Why I am having a real hard time with ‘Unions’ part 675

As I mentioned back in 2006, I live in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania. What I may have not said before is that I am a big advocate of public and mass transit.

Currently we are faced with a transit crisis that is starting to border on the absurd. Whilst we are in the midst of an economic meltdown, and coming off of a drastic fuel crisis, it’s time for the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 85 to negotiate its contract with the Transit Board. Now the current proposal up is for 3% per year increase for all employees, but they have to kick in some more for health care.

Ya know, as I head into my own performance review on the 3rd of December, I can only HOPE for ONE year when I get 3% and have to kick a little more in for health care. And this 3% isn’t enough, the Union Leadership is recommending rejecting this proposal and going on strike.

Ok, I’m all for folks wanting some more cash, but the County is in serious, serious debt (a good portion due to irresponsible speding on sports arenas and a shrinking population). We’ve had to institute a 10% poured drink tax as well as extra taxes on rental cars just to get enough cash to get the state matching funds to keep the buses rolling. This is not the time when you go hog-wild for more cash!  Over 40% of people who work Downtown depend on Allegheny Counties Port Authority to get to work. Many of them are going to lose their jobs if there is a strike.

As such I believe it is socially irresponsible to at this point to turn down much more than most workers in ANY field are getting to demand more and to hold those jobs hostage because of it.  To demand more of a pie that we have to go deeper into debt to fill, and to say that their strike is something ‘for the common man’ and will lead to a ‘triumph of the worker’. Yeah, right. Especially with so many of the lower class then unemployed– yeah they get the full weight of that triumph.

As a matter of full disclosure, I am able to still get to work without the bus— My wife has a car and she can drop me within a mile of where I need to be, and I can walk the rest. I’m very lucky.  I’m also very lucky that gas prices have crashed. But there are a lot of us Pittsburghers who aren’t so lucky.

Maybe we should all picket the union headquarters! Their contact infromation is as at the bottom of this post. If you read this and you give a care about the real working class in Pittsburgh (or just the plain ol US of A) call these Union folks and ask that they stop the strike.

1613 Penn Avenue

Pittsburgh, PA  15222

Phone: 412-281-5583

Fax : 412-281-2627

 

 

To bail out, or not to bail out…Detroit

I’ve been reading MSN Blogs and commments about whether or not to bail out the Big 3 Automakers.  And you can divide most of them into three categories (of extreme viewpoints):

I: Let ‘em fail they mismanaged things since the 70s Oil crisis til now.

II: Bail ‘em out, we need the jobs.

III: Bail ‘em out, Buy USA Buy USA you commie pinko bastards who don’t only buy US Cars.

 

I see a middle ground rather than bail out or not-bail out, but it goes against what has happened historically. Currently when a corporation gets a bail out, there is talk, but no teeth in the accountability factor. Many of the banks took the bailout and bought smaller banks and did NOT start lending (like they were supposed to, and had agreed at least in principle to.)

So, my thoughts are two fold:

1) All bailout moneys should be used specifically for alternative fuel vehicles and the parts neccessary to manufacture them. Ford showed off a hydrogen vehicle that had an SUV body back when Dan Rather was anchor of CBS news (appx 2004). He even drove it around the salt flats at over 70 mph. (So we get SUVs, we get less dependent on Oil, etc). THIS COMES AS A CONTRACTURAL STIPULATION. And as such there will be fines, penalties, etc. for breaking said contract. The contract will be signed and sworn to in a court of law, thus getting jailtime for the Board and the CEO if they break the contract. (It’s called perjury, folks!)

2) Nationally we follow the call of California with its I5 energy highway and help set up the alternate fuel infrastructure.

3) All American citizens buying American hydrogen/electric cars get a 5% discount. Tax breaks are nice and all, but you only get them come April. Get em at the time of purchase and you’ve got a greater impact.

If we don’t do this, Honda will make it happen, as will Hyundai and no calls to “Buy American” will save us. Right now, our energy dependence on foreign sources is so much more a security issue than waving a flag and chanting “Buy USA”.

And don’t give me the party line bullcrap about ‘market forces’ and the gas guzzlers. Because for every buyer of an SUV in the US, there’s 1-2 others wanting something fuel efficient. THOSE CUSTOMERS HAVE BEEN IGNORED. These people include me, my immediate family, my in-laws, most of my wifes congregation, most of my congregation, almost every school teacher I had in the 80s, a former US President, almost my entire team at work, everyone who had an Electric car CRUSHED RATHER THAN LETTING THEM BE PURCHASED OUT OF THEIR LEASE.

Yeah, right. It was all ‘market forces’. Uh huh.

Stop the ‘h8′ – Yeah — right. Mormons and Prop 8

As someone who is LDS, and who did not donate to the Prop 8 coffers, I personally find the site: mormonsfor8.com unconscionably condesending.

Now we have sites rounding up all the donors and sifting though trying to find out who was LDS that donated and who wasn’t. I’m now experiencing harassment from ‘friends’, neighbors and co-workers for being LDS– yeah foresight was needed to see this level of hostility. (And I’m friggin in the East, an original colony-state as it were.)

Keep it up, justify the vehemence… talk about not having hate and then knock the next woman down you don’t agree with. Maybe punch her next time. Keep that spray paint handy while you talk about not having hate. Yeah. Right.