Monday, March 09, 2009
With friends like these...
This morning I was forwarded an article reported last Friday on The Motely Fool, a very popular stock investment website. Being familiar with their Shareholder Uber Alles mindset, I was quite shocked to read the following from reporter Rich Smith, regarding their perspective on the previous day's Boeing-WEU contract vote:
Late last night, Kansan engineers for the second time rejected Boeing's latest contract offer. But unlike their comrades out West, they elected not to punish Boeing by going on strike. By a vote of 140-118, the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA) instead limited itself to a polite refusal of Boeing's offer, coupled with the hope that "Boeing will have enough respect for their workforce to sit down and negotiate a respectful contract."...according to SPEEA, "the offered contract falls short of those signed with engineers at other work sites." Basically, all the Wichita workers are asking for here is a fair shake -- the same deal that Boeing already agreed to with its employees out West. If Boeing would accede to what sounds like a very reasonable request, everything should work out hunky-dory.
Speaking as a shareholder of a company...I have to ask: What's the deal, Boeing? Your employees in Kansas have shown restraint, not following their IAM brethren into the fire. They're asking for no more than what you've already given their peers. Meanwhile, you're still hewing to the tired old "best and final line" -- which you've already proven isn't either...
The fact that this article was written by the same reporter who penned "Boeing should let the union walk" and "Boeing busts the union" about the IAM negotiations and strike last fall should pretty much show everyone just how far outside of reality Boeing-Wichita's engineering negotiation team must live.
-- Bill, who's with Mizz Franklin on this one...
Tuesday, March 03, 2009
New Sheriff in Town...
After eight years struggling under a Secretary of Labor who seemed to think her job was to help management keep workers down, it's refreshing to read that we now have one who understands the job is to advocate for Labor and not for the Chamber of Commerce:
"If you take care of an employee, that employee will produce. Productivity by our workforce, especially union members, has increased," she said. "But we don't see the same value in terms of their wages going up. So there has to be some morality placed there."
--Bill, who finds Ms Solis to be change he can believe in...
Monday, March 02, 2009
Open Letter to the HR folks monitoring this 'blog...
Dear Sam, et alia,
At his weekly crew meeting last week, my boss gave his workgroup the Non-Rep Incentive presentation he received from y'all (display only, no copies allowed, as you directed). He covered all the talking points on the PowerPoint slides and reviewed your FAQs with us but he was unable to answer my questions about other pertinent details, so I was kinda hoping you might be able to clarify a couple of things:
I anxiously await your detailed answers in the Comments section, below.
-- Bill, who'll be awaiting winged primates again tomorrow morning as well...
