Transguy

For what it's worth, if you really want to go I'd try first calling the local at Cranberry and seeing if they have any programs for people in your situation, Can't hurt and they may be able to help. Good luck with it!

Oh, and to answer the original question, my building chairman told me today the bonus checks would be dated Oct. 31. My money is always in my bank on the business day before the "date" on the check, so I'm thinking I might have mine next Friday.

Well, look at that a minute. First, I didn't get everything I wanted either. For instance, I'd judt love to go up to bed tonight and find, umm, Katie Perry. Ain't gonna happen, and the fact is Ms Joni is pretty good to me, so I'm fine with that. No, we didn't get a raise, but the bonus is something, not all I wanted, but not bad. As far as COLA, I think we did alright there with the $1500 inflation payments, if you think about it, on a 2000 hour year, that works out to 75 cents and hour, and I cannot think of any year that we ever did get 75 cents in COLA, so that's a win, and it's guaranteed, what if you had gotten your COLA and the CPI was flat, and COLA never increased? That could very well happen and I'm dead certain $1500 is better than ZERO. The profit share can't be unfair, by definition, it's the shareholder's profit, they're gonna share it with us, and from now on under better terms to us, so that looks like a win from here in the well armed bunker complex where I'm watching from. I know we work hard, trust me, I get it, and I would like more, too, But calling it "fair days work for unfair wage" is hardly gonna fly with the other 99% of people working in factories all over america for something approaching half that. We're well paid, it's a fact. We can want more, ask for more, and we'll often get more, but our wages aren't gonna garner us much sympathy when we try to get the proletariat to storm the bunkers with us. Work hard, boost the company both in profit and public image, these are things that will make us stronger next time, and we can get more back. Just because something is good for the company doesn't mean it's bad for us.

You're cool brother. I was kind of cranky this morning and part of it was the other poster who began "MONEY MONEY MONEY....." I;m here for the money and I've been very lucky in that my life hasn't tossed a bunch of stuff at me I wasn't prepared for and I can afford to drop this bonus on a nice trip for me and the woman who makes me happy. Not chicago this time, but I do want to get up there when the weather's nice, and I have to catch a game at Wrigley before I die. And while we're on the subject, thank you and all your brothers up there for my 2010 Taurus, wonderful car, well built and I was proud to drive it.

The thing is, the current retirees are covered pretty well. The 10% is gonna be what keeps the VEBA stable when WE retire.

