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Raise your hand if you haven’t experienced the joy of a salary increase at work over, say, the past two or three years. You know, you’re mired in the whole “pay freeze” muck, and wondering when, if ever, the ledger of the company you work for is going to finally take a turn for the better and your employer will suddenly decide to share the wealth with its employees who helped make all the good stuff happen.
That’s a depressing amount of hands.
Now, raise your hand if over that same period of time you’ve gotten a raise or two, but the minuscule size of the raise was almost enough to make you laugh out loud.
That’s a lot of hands, too.
We’re all supposed to feel incredibly grateful just to have a job at all these days, of course. It’s almost a bargaining chip for management, whether there’s a union where you work or not. Not happy with your duties? Not happy with your pay? Not happy with your benefits? Well, don’t let the door hit you on the way out, and good luck finding another job. You’d better be thankful to be taking home a paycheck at all this economy.
That’s kind of the line of thought today, with the lockout in its second day at American Crystal Sugar. The company made what it called its “final” offer the other day, and on Saturday an incredible 96 percent of union members rejected it.
When the first details of the company’s offer went public, the buzz in the Times’ newsroom was that it was a pretty good offer. After all, when you’re not getting raises and you see workers at some other place being offered significant raises and signing bonuses and all that, you can’t help but think it’s a pretty sweet deal, and maybe even feel a little jealous. You also might wonder why anyone in their right mind would vote down such an offer. You know, in this economy and all.
But it’s not all about the money. Crystal wants to significantly change the health plan for its union employees, and the union is saying that the salary increase and “bonus” won’t necessarily put more money in their pocket; in fact, they say, it might not even cancel out the increased costs they’ll pay for health coverage.
Raise your hand if you haven’t experienced the joy of a salary increase at work over, say, the past two or three years. You know, you’re mired in the whole “pay freeze” muck, and wondering when, if ever, the ledger of the company you work for is going to finally take a turn for the better and your employer will suddenly decide to share the wealth with its employees who helped make all the good stuff happen.
That’s a depressing amount of hands.
Now, raise your hand if over that same period of time you’ve gotten a raise or two, but the minuscule size of the raise was almost enough to make you laugh out loud.
That’s a lot of hands, too.
We’re all supposed to feel incredibly grateful just to have a job at all these days, of course. It’s almost a bargaining chip for management, whether there’s a union where you work or not. Not happy with your duties? Not happy with your pay? Not happy with your benefits? Well, don’t let the door hit you on the way out, and good luck finding another job. You’d better be thankful to be taking home a paycheck at all this economy.
That’s kind of the line of thought today, with the lockout in its second day at American Crystal Sugar. The company made what it called its “final” offer the other day, and on Saturday an incredible 96 percent of union members rejected it.
When the first details of the company’s offer went public, the buzz in the Times’ newsroom was that it was a pretty good offer. After all, when you’re not getting raises and you see workers at some other place being offered significant raises and signing bonuses and all that, you can’t help but think it’s a pretty sweet deal, and maybe even feel a little jealous. You also might wonder why anyone in their right mind would vote down such an offer. You know, in this economy and all.
But it’s not all about the money. Crystal wants to significantly change the health plan for its union employees, and the union is saying that the salary increase and “bonus” won’t necessarily put more money in their pocket; in fact, they say, it might not even cancel out the increased costs they’ll pay for health coverage.
Then there’s the whole out-sourcing jobs issue, or, in other words, hiring outside contractors. The union thinks the language in the contract offer relating to this area puts just about every union worker at risk of being replaced somewhere down the line but non-union personnel.
Scary stuff, even with a decent pay increase. The devil is in the details, and the union at this point wholeheartedly rejects them. Here’s hoping management at Crystal, a farmer-owned cooperative currently on one heck of a successful run, gives a little more ground and puts forth a retooled offer that warrants serious consideration by the union. The company and its impact on our region’s economy are too significant to let this situation fester too long.
