July 02, 2008
Wednesday

Dear Editor,

Instead of making it sound like the IBU members are the bad guys by all the things they (the state) wanted to give us, maybe you should of dug deeper to report all the things the state was trying to take away from us.

As far as the 3, 3 and 3 percent, that is a joke! The cost of living in the last 6 months has far exceeded that already. The $16.00 for health care is a joke too; the increase in our health care has already exceeded that so we have to pay more out of our pockets.

The per diem increase is something we didn't even ask for. Someone told me that is a state wide increase for everyone. One issue in the TA was to bring in non-union people to work in the yards instead of union people like it has always been, that increase wouldn't be doing us any good anyway. Big strike issue here on losing our jobs.

Sure the state has offered to pitch in some money for training, but once it is gone it is gone. Part of the deal was to take 6 hours out of each members vacation leave a year to cover training costs. We already have 4 hours taken out for union business.

The conversion from sick leave to personal leave is a big strike issue. They want to totally take away our sick leave, with no hours added to our vacation leave. When we are sick we don't just miss a few days like people that work on the beach, we have to take the whole week or in the case of the Kennicott 2 weeks off.

In closing our members are not willing to go backwards especially when this state is seeing such an unbelievable surplus of money. Palin seems to think she is going to break our union, but I think you will have to agree that with the strong 92% vote to turn down the TA that is not going to happen. And if it comes to pass that IBU members will have to strike just keep what we have with a decent cost of living raise then no one should blame us but I am sure we will end up being the bad guys, but maybe not if the facts are presented to the public. The blame should really be on the present administration for their lack of trying to ratify a fair contract.

Sincerely,

Diane Charrier
Ketchikan, AK

Received July 02, 2008 - Published July 02, 2008, 2008

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Monday - June 30, 2008

Related Viewpoint:

IBU Contract Not Ratified: One sided By Ronald C. Currit - Your article titled IBU Contract Not Ratified seems to be only one sided, it only says what was offered BUT it does not say what was being changed or taken away. - More...
Wednesday - July 02, 2008

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