I'm not going to rant on a national company which started as a local concern. Nope. The story is not new to the area - the company is held by people who have NO relation to the founders. They don't live here, and they truly are like every other corporate board: concerned about keeping the doors open.
THIS NOTE IS ABOUT A BUNCH OF 21st Century UNION PEOPLE:
(FIRST SENTENCE) ---- Well, thanks you jerks, idiots, stupid people, morons.
You THINK you're right in doing what you did. But, in fact, you're just going to find yourself wishing you'd actually listened to what others were telling you.
First off --- if you've been in a job for 35 years - and it's 2010 --- you should just freaking be GLAD to have a job at all. Or, listen to the others who have been working for 10 or 15 years and HEAR that you're retirement is going to dry up pretty soon after you've done what you've just done.
I'm talking about the members of a union in East Alton who voted - for a second time - against a contract being proposed to them by Olin. It wasn't a pretty contract, no, because it was filled with wage concessions, loss of matching 401K funds, elimination of a fifth week of vacation to senior-tenured members of the union who worked at the centerfire manufacturing operation, and other things which may or may not have been accurately portrayed by those union members who spoke to others outside the union. Meanwhile the results of that "no" vote means one thing to the people of the metropolitan area - the Riverbend and beyond: 900 union jobs and altogether perhaps more than one-thousand jobs in the region will DISAPPEAR because THE UNION MEMBERS just --- read the first sentence again to see what they ARE.
Let's review something here. 2010 - a time when the economy is bad.
Olin happens to make ammunition at this particular operation --- and we have a presidential administration which doesn't want war, doesn't much care for bullets and other ammo being made, let alone it being sold to the public. The company is looking at the bottom line. They have to look at all areas of their operation in order to make ends meet in a bad economic climate and a government which doesn't think highly of such an operation in the first place and do their best as a company to not go bankrupt. So, they stockpile the goods, sell the goods at a higher rate and price than the competition, and the company is trying to stockpile money because they know they have to possibly layoff workers, not just here, but in other operations. They have cost-cutting in mind, so they can save the company.
Meanwhile, a union member just sees what they want to see: the company is making profits, the company wants concessions in order to save more money because they will have to find ways of making their bottom line better - which means the union member may have to give up something.
Oh darn. You may miss a fifth week of vacation, a vacation "bonus", a matching fund for a few years. What is your mind thinking about here?
It's my guess that most people in the region believe YOU WANT EVERYONE TO LOSE THEIR JOB!!!
Olin had said it was considered moving it's Centerfire Manufacturing Operation to Mississippi if this vote turned out the same way a vote did three weeks ago. Well...you're gonna lose your jobs. And you've CAUSED OTHERS to lose their jobs, too!
WEDNESDAY - OLIN ANNOUNCED THEY WILL BE CLOSING THE CENTERFIRE OPERATION in EAST ALTON and MOVING THE JOBS TO MISSISSIPPI.
This isn't a joke.
BUT YOU so-called "people" who voted "no" ARE A JOKE, mister and misses and miss union member who in doing so also made clear that they voted "no to continuing other related jobs for the community".
I know there are reasons you may THINK you were right in voting "no jobs" --- but you were dead wrong. And I'm not one to pussyfoot around this issue at all --- I was a union member myself for a national company which had a local office and watched as my former (I'd already separated from the job) co-workers lost their jobs because of a company with a legal jackal.
But when you stop to consider YOUR NO VOTE is taking jobs from NOT JUST YOU, but other companies when Olin moves to Mississippi...does it make sense to you that your families are now going to start suffering --- and if you've only been there 10 years and voted "no" on this contract, you didn't really understand what you were saying. You said "I really don't care if they go or not. I want my job, but not if I have to give up something else."
You didn't think at all. You decided for everyone else because for you, "it's my way or the highway". Selfish bums.
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