June 23, 2011 - Courage My Love

We should be heading into the full heated bloom of summer, but apparently, this year, summer, has gone on holiday. In it's place is a sort of continuous spring. Endless days of rain, cool winds, and not a bloody hint of sun. And this is the year I actually have a garden, go figure. Actually it is not doing all that badly. The strawberries, which I though thrived on sun, are going crazy, all the tomato plants are in flower and growing madly and I have huge heads of lettuce threatening to take over the side garden.  Who said "If you don't like the weather here, wait a bit and it will change.",  I think it was Mark Twain or the Mariposa guy (oh yeah, Stephen Leacock - how great is my Canadian history!).

Work is interesting, or could be in the next few days. Business is recovering nicely, we have not returned to pre-tsunami volumes of vehicles, but we are close. We shrunk to one shift (which I hate) and I am looking after all the assembly and installations. What is interesting is that we have been negotiating for 18 months on a new labour agreement (I cannot believe this stupid west coast shit that drags on so long - let's strike!), and we are down to the nubs.

The union served a 72 hour strike notice and the company immediately sought mediation, which the union agreed to. So the union and the company meet today and tomorrow with the mediator, hopefully with a resolution forthcoming. Either party can ask the mediator to book out, which means either a walk out or a lock out (depending on who asks) exactly 48 hours after the book out starts.

The sticking point is not money, but expansion of shifts (we currently have a Monday - Friday shift and a Tuesday to Saturday shift and are looking to add a Wednesday to Sunday shift). The union views this as an erosion of the nuclear family (sorry but that happened in 1964) and refuses to budge on this issue. The company requires the extended shift pattern to better serve the customers and to encourage new business by reducing turn time for product.

The other item over which there is dispute is seniority within a classification. Currently all classifications are posted, and awarded by seniority first. Within a  classification there may be many tasks and the union wants to be able to choose the tasks within the classification by seniority as well.  I find this to be a very difficult concept to even imagine working with. In the classification that I look after, there are many tasks, from unpackaging radios, installing radios, navigation units, trim packages, port upgrades all the way to checking battery levels and tire pressures. If I have work for one classification and there are forty people in it, I may have as many as 10 different tasks to do that day. Letting people pick and choose what they want to do for the day would be extremely difficult, it would amount to senior people cherry picking the "easy" jobs and having the less senior people always stuck with the more difficult work.

I don't always have the luxury of knowing what work will be done in a day, sometimes a ship will not arrive or a customer will drop a last minute task on us part way through a day, so it is not as if the work can be chosen the day before, it is not possible on even the majority of days.

So those are the two major points over which they have stumbled and neither side is budging. I do not want to see a strike, because as I have learned, strikes chase away customers and they do not come back. I believe in collective bargaining because I still feel even "modern" management (of which I am a part) is largely composed of A type personalities who tend to bully everyone around them, or of sociopaths with no emotion, sense of right or wrong and no regard for anyone but themselves. Hmmmm, that makes me what? Oh yeah, one of the few possessed of logic and reason tempered by a deep and abiding respect for the working people.

I guess we will see in the next few days, our customers are making contingency plans already, and I can't say I blame them, they want to get their product to market and NO ONE will cross that picket line - not the longshoremen, nor the railway, nor the long haul truckers. All cargo destined for the port becomes "hot cargo" and no union shop on the coast will touch it.

At home, besides the garden, things are going well. I work in the garden at least an hour and of course, I read. Right now I am plowing through a British series by Sally Spencer, the protagonist is Charlie Woodend. It's okay, well written, set in the late fifties, early and late sixties. It's no Rebus but it is entertaining.

I have noticed something very funny (at least I think it is) in the last few months. People who borrow library books and read mystery fiction (maybe other types of fiction too) are totally anal about typos. They correct it in pen and pencil and some even go so far as to mark exclamation points at the start of the line. I am really noticing it in this series, because it is soooo bad. Who ever proof read the manuscript, didn't.

Well, I'll try and come back once in a while, but working dayshift, man that takes courage my love!