Good For Them!

Good For Them!

Neal Boortz
November 5, 2010

There are few things that make me happier than seeing union workers fail in their efforts. While I do not like the idea of anyone losing a job, it is about time that a company showed these unions who is in charge. That leads me to this story...

There is a plant in Metro East, Illinois owned by the Olin Corp. and it produces ammunition for firearms, along with some chemical compounds. In this economy, Olin has been trying to negotiate new contracts with its workers -- a contract that guaranteed seven years of job security in exchange for reductions in vacation time, an elimination of a matching company contribution to retirement plans and other incentives. The first time around, the union rejected the contract. So Olin tried again, explaining to the unions that if you don't agree to this, we can't afford to stay here. We will move our production elsewhere and all of you will be out of a job. The unions called BS on the company and rejected the contract again.

So what did Olin do? It announced that it was moving those 1,000 ammunition production jobs to Mississippi. They are all out of a job. Olin explains that Mississippi provides "significant incentives" to its company. Yeah... how about the fact that it is a right to work state! Of course now employees at the plant say Olin is to blame for a situation that will result in their jobs' going to residents of a right-to-work, or nonunion, state.

Newsflash for these union employees: These jobs do not BELONG to you (the employees) or your precious union; they belong to your employer. You have absolutely nobody to blame but yourselves.

You know someone had to create that company, Olin, and they worked their guts out in doing so. To create a successful company has never been a simple or easy task ever. It requires risk, a LOT of hard work, determination and long, long hours to start a successful company and keep it going successfully. Because someone or ones dedicated their life's labor to the creation of a successful company, other people were presented with an opportunity of a job with which they could earn the wherewithal to lead a comfortable life.

These employees were given a reasonable offer decided to flip the bird to the people who made their jobs even possible (and I will guarantee you that the owners/executives of that company work FAR more hours/week than the rank-and-file employees).

I say good for you Olin! You made the right choice.

I'm sick of this anti-private sector business attitude of the unions, particularly when these union bosses pull down extravagant salaries for doing nothing more than blackmailing hard-working business owners.

We do not live in the 19th/early-20th centuries any longer. The days of starvation wages for 12-14 hour work days are LONG behind us. Unions are an anachronism in the 21st century and we have clear evidence in this story that they are only hurting the people they allegedly represent. I think it is time people begin to seriously rethink the need for the existence of private-sector unions.

And government employee unions should be disbanded completely. It is unthinkable that government employees should have the power to extort taxpayers, who provide them with their wages, to seize more those taxpayers dollars. When government employees are making a significantly higher wages and benefits than their private-sector counterparts, you know that something is terribly wrong! It is insanity that this should be the case.

There was another company (can't remember where) that did the same thing. They offered the union 2 different packages. They rejected. On the 3rd, they said if it weren't ratified, they'd shut the place down. The union voted it down and the company left.

As for gov't unions.... totally useless. They already work for the gov't to start with, so there's not going to be any hanky-panky.