My husband's company is going on strike!

**beks37** · 08-03-2008, 02:43 PM

My husband works at Hawker Beechcraft and the union members just voted yesterday to go on strike. The vote was 90% to turn down the contract and of that 89% voted to strike. Thank goodness my dh is not in the union so he is not striking. I can't believe all those people who voted to strike with this economy the way it is. I know that some people will be crossing the picket lines, because of neccessity. But, they turned down a good contract. Dh has said that the company is not even going to negotiate for 2 weeks, so those people on strike will be without income for at least that long, if not longer.

I hope those people have some good emergency funds set up! That's all I have to say.

**IntlMom** · 08-03-2008, 02:54 PM

Wow! I cannot imagine having to deal with this. Glad your hubby's still gonna have a job......(cause you really need the insurance right now...KWIM?)

**Ilovesewing** · 08-03-2008, 03:04 PM

My dh has been union with his company for 29 years and he has been on strike once. We had a strike fund in preparation for it. I hope those employees do too!

**beks37** · 08-03-2008, 05:29 PM

That's smart to have a strike fund! Dh is now concerned about getting in and out of work without having vandalism done on his car. He wanted to take my car! Haha!

**Dancing Lotus** · 08-03-2008, 07:57 PM

It makes me angry that those who do strike give those who choose not to a hard time. Who are they to decide what is right for someone else?

Frankly in this economy those fools had better be grateful to have a job!

**lisettelovebug** · 08-03-2008, 09:58 PM

Dh was on strike for almost 6 months the second half of last year. Fortunately he got unemployment and a strike benefit through the union, otherwise we would have been in trouble. The company was basically looking to get of the union through the contract. One of the biggest issues with the contract they proposed was the wording - they could basically change things whenever they wanted without union approval. It was a big cluster! Finally the union said they would go back under the terms of the old contract, forcing the company to then "lock them out", then the company said there was an impasse. which basically means that everyone came back under the rules of the last propsed contract until they came up with a new one. (unless it didn't benefit them - pay raises, etc) and they have been without a contract since then (december).
Thank goodness dh got a new job that he loves. It is union but it is a smaller company that has a history of taking care of their employees.
It's gotten so bad in his old company. My brother is actually trying to get in somewhere else. he heard from a salaried employee that they aren't meeting their deadlines and customers are unhappy (btw the customers in this case are oil and gas companies) The company gave out parking passes and told everyone they had to back into their assigned parking spots - or they would be suspended. Isn't that stupid. It's just not the best atmosphere there anymore.

Anyway, I hope negotiations go better for your husband's company than dh's. His company wouldn't budge on anything. Oh and they did get what they want - the end of the union. The company does not have to take out dues until they have a contract, so of course a lot of people aren't paying them and the union is going broke.

**Momto2Boyz** · 08-04-2008, 06:22 AM

Tell DH to carpool with someone. Sometimes strikers can be nasty and other times they are understanding...you just never know until you cross the line, I guess.

DH just told me a couple weeks ago that he is hearing talks of a strike to get their union insurance back. The insurance they have now is great, so I don't know why they want the old one back...but we'll see. We actually have been in the process of setting up a strike/layoff fund in the last three months that is on top of our EF. We figure, in the event of strike or (the unlikely) layoff for winter, we should have about 4 months of salary to go on, plus our EF for other expenses.