I think it's a little over the top. But there's something I've been thinking through all of this, part of it going all the way back to the 2009 modification vote. When we have a contentious fight over a contract, it doesn't make us look good. In 2009 I read about the proposal in the paper, on the net, where ever, and honestly I wasn't really happy for it. But at the same time, I trusted out leadership, I wasn't in the negotiations, and there was at least some potential good to come from it. As it was, since the leadership had endorsed it, and the leadership at my plant (STP) is fairly approachable, even if I wasn't going to support it, I though the best course of action for me was to quietly vote however my conscience drove me to and let it happen as it happened. And I feel that way about all the things that get decided "up north" when I'm not in the room and don't know how they got to what we, the members, see in the end. If our leaders aren't bringing us back things that will pass, they're not serving us well. Furthermore, before they called the press and announced that deal, I'm pretty sure all the UAW negotiation team got in a room and decided before they left that room to support it. And when they did that, they can shout, fight or hold their bvreath until they turn blue, to try to move that discussion. In pivate, before the press knows anything about it. Because when they come out of that room, and get up on the stage with BIll And Allen and Mark, they are not the individuals anymore, they are the visible face of the entire UAW and even though who don't agree have an obligation the all of us who didn't get to go and don't know what happened behind closed doors to not leave that room until they have something they can support. Some of our committee came back to Sharonville and spoke out against the agreement proposal. My question was then, "why did you let them do this if you can't support it. I respect you don't support it, but before they announced what it was, YOU had an obligation to very strongly make it know that YOU can't come back to your plant and sell it to the members. That's important. The public perceives us and all unions as walking in lockstep and true or not they think anything handed down to us to vote on should be 90% for, and if it's not, they start asking why. In 2009, I was of two minds about it, and I'm not gonna say how I voted because that doesn't matter here. What does matter is that we had a few weeks in the press where we were having a knock down drag out fight over the deal our supposed leaders had agreed to. It hardly made up look strong. In fact, it made us look (and to Ford Management) like we had a large section among membership that wasn't interested in supporting the leadership. That didn't make us stronger for this negotiation. Again in this fight, we were divided. It's not much comfort that the division turned out to be a little bit more bark than bite, and history will record the people who were against the contract we passed as being a small number of dissenters whose bark turned out to be worse than their bite. But still, this division, and the rancor of it, has not made up stronger for the fight ahead in 2015. I would like to ask everyone to spend the time we have to prepare for the next contract trying to heal these wounds and make up stronger in 2015,. Did I want a better contract this time, you betcha. But after the people we trusted to go get it brought this one back, I took it on their word that they got the best they could. We got an equitable deal, and while it's hard to not mention big bonus checks, profit sharing, inflation hedging payments and such, the important thing we gained in this contract is bringing jobs back and keeping Ford profditable. And both are important, And when we return here in 2015, hopefully WE will have 53,000 people voting instead of 41,000, big win for us! Just as important, hopefully FORD will be riding 4 more years of excellent profits and gains in market share, quality and customer good will. All good things for the company and all things we have a right to ask about our rewards for helping to bring them about, My challenge is, if you don't think your plant leadership didn't do all he could to represent you and the whole of the UAW Ford Department, work to hold him or her more accountable, or replace them with someone who will. If your committee person made a big splash in the press and turned out to be more mouth than muscle, maybe you should see if you can find someone else who will not say so many inflammatory things, by not saying as much to begin with. We allowed the press to focus early on on members who were tangentially at leadership levels in locals and take shots at the national team. Again, that didn't help up, and a few times, when the votes came in it made us look silly. I'm not saying we need to get rid of the ones who want to get us better deals, more power to them, maybe I ca set up my toolbox next to Bill Ford's desk, but I'd like to see all the leadership, at all levels, have the big knock down drag at fights while they're in private and deciding what we're gonna agree to in the proposal, and once we agree on what we let the leaders say in the press they support, ALL OF THE LEADERSHIP needs to support it, from Bob King down the the alternate committee person at the plant. We cannot negotiate in the press, face it, the press doesn't like us and the public doesn't understand us. Hard as it is to swallow, the people who best understand the issues we present are the company. We can negotiate with them, precisely because they know that us getting a bonus at all isn't crazy (as people unfamiliar with the industry think) and even though they're on the other side of the table, they at least know what we're asking for and know why we should get it. And in these negotiations, behind closed doors, we can fight for everything we want. We'll win some, lose some, but when it becomes public we have to trust the leadership to have gotten as good a deal as they could., And since I wasn't there, I'm not going to second guess them. Unless you were there, you shouldn't either. That doesn't make us stronger. And that's what we really need, to make ourselves stronger. I hope everyone has a safe and happyu upcoming holiday season, and save a little of that bonus for a rainy day fund, again, if most members have a month's worth of bill money in the bank, that makes us stronger, too.

To begin with, I never said it wasn' about the money, I guess you just like building carrs so much you'd do it for free? I just wanted to know, and not tht it's any of your phucking business, I have been planning to take my last week of vacation when it we get paid. Are you okay with that?

Assuming it passes, anyone know? The contract says "upon ratification", so that could mean next week, or a month from now?

Sharonville doesn't have any low tier workers, our lowest seniority is 2001 I think. But I still think it will pass here.

It's over. The only plants left are LAP/KTP today and tomorrow, about 4800 votes, and Sharonville tomorrow, which has 1500 odd. It would need to fail in all three plants almost unanimously to fail. The difference is 5769 and the possible voters are about 6300, but we know there will be some voters who don't vote. I thihnk it's pretty safe now.

You're not real smart, are you? It's a joke, he didn't really say that. Jeesh.

That's not right, we're voting in the plant, and I know of two other plants that are.

The tinfoil hat act is getting old.