Random Nuclear Strikes

I’ll explain the title of this post in a minute. But before that, I’d like to cover some stuff from my post from yesterday.

First off, the picket line rules are now up in the air. The two minute rule was decided on six years ago when the last strike was almost called and it could change.

Second, to address one comment and a couple emails, I am not allowed to bring firearms onto the premises. Ever. Period. I’ve gone through a couple bosses here; the first one, a retired Marine Captain, said it was OK, and the guy after him, a good ‘ol boy from Tennesse, was OK with it as well. But this third guy, and the one who has lasted the longest so far, is a gun bigot. So, axe handles and lockback knifes are all I’m allowed. Well, not really allowed, but they haven’t said ‘No’ yet. But I’m not worried. I’ll have a 6500lb weapon with me named Grimm that I don’t have to get out of unless I want to get flashy with some Hickory.

Next, to answer a couple other emails, the union employees are making somewhere between $45K and $80K a year, and those are net figures, not gross, depending on how long they’ve worked under the union contract. The newer guys are making somewhere between the high-teens to the mid-twenty-something dollars an hour and the guys who have been here for ten-plus years are making over $30-something an hour. That is before overtime hours, of which there is no shortage available.

And now onto the title of this post…..

The vote on Sunday is going to be a very crucial one. There are 600 Teamster employees involved under the various contracts being negotiated and some of them are itching for some time off.

From multiple sources, I hear that a number of them are demanding that the union get them their medical coverage at ZERO out of paycheck cost. The union has already told them that they won’t ask for that and these rabble rousers have replied that they will vote to strike.

With having the vote on Easter Sunday, the total turnout is expected to be smaller than usual. And we all know what happens during off-year elections when the turnout is small; those with an agenda show up to vote and their votes are disproportionally amplified.

If the guys who think that giving the negotiators another week or so don’t show up and those demaning things that even the union says they can’t have show up with their numbers, the vote will be to strike. The vast majority of those guys are from the other hauling company involved and the guys working for my employer know that their votes will be loud, so everyone I’ve talked to is saying they’ll show for the vote, but we’ll have to wait and see.

I’ve got a couple of the guys saying they’ll call me as soon as they hear anything, so hopefully I won’t wait to hear from my manager about whether or not I’m working Monday.

My employer has also heard of the rude boy’s demands and, in addition to the unarmed security, large floodlights showed up in the parking lot yesterday afternoon, as well as 8ft chain link fencing for the one ungated driveway and to make a doubly secure parking area for the non-union employees. We have also already seen upwards towards thirty guys from out of town who will be driving the trucks on Monday if the vote is to strike and there will be four times many that by Wednesday. But on the other side, I still haven’t gotten my new ‘Strike Use Security Badge’ yet, and neither have any of my co-workers in the office.

Apparently, the guys providing security are the only company my empoyer uses on a nationwide basis. They’ve flown some of the security guys in from as far away as West Virginia so as to have some people with ‘Strike Experience’ at hand and they’re filling in the rest with locals. All in all, the security folks seem nice enough. I’ve seen inside a couple of their vehicles and they have some of the best equipment this side of Blackwater (vests, helmets, boots, pads, etc), minus the firearms, of course. If the strike happens, it’ll be weird to see these guys on patrol.

More when I hear anything new. Probably Sunday afternoon.

It’s Friday and this is the day the new trash haulers contract is supposed to be complete.

Trouble is, it’s not.

Private security guards of the unarmed variety started shifts in our yard last night, and the drivers didn’t take kindly to that. I’ve been hearing rumors of some monkeying around, and it is probably better for both sides that they’re here; both to act as a deterrent and possibly as witnesses.

The union will be presenting their case to the drivers and then letting the drivers vote on whether or not to strike this weekend. On Easter Sunday in the mid afternoon.

The unions are always flapping their lips about how a person’s job shouldn’t come between them and their family, and then they schedule a vote on the biggest religious holiday in Spring. I guess if they ask for another two week extension, they’ll have the next vote on MayDay?

Generally, both sides are talking optimistically to the media, but there are a few tensions over one issue: Healthcare benefits

As a non-union employee, I pay $70 a month for my medical, dental and vision plans. The union employees pay somewhere between $225 and $300, depending on their chosen plan and dependents.

