's probably not crap.) See the article for more.
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striking is almost always a last resort. working without a contract is like working without a paycheck - and it's tremendously bad for morale, stress, etc. the upside to a union is that you can negotiate for better pay, benefists, etc. - the downside is that you are stuck with what you negotiate for, usually for a long time.
for what it's worth, I think that calling them simple cashiers is a gross understatement. would you want to be paid $10 an hour to be the only toll taker open when the crazy with the handgun decides he gets to ride for free?
~Devil's Advocate :)
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Is it? I would think there would be legal remedies if you don't get paid for work you have already done. Working without a contract seems more like working without knowing you'll have a job tomorrow (which is also serious, of course).
the downside is that you are stuck with what you negotiate for, usually for a long time.
And apparently there are non-union workers in some of these jobs and they've been doing better on salary increases. So the unionized workers have a legitimate beef with their union, but not with the state on that point. As you said, there are good and bad aspects of joining a union.
for what it's worth, I think that calling them simple cashiers is a gross understatement. would you want to be paid $10 an hour to be the only toll taker open when the crazy with the handgun decides he gets to ride for free?
Is this materially different from being the only guy at the 7-11 at 3AM when the armed guy looking for drug money comes in, or the pizza-delivery guy who's told by his boss that he must deliver in the bad neighborhood?
I did not intend the word "cashier" to be insulting; is there a better word that puts the job in proper perspective?
In this case it sure sounds like the union and/or the strikers are doing a disservice to all unionized workers. There are legitimate reasons to form unions, but every time people strike for not getting red-carpet treatment, they make all unions look that much worse. Not everyone takes the time to examine individual cases; for a lot of people the argument stops with "those damned unions are at it again". That's unfortunate, and I'd love to hear of other union folks speaking up in cases like that.
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Only upside was that I had keys to things I shouldn't have and could keep personal utilities personal. I did not not wish to schlep_everything_. Nor compromise my quality. I am versatile and could do an adequate job with olive oil. Although I like a particular formula of cream that does not stain and has the right consistency. And time to do things right.
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Also, the article says they only have 50 temps, and plan on getting 300. Which I find amusing. Some of those are third shift positions. Yeah, they're just going to find 100 people this week dying to work 3rd shift for $16/hr, no benes, and no job security. Riiiiiight.
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Dang -- I somehow managed to read right past the sidebar. Oops! (The $16.25 was quoted in the print article this morning -- not in a sidebar IIRC, but minor repackaging of information for print and web is nothing new.)
Yeah, they're just going to find 100 people this week dying to work 3rd shift for $16/hr, no benes, and no job security. Riiiiiight.
On the other hand, what I'm suggesting is that they just hire those (up to) 800 people at the offered %16.25 plus bennies and job security (or up to the current rate of $18.50 if that's what the market demands). This is a case where I think it's reasonable to say "you walk out, you lose". This does not appear to be a case of exploitation or unsafe working conditions or some other situation for which a work stoppage is a legitimate response.
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In the Scranton area? Hell, they could probably find 1,000. That's like hitting a gold mine compared to what you get around here. I know plenty of people living temp job to temp job who consider themselves lucky to get $9/hr.
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Well, if someone's been out of work for over a year, and no unemployment benefits left, and the only other jobs out there are retail or McD's for minimum wage, you bet your ass I'd jump on a 3rd shift job for $16 an hour, no matter how long it'll last. It's money, and some people will take it where they can find work to get it.
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Sabotage is destruction of facilities (from the French "sabot", a wooden shoe, with which the destruction was historically done). These fellows have simply refused to work, since the state wouldn't contract for that labor. After all, their bodies and hours are their property, and I thought Libertarians considered the disposition of one's private property to be nigh-sacred.
What we have here is reciprocal monopolies: one party owns all the tolltaker jobs and one party own all the tolltaker workers. Frankly, it looks like a fair fight to me.
Why do you think it "greedy" for them to make >$50k? Or for that matter, any amount of money or service at all? Do you think it's unreasonable for entities to charge the maximum they can to make the greatest possible margin? Isn't that just capitalism?
