# 19 - Memo From Neidig...

Date: July 14, 2004
To: All LTD Employees
From: Mary Neidig
Response from Joe Hill
RE: Update on Labor Contract Negotiations

This "Update" suggests that we are going to get some kind of new or helpful information that we don't already have, or more importantly, might be concerned with from the source. We the union members can not adequately thank you for the six sentences that you have provided us concerning our futures. Your conservation of information is very remarkable and deeply appreciated since we are becoming less and less tolerant of bull shit. We are certain that Pangborn has advised you well in what not to say.
MN: Representatives from ATU and LTD met again today.
JH: What a news flash!
MN: We explained further our proposal, which was designed to explore ideas on ways to improve productivity and reduce costs.
JH: Well, you will have to excuse me for my bluntness, but I believe that the management has dung in their ears, for they do not hear. Your productivity proposals will not add a single additional rider to the system. There is no proposal in the current year budget to increase service to the public. 100% of the savings that you keep talking about is being directed to capital projects. These projects will add nothing to the regular service, and in fact, will in the long run, hurt regular service. But our GM, Hamm will make a name for himself for the BRT system that accomplishes nothing but to result in fare increases, raise taxes, spend money and lose ridership. Yes, these are targets to strive for indeed!!!
MN: Our intent is to invest these savings in wages and benefits and remain within the 4% increase in personnel costs which was approved by the LTD Budget Committee.
JH: Adding nothing to nothing is still nothing. Yes, LTD claims to want to be an Employer of Choice. Not so clever, managers. You are becoming the Employers of Cheap, where your deal is not the square deal. By the way, Hamm and Pangborn need to resign from Rotary, along with Board members who support this bargaining strategy. There is no way that LTD Bargaining meets the Four Way Test of Rotary! Here is the Four way Test for Rotarians, a pledge that they promise to take into their daily lives and their working situations:
THE ROTARY FOUR WAY TEST
"Of the things we think, say or do:
1. Is it the TRUTH?
2. Is it FAIR to all concerned?
3. Will it build GOODWILL and BETTER FRIENDSHIPS?
4. Will it be BENEFICIAL to all concerned?"
Lets face it brothers and sisters, solidarity is a value that we share and is stronger than the weak values of these managers, and the false standards of conduct that they waste LTD money on each week, to attend a lunch of movers and shakers in our community. We need to show them that our solemn commitment to solidarity is stronger than the empty values they profess to each other in their social clubs. We have more power to move and shake than these phony groups.
MN: We are continuing to bargain in good faith.
JH: This is the one thing that LTD is not doing. Claim it all you like, the facts do not support your actions. You cannot call what you are doing bargaining in good faith. If this was a bargaining, where the parties were required to submit the proposals to binding interest arbitration, it would look entirely different than it does now.
I know... how about agreeing to such an arrangement? When the parties come to the eventual impasse, why don't you offer to the union to submit your last best offers to voluntary binding arbitration? YOU WON'T DO IT. AND YOU KNOW IT...BECAUSE YOU ARE NOT BARGAINING IN GOOD FAITH.
You won't agree to this simply because Hamm cannot offer a fair deal, would not know one if it hit him the head, has no clue about the budget and or the real numbers in the budget. Hekleson and Pangborn have Hamm cleverly befuddled to accomplish their capital agenda. I SAY IF YOU BELIEVE YOU ARE BARGAINING IN GOOD FAITH AND YOUR CASE IS LEGITIMATE, AGREE TO BINDING ARBITRATION ON LAST BEST OFFERS. Why force employees to fear the bargaining process by your stubborn demands for unfair and unneeded concessions! You know that fear is on your side. But when we are together we have nothing to fear. Our values are stronger more just, selfless and righteous than yours.
MN: We hope to narrow the issues in future meetings and provide a complete wage and benefit proposal.
JH: The only narrowing that is occurring is their offers, their minds and their values.
MN: Our next meeting is scheduled for July 28.


We remain breathless with anticipation.
Incidentally, a Blue Demon bus has gone missing? Does anyone know where it went?

Finally, I have some message for Mary Neidig and her managers to think about. These are values of World Leaders that understand the dignity of labor and those who serve.
Martin Luther King, Jr. gave a riveting speech to 10,000 sanitation strikers and supporters in Mason Temple on March 18:
"You are demanding that this city will respect the dignity of labor. So often we over look the worth and significance of those who are not in the professional jobs, in the so called big jobs, but let me say to you tonight, that whenever you are engaged in work, that serves humanity, for the building of humanity it has dignity and it has worth." A month later Dr. King was dead but his message lives on.
... and finally LTD managers please consider the words of Pope John Paul II:
Laborem Exercens On Human Work
Pope John Paul II, 1981
"History teaches us that organizations of this type [unions] are an indispensable element in social life, especially in industrialized societies.
Catholic social teaching does not see unions as reflecting only a "class"' structure, and even less as engaged in a "class" struggle. They are indeed engaged in the struggle for social justice, but this is a struggle for the common good, and not against others. Its aim is social justice and not the elimination of opponents."
and...
"But above all we must remember the priority of labor over capital: labor is the cause of production; capital, or the means of production, is its mere instrument or tool. "
and...
"Workers not only want fair pay, they also want to share in the responsibility and creativity of the very work process. They want to feel that they are working for themselves -- an awareness that is smothered in a bureaucratic system where they only feel themselves to be "cogs" in a huge machine moved from above."
and...
"The justice of a social and economic system is finally measured by the way in which a person's work is rewarded. According to the principle of the common use of goods, it is through the remuneration for work that in any system most people have access to these goods, both the goods of nature and those manufactured. A just wage is a concrete measure -and in a sense the key one- of the justice of a system. "
Our thanks for the guidance in honest and true values from His Holiness.

I think its time for confession, Mary. Think about it.
In Solidarity to our Union Brothers and Sisters,
Joe Hill
Joe Hill #19 You can contact Joe Hill at joehill_1915@hotmail.com