Why Arn't We Angry?

Brothers and sisters; together we make a difference in all things. As a labor union one of the things that has me concerned is the memberships lack of anger regarding our contract. As many of us are aware the MTA has been putting up a bogus fight to block the award an arbitrator handed down as a decision due to an impasse! The raises we received was 4% 4% and 3% these raises were broken down in the first two years 2% 2% 2% 2%. The third year raise was based on your top salary before this contract went into affect. In other words, lets take the top salary of a bus operator at the time, which was $26.92 an hour. The 3% raise in the third year of the award would be based on that amount. There was plenty of consessions the arbitrator gave the TA as you can see above.
We in return were granted the 1.5% reduced from gross wages to 40 hours! Why aren't we angry that the TA took the award to court? They keep loosing but still they want to waste money! Now the TA is seaking to take the 3rd year of the award and the 1.5% medical to the state supream court.
Internal politics has pit union brother and sister against one another in order to gain control of the local. Unfortunately our local is not isolated in the these disastrous trends, labor across America has the same problems. We must and I emphasize must turn this thing around! Are you angry yet? Well you should be! Every union member who can read these words should do some soul searching, and do their part to turn this thing around. Everyone is needed to exercise our true power.

Start by coming to union meetings and let that resignate into rallies and community efforts to fight the power! The problem that we also face is the hoodwinking that anti-labor groups have produced and we believed! Are we angry yet? Well we should be! Let us fight the power together!

Together we make a difference always!