As much as I despise John Stossel, I’ve gotta say, GIMME A BREAK!
The heinous back-lash from even so-called liberals in response to their “inconvenienced” lives because of the SEPTA strike has made my belly ache. These are people with cars, for crying out loud. So you have to sit in traffic, Wah! Freakin’ babies.
Drivers newly hired on at SEPTA make $12.95 an hour. That’s $518 a week or $2,074 a month. A whopping $24,864 a year. SEPTA wanted those workers, and most others, to start paying some of their health insurance directly from their wages, even though those new workers only make $12.95 an hour BECAUSE of a previous agreement whereby newer workers make less, in order to cover some health costs.
But who are the SEPTA workers that don’t fall under the “most others” category? That’s right. You guessed it; management!
Don’t even get me started on how heinous that is. And don’t even make me mention the fact that when SEPTA drivers are sick and can’t make it in, they don’t get paid for their first 3 days off of work and thereafter get paid less than half.
“But I was INCONVENIENCED! Bring on the scabs!”
They freakin’ call them scabs for a reason. They “cover” the wound that is mismanagement and unjust work practices. What the hell happened to my blue collar town? What the hell happened to my liberals?
And isn’t this always the way? We’re liberal as long as we can belly up to our granite kitchen islands and sip on our Chablis by 6:30 pm, because, heaven forbid, “If I don’t get my downtime, I get edgy.”
Sickens me.
So the strike is over. Management now has to pay 1% for their healthcare costs, as do non-management employees, and non-management employees will get an incredible 3% annual cost of living raise.
“What??? I don’t even get that!”
If you don’t, I’m betting you’re not unionized.
posted by Aerenchyma @ Monday, November 07, 2005
3 Comments:
Add to that... these people are also paying union dues in order to keep these jobs, thereby lowering their already low wages. And anyone who thinks making less than 25k a year makes enough, try supporting a family of 4 or 5 on it. $12.95 should be minimum wage IMHO. If it wasn't so cold in Canada, I'd be tempted to move there just for the health care benefits.
kds
bleeding heart liberal
No wonder SEPTA workers are so grouchy. I heard about the strike on the west coast.
It's a shame when people are liberal when it's convenient. I was hanging with my young friend Scott over the summer, and he asked why we even needed unions, it seemed so archaic, and he felt unions were corrupt (he's pretty young, 25 or so). I pointed out that his 40 hour work week with benefits is a standard BECAUSE of unions, and that he should really look into their history before he criticizes. He agreed.
Arasin
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