You wouldn't dare state that our glorious leaders are lying would you or even mis-leading us would you?
Isn't that their job?
Considering that corporations do field private armies in Iraq and elsewhere I'm not really certain what your point is.
Huh?
However, corporations only exist as a public service. Hence they are given charters and are often subsidized directly or indirectly. With that in mind corporations do in fact owe US something. Of course what they owe us is up to debate.
Corporations are not public services. Public services are, as the name implies, services provided by and to the public. Think medicare. A corporation exists to make money, plain and simple. Michael Eisner summed it up best when he said that Disney didn't have an obligation to make art but only to make a profit (paraphrase).
As to what an employer owes to a worker, well, that's also up for debate. However if the workers stipulate that deserve healthcare and fight for it and get it, they have a right to preserve it, especially when their bosses, who do a pitiable job at best, make at least 15 times their salary.
I know a few people in my neighborhood who think there are way to many Septa managers. They wonder why you wouldn't cut their pay or fire them. That's an interesting question to me.
Wander around my other posts on this site and on septasucks.com. Read my rants about the overpaid and overpopulous managers. The reason I'm ranting about making TWU234ers pay for healthcare is because THEY are the ones threatening to strike if they don't keep their exorberant benefits -- not magagement. I think contract negotiations should result in TWU234 folk shouldering some of the weight of the skyrocketing healthcare costs and management reductions/paycuts.
1. Are you sure that it would be $50/month healthcare costs?
No. I know I pay more. Frankly, I don't care how much they contribute, as long as they help SEPTA survive by shouldering some of the burden for a change.
2. $50 is sometimes a lot of money for some families.
No kidding. Yet people who get paid a whole lot less than TWU234ers manage it every single day. If they can't manage it too, then they're probably just as wasteful as the management.
3. What happens next budget and Septa is still bankrupt and yet again they ask for more fare decreases and cuts in healthcare. Stomach it again and again, right? Living in Camden and South Philadelphia has made me realize that you can't trust promises from businesses unless you want to see your job taken to a place where the U.S. government controls a dictator who happily kills off union organizers for being "communists".
That's the reason SEPTA needs a dedicated funding source. Congrats, btw, on learning that you can't trust businesses and governments. Once you also learn that you can't trust unions, then you'll be on your way to seeing life as it really is.
4. Theorectically in a strike you are already stealing something that your boss owns: your labor. Having family who took part in various strikes in Kensington that were called "sit-down" strikes. Do you know what a sit-down strike is? It is when workers take over a factory when they are on strike so scabs can't be brought in. A no-fare strike is a sit-down strike only with vehicles. If you want to call in the National Guard or send out thugs to get the strikers then so be it. But it is usually a bad idea because strikers, when they are still providing a public service are usually very popular. Now as to the current situation and the idea of a no-fare strike, well, it is hard to tell what would happen. The Septa board is very happy to be "nearly bankrupt" because they can constantly play this card to scare the union while cutting services while also manipulating politics. In fact as a labor relations move I really have to wonder why they would ever want to be solvent.
I don't doubt that the board doesn't mind being in a constant state of bankruptcy. That's one of the reasons I'd love to see them all replaced (preferably with trained chimps -- they'd do better). That doesn't justify (a) trespassing and (b) wasting SEPTA's gas while trespassing. If they were to do it, I hope the police did haul them off to prison, and the managers could bring in scabs. A lot of people would KILL to get the kind of pay TWU234 folk get, and they'll line up to replace them, if management puts out an ad.
