Letters to the Editor: UC defends its contract offer in labor talks to avert a strike
Published: Wednesday, November 29, 2013 at 3:30 a.m.
Last Modified: Wednesday, November 29, 2013 at 10:16 p.m.
Contrary to what you may have thought, I’m not a UC alum who is in favor of a contract extension for UC employees.
But, as a business owner who has to deal with many labor issues as a “straw” owner in my industry, I can understand the difficulty they have having to deal with strikes, even when they’ve dealt with these types of things time and time again that I could not understand back in the day.
For example, over 20 years ago I worked at U.S. Air and was able to get out of a strike by the unions there and go on to work under a contract that lasted until we merged with United Express. It was a great business decision because that was when UPS decided to cut the airfinance industry and to cut wages and benefits the unions were using to fight the cuts.
But, with the help of the union, we were able to keep the airline’s contract and all the other airline employees under a new contract. There were still some elements, however, that needed to be cut, such as the “C.E.O. Pension” which included pay and other benefits for U.S. Air C.E.O.’s. At that time, there were very few large companies that were pension plans with large pensions that paid for the retirement of the C.E.O., and U.S. Air was one of them. So I was able to negotiate a deal that allowed me to retire at a time when I was still young enough to enjoy my retirement.
Now, with the current unions that I’ve dealt with in my life, I have no sympathy for their arguments and no respect for their tactics.
