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On 4/3/2003 1:28:12 AM rampguy wrote:
It sounds like the coward is from those afraid to take a cut, save some jobs and as FAMikey says, live to fight another day when there is pieces of a pie to fight for.
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Live to fight another day?
And when might that day come? The threats of bankruptcy and contracting out are always there. We are not talking bad bargaining here, we are talking about a total unconditional surrender here. Let me ask you something, when you were in NAM why didnt you just walk over to the Viet Cong and surrender with the same logic "Live to fight another day"? Well for one thing although you may, and I would like to emphasize "may" survive your quality of life would be severely diminished. Not quite as bad as being killed in combat but bad enough to risk fighting against even though there was a chance that you would be killed. Its reasonable to say that being killed would more than likely be worse than being captured however you would likely only be willing to surrender when the likelyhood of your being killed was certain.
We are giving everything the company asked for with NO guarantees in return. Nothing, Nada, Zippo!! What are you getting in return for all of this? Will the company go not go BK if we all vote yes? Maybe, maybe not, it depends what you are willing to give up next time, and there will be a next time despite the fact that they claim that they will "try" not to come back for more. Just like a few months back they said that they were going to try not to touch our paychecks. Instead we were left with the entire bill.
Look the company says its burning $5million/day. Well what does that come out to per year? $1.8 billion. Suprise. The company has not changes their business plan, they claim to have located $2.2 billion in savings but what and where are they? If they implement them then they are no longer losing money right? THey should be looking at a $400 million profit then.
The fact is that nothing here is certain. This is uncharted territory. The circumstances in the BK cases that the union and the company are citing are very different than what is going on here today. The demand for six years is unreasonable, Period. This industry has made recoveries from its worst downturns to profitablity in less than 2 years. We may see this once again.
I hope the company does not go BK. The fact that they say they will if I vote this down means nothing to me because they are not saying that they will not if we vote YES. They are saying that they will try not to. What does that mean? Shouldnt they try not to either way? To be willing to give up what comes out to over 20% and growing of my earnings over the next six years to words like "try" and "attempt" is foolish. The profit sharing is a sick joke. In order for me to restore my compensation the company would have to have an annual profit of $27 billion. The entire industry has never shown a $27 billion anual profit.
The fact is that all of the concessions that we are giving will not assure us that the worst of the companys threats will not come to pass. Rejection of these concessions will not automatically ensure that it does come to pass. Either way its "maybe". So in return for over at least $100,000 in lost wages "Guaranteed"(the only thing that is guaranteed if we vote yes) we get a "maybe". Maybe they wont go bankrupt, maybe they wont come back for more, maybe you will not lose your job. Guaranteed you will earn less than you are making now in six years. If we vote No, we have the possiblity of getting raises any time after 2004. Maybe the company will go BK, maybe they will get concessions, maybe we will lose our jobs, BUT maybe IRAQ will end, maybe the economy will recover, maybe six years from now we will still have a job worth having making decent money with good benifits. Voting NO leaves open the possibilty that things can get better, and yes they could get worse, the worst could still happen. Voting Yes guarantees that things will be worse, and continue to get worse and still can not guarantee that the worst still will not happen.