While it may sound like a raw deal for them, there is a reason why there is such a disparity: I’m usually in the scalehouse, the office or the yard. If I’m on the clock and not there, I’m at another of my company’s sites or surveying one of our customer’s worksites.

The drivers, on the other hand, are in and out of their trucks and on the road every day, all day. If you look at a list of the Top 10 most dangerous jobs in the USA, truck drivers are at #10. But driving a trash truck isn’t just driving. They’re hopping out of the truck at least a few dozen times each day, sometimes into traffic, which puts them into the #5 most dangerous job as well. If they’re at a construction site, they run the same dangers that those guys face, which puts them into the #9 spot. The truck itself is also considered heavy equipment because of the hydraulic rams and lifts positioned around the thing, which puts them just outside the Top 10, at #12 or #13 most dangerous jobs.

On average, the trash industry loses a person every two weeks, either killing or severely disabling them. At my workplace, we have multiple walls showing the results of on the job accidents from around the country that have ended up killing or crippling the driver. I’ve got horror stories of things I’ve seen in accidents involving trash trucks that might just curl your toes.

The job itself, even without the accidents, is debilitating. Off the top of my head I can name three guys who are on L&I right now, two for their knees and one for his shoulder. There are at least a half dozen others whom I don’t work with closely that are also on L&I.

The job is highly repetative and the objects being moved around are quite heavy. Picking up trash isn’t for the light of frame. This is going to sound horrible, but we have had almost no women who can do this job for more than a couple months.

That is why there are new trucks coming out with grab and lift arms and other body saving equipment that will probably make this job a lot less strenuous than it currently is, and we are starting to upgrade or swap out our fleet for those new machines.

That is also why the driver’s health insurance cost so much more.

In the six-plus years I’ve been here, I’ve used my insurance exactly once: when I got pnuemonia last December. Other than that, I think doctor’s offices and hospitals smell like death and I stay away.

But I can guarantee you that even an unmarried driver with no dependents has to go to the doctor at least once, if not twice a year, for some type of injury.

They put a higher demand on the health insurance carrier, so the carrier charges my employer more for their health insurance, and my employer, rightfully so, has them pay their ‘fair share’ of it.

But unions only like to talk about ‘fair shares’, they don’t like paying them. The drivers want management to sing praises to them every morning, but management just wants to hum a few bars once a week, so the happy medium will involve a great deal of compromise.

It’s been over a month and while most of the compromises have taken place, this one is getting sticky.

There has also been some monkeying around inside the facility during operating hours. If’n you want to read about some of that, head below the fold.

Continue reading →

So I’m completing my daily tasks at work and the truckband radio comes on, being keyed up by one of the drivers. The noise coming out of the speaker is that of the top of the hour Fox radio news.

It contains a soundbite from one of the pro-illegal immigration marches yesterday. The person speaking in the soundbite is making a speech at one of the rallies (I don’t know which one) and he is saying “We do your landscaping. We build your homes. We care for your children.”

The driver, and I know who this guy is, says “We steal your cars. We rob your stores”

Good party line voting, union supporting Democrat, ain’t he? If you knew him, that’s what you’d say. Of course, if a Democrat heard him say that, they’d accuse him of being a Republican.

Not wanting miss out on the action, a non-union supporting, a libertarian/Republican driver key’s up his mic and blares the next section of the news report on how close April 15th, Buy a Gun Day, oops, I mean the Tax Return Filing Deadline, is. The voice on the radio is some tax guy talking about how this year, all of the money you earned in something like the first four months plus the first twelve days of the fifth month equals how much of your income, on average, goes to the government before you get to keep any to use for housing, food or transportation.

The libertarian driver makes a verbal note about how Washington State is actually higher than the average and that states run by Republicans average lower. He adds “Ain’t government great!?!” at the end.

So myself, being the jovial guy I am, mic up and add that if you forget to pay the government, they will come to your house and show you all of the great firearms they used your tax dollars to buy.

I closed with this “Oh, and you are not allowed to own firearms like the ones the government has, because the government says that you’re not smart enough to use them wisely. So keep voting Democrat, because they they know what is good for you”

While the drivers do vote solidly down the (D) column, mostly because the union spends big bucks to advertise for the (D) politicians and against the (R) and (L) candidates, I don’t know a single gun bigot among the lot of them. In fact, a number of them beg for my used Shotgun News magazines when I’m done with them.

Yeah, I’m being trivial, but it was fun and it kept the radio quiet until I left.