Cog in the machine...

(Answering for only myself, of course...)

Question: Why all the delays between negotiations meetings? Why aren’t you working around the clock to get this settled?

1) How do you know we’re not? Heck, best I can tell, most of the delays have been due to the Boeing-Wichita negotiators having to call about 3,529 Executives all around the country to convince them and get unanimous "buy in" to any contract improvement our counterparts would like to make. And then there’s playing all the "phone tag" when The Boss is never in.

2) Some of the major players have other, long-standing important engagements, both personal and work-related, that had been planned with the "good faith" expectation of being long done with negotiations for a contract that expired in February. And, speaking of schedules, we can’t seem to convince the Federal Mediator that we’re the Center of the Universe, so he goes off to work other mediations he and his bosses think equally important. In any event, the only downside I see to letting the process take the time it needs is the delay in merit distribution, which just means a bigger "lump" in the first retroactive paycheck. On the upside, of course, all the folks in Traditional Med aren’t yet paying huge premiums.

3) Oh, these negotiations over the past 6+ months have been such an enjoyable time that I just want it to never end. And, next, a monkey flies out of my butt.


-- Bill, who readily admits that #3 is a far more likely answer for me than any of my cohorts on the SPEEA team...