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The Silver Bullet |
| Posted by Darryl (darryl) on Jun 27 2008 |
| News >> AMHS BU |
Some of the most prominent ones over the years include:
1) If we only hire the best Lobbyist, we will get everything we want out of the Administration and the Legislature. Sorry. That doesn't work even for the Oil Industry. And we will never have the kind of money the Oil Industry has, for both Lobbyist salaries and for bribes....
2) If we only hire the best Labor Lawyer to Negotiate for us, we will get everything we want out of the State. The open argument is that the membership simply isn't expert enough. I have always felt that the hidden argument is that "we won't have to do the sheer vast amount of work". I could go on for PAGES as to why a Lawyer is a waste of money.
3) And finally, we pay the Regional Director, Patrolman, and National, (and International) and therefore they should get it all done for us. I too wish life was that easy.
Are you seeing the pattern here? We want someone to do it for us.
Now we face a pretty ugly situation. For whatever reason, the State of Alaska has decided to be punitive in negotiating with the IBU. They haven't even bothered to be polite or respectful. They have actually made much better offers to the other State Unions, including even the other Maritime Unions. We could speculate endlessly as to why, and whether they want us to strike as a way of saving money and blackening our name, whether this is a back-door way of destroying the ferry system, etc. Instead, let's just acknowledge that we have a hard row to hoe, and get to it. We need to plan. We need to break out the Strike Organization and the Picket Signs. We need to crank up the publicity. We also need to realize that the State can always outshout (and out lie) us, and resolve to continue the struggle anyway.
The public may never "like" us, but the Tourist Industry will come down on the State like a ton of bricks if they think we are going to disrupt the tourist season. And so will the residents. They both may (will!) cuss us out, but they will also demand the State fix the problem.
We can also discuss endlessly the possibility of scabs - and I can go on for PAGES as to why that isn't likely or practical. So ignore the scare tactics and rumor mill.
Or we need to tuck our tails between our legs and accept this terrible TA.
In Solidarity, leif Jenkinson
Last changed: Jun 27 2008 at 7:51 AM
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