Why should they?

I was discussing the price of gas (petrol to some of you) with Justin the other night. We were talking about businesses and profits and he remarked on a comment made to him by a co-worker about the greed associated with oil companies. The idea was that oil companies should stop worrying about their profits and start taking care of us. Um. What?

Here’s what I don’t understand about the bellyaching over fuel prices:

• We have the option as consumers to use a product or not use a product. If we don’t like the price or quality of something, we can search out other options. Yes, oil companies have weaseled their way into every corner of our lives, making us utterly dependant on them for everything from transportation to food production. But did we not welcome them with open arms? Didn’t we buy the gas-guzzlers? Didn’t we stop producing food locally thereby becoming dependant on a farmer 1,000 miles away to get it to us? We made the bed we’re lying in. It may suck but we can always choose another bed.
• Oil companies are businesses just like any other business. If they don’t make a profit, they don’t have a business (and we don’t have a product to complain about). Last year they lost profit, so now they’re going to try to make it up. They also created a niche and sold their product well. Just like every other business tries to do. It’s business. We may not like it but that goes back to my first point.

Well, then we got talking about our local union (of which my husband is part of) and how their current contract gets them a *substantial* raise over a four year period. The rumor going around at work is that the next contract will include no raises and even may try to take money from their wages. Here’s what pissed me off about this:

• Um, hello?? We’re in a recession! Carpenters get paid very well – better than most right now. Granted, they work their butts off at a physically demanding job and have one of the lowest life expectancies to prove it. But that doesn’t mean they deserve some special treatment. There are employees cutting back their own hours to prevent layoffs, not to mention the people who would gladly pass up a raise or even take a pay decrease just to be working again.
• Our union wields too much mind-control over its members. I saw it with the election. I see it now with the contracts. The union says balk and we all balk. And to push a pay increase would most definitely be in their own interest and not ours because:
  1. If the pay increases are met with opposition, we’re forced to go on strike. We lose income whether we agree with the cause or not “because you never cross a picket-line”.
  2. A pay increase will hurt our local economy further when job sites are already struggling to pay the high wages of union workers and meet the demands of our union reps. This means jobs will slow down or even stop because the cost of building is more than they can afford.
  3. A demand of increased pay and a subsequent strike  in an already struggling economy will push those job sites to hire non-union workers, costing us more jobs.

And lastly,

• Nearly every carpenter I know that is complaining about “the cost of living” is living at or above their means. Irresponsible borrowing and/or spending is the issue there, not the actual cost of living. Especially when we already make more than the National and/or city’s average salary. Maybe the union should start offering its members courses in money management, instead of inciting outcry.

Can’t we as union members take a step back, look at the great benefits we already have, take into consideration the struggle that is going on around us and stop our belly-aching for moremoremore? Have we been so conditioned by our unions that we expect to receive above and beyond what is even possible? The Vegas economy is not the booming mega-builder it once was and despite the precedent we think we have set, we’re going to have to realize things change.

::Stepping off the soapbox:: Aah, I feel better.