The Union makes us. . .

Nervous. We voted on our new contract today, and tensions were definitely running high. There was some tweaking around of benefits, language and other minor details. There was no change in our health premiums, but there was a wage freeze. Enter chaos. Threats of strike, hints of seeking sympathy among the trustees, slamming fists and raised voices. It all seems a bit much to me. Sure, freezing my wages for a year sucks. But given the fact that our transit workers were given a wage decrease AND a raise in their premiums, and our teachers are being laid off in the hundreds- well, I think we got a pretty good deal. I also think that if you go crying to the trustees (who are, after all, presidents of multi-billion dollar companies) or papers about your troubles without a substantial cause, you’re just going to look silly. Worst, as museum employee, you’re just going to look like a greedy dilettante. Museums are great, but they’re not essential. And if this city let it’s bus drivers strike for a month without giving them a deal, even though it meant they’d loose millions by delaying the opening of the new light rail service- well what makes my co-workers so confident that they’ll care about a bunch of art majors locked away in their own personal ivory tower?

Don’t get me wrong, I believe in a Union member’s right to strike. The problem here is that my co-workers seem to be advocating turning down our contract on the assumption that it will never come to a strike. If you turn down a contract, you’d better be prepared to strike. You can’t make empty threats, expecting that your public will come and save you. This fairy godmother-ism is bullshit. You have to take responsibilities for your own decisions. And if you’re prepared to strike, you better know what that means. It does not mean that you get to spend a few weeks in your jammies, watching your soaps. It does not mean that everyone will get through it just fine, because of course we all have double incomes and could use a break. The sad fact is that many of us don’t make that much money, and though freezing our wages hurts, loosing wages will hurt more. And in the end, I think we got a decent contract. Not the best, but no one expected that. It’s not the best, but it is (as our own elected union representatives told us) the best offer we’re going to get.