A strike is the unfortunate result of a failure of the collective bargaining process.
Usually one side or the other either did not want to get an agreement or was not willing to compromise in order to reach a settlement. Conditions have to be almost intolerable for a group of workers to elect to go on strike. Most working families live paycheck to paycheck and while the paycheck disappears for strikers, the bills keep coming. Food, clothing, shelter, tuition, that is real economic pressure that an employer counts on to force its employees to submit to its demands or better yet, cross the picket line and break the union. Strike-breakers and scabs undermine the employees chances of winning the strike and in this case, as in many other recent strikes, winning usually means holding on to something really important to the bargaining unit. Local 3 members employed by Time Warner for many years have negotiated fair agreements with the company that both the members and the company agreed to and benefited from. Until now.
All Local 3 members understand the value of the JIB pension and JIB medical. Our pension plan is a defined benefit plan. Corporate America has targeted defined benefit plans because they are on the hook to deliver on the promise that they make to their employees, that if you work hard for a company when you retire you will be able to live with some dignity knowing that you will have enough income from your pension, social security and personal savings to survive. That’s a benefit Local 3 members will fight to protect especially because they have paid for it. Same for the medical. Anyone who has used it knows the value of our plan. Yes, we have co-pays and deductibles, nothing like what corporate America wants to shove down our throats. But what they don’t get, as they demand we pay exorbitant weekly or monthly premiums, is that we have paid for this coverage. Every contract negotiated over the last 30 years where the members allocated a portion of the settlement to the Pension and Hospitalization was a decision made by the members to pay for maintaining or making improvements to their plan. That money could have been allocated anywhere. It was part of a negotiated economic package and the members decided for themselves where their needs were and where they wanted it to go. So don’t let anyone tell you that you don’t pay for your medical. That’s how collective bargaining works and at the end of the day the parties agreed to the terms of the contract. BOTH parties.
Fast forward: new owner, non-union everywhere else they do business and guess what, rather than respect the employees right to bargain, they attack the union foremen and the union benefit plans professing they would rather pay higher wages by eliminating the obligation to pay into the Local 3 funds. They would offer the corporate medical and competitive 401k. Bye-bye defined benefit pension and goodbye Local 3 medical. Local 3 members are smart enough to know what that means. Welcome to New York, Charter Communications, you have pushed a button that has raised the stakes so much so that your lack of respect for your employees, our members, has put them to the test to withstand the economic pressure that you can bring to bear on them and their families in order to force your will on them. They will not stand alone.
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