According to Fanny Mae guidelines, our hypothetical $50k/annum toll taker can afford (at current fixed mortgage rates for a 30yr mortgage) a ~$230k home if he's got a $10k down payment. According to this the average price of a single-family, four-bedroom, 2-½-bath, 2,200-square-foot dwelling with two-car garage in Pittsburgh was $250k in 2002[*]. That's a bit beyond his reach, but it looks plausible that putting in an honest day's labor as a tolltaker will allow him to house himself, a stay-at-home wife and two kids, while slowly building equity in the house. Not palacial living, but a three-bedroom ranch house with a back yard in a good neighborhood with good schools.
Is that an unreasonable thing to expect from a job? Is there some intrinsic reason that people working as tolltakers shouldn't earn enough to do that?
In any event, you seem to think that it will be trivial to replace those workers for as much or less money per hour; I think you are mistaken in that. Staffing third shift is hard under the best of circumstances; staffing third shift in semi-outdoor positions harder still. Finding trustworthy employees to handle money unsupervised is hard, too, (as countless transit systems have discovered), and combining that with the above... No, I don't think $50k a year+ benes is at all unreasonable.
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If the striking workers said "we quit if you don't meet our demands", that'd be perfectly within their rights. If, however, they do anything to prevent the state from replacing them, or if they violated any agreements about timing (probably not but I don't know), that's not. So maybe I don't have enough information; thanks for bringing this up.
I also don't think it's unreasonable for a toll collector to make $50k if he can negotiate for it. (It seems odd to me that we pay toll collectors better than nurses and teachers. Hmm.) But I'm surprised if the market supports that given the number of people working McJobs for minimum wage -- why aren't they beating down the doors to triple their salaries and get health insurance besides?
According to this the average price of a single-family, four-bedroom, 2-½-bath, 2,200-square-foot dwelling with two-car garage in Pittsburgh was $250k in 2002[*].
I'm surprised. That's roughly the going rate in two of the nicer neighborhoods, but way above the goaing rate for most parts of the city. Actually, now that I think about it, I suspect that some neighborhoods just don't have houses that fit that description -- while there are lots of houses of that size or a bit under out there, they aren't necessarily configured that way. (In particular, two-car garages aren't nearly as common as 4BR/2.5Ba houses.)
In any event, you seem to think that it will be trivial to replace those workers for as much or less money per hour; I think you are mistaken in that.
Perhaps you're right; I guess we'll find out. Conversely, though, if the workers were that upset with the package, why haven't they found better jobs elsewhere?
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On one hand, it's a government job, and the government is supposed to save its people money. There are also apparently more than enough people out there who find the striking employees' situation reasonable.
On the other hand, as an underpaid union member with what has to be one of the crappiest contracts in AFTRA history, I can see where workers would want to strike to hold onto what they've got. I mean, if your employer said, "As a reward for your good work, we want to cut or not raise your pay, and we want to cut your health benefits to nothing," how would you feel?
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If my employer actually said that I'd be pretty angry, but it doesn't sound like that's what's happening here.
Just about every employer I've worked for has, at some point, said "we can no longer afford the exact health-care package you now have" and given us something different instead. So far it hasn't sucked for me (maybe I'm lucky). In this case, they're replacing an HMO with fully-paid Highmark. I've neaver heard of a Highmark plan that sucked, and whatever it is, they're getting the same plan as the managers making the decision. So I'm not sure there's actually a problem with health care in this case. The new contract also provided for raises, not pay cuts -- and job guarantees for three years, a luxury few get.
I understand striking to hold onto what you've got; while some union contracts are abusive to the employers, others are abusive to the employees. I would also hate being subject to collective bargaining in the first place; I want to be able to individually negotiate for my own position, thank you, and would resent it if I were required to join a union as a condition of employment. I want to sink or swim based on my own actions, not on those of union bosses who feather their nests at my expense or who pull stupid antics that turn public opinion against me.
(In a lot of ways, I think unions in the US have just plain outlived their usefulness. But that's a different rant. :-) )
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Folks had been complaining to our boss about the heat on weekends for a couple of months (the building would turn off the air conditioning on weekends), and he said it'd cost him some huge amount of $$$ (I forget the number) to keep it on for those days, and said he didn't have the budget for it.
Labor Day weekend my co-workers banded together. One wrote a letter, and everyone signed it. Copies went to the union and to upper management, but it wasn't until the union contacted upper management that action happened (the funny-looking standalone unit, then real air conditioning).
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Ire-up
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