Just when you think it is over...

...the clouds break and the sun peaks through, giving hope to the misled union workers of Mercury Marine. In the labor story that will not die, the company is going to allow a third vote on whether people want to keep their jobs or not. Face it, that is the bottom line. Vote yes and have a job or vote no and become unemployed. Most of the workers realize that is what their choice is. Thus it would be shocking if this came back as a no.

What I find interesting in the article is the spin by the union. They do their best to make it sound like the company tried to pull the wool over their eyes.

Union leaders say the current proposal contains a supplement that clarifies
some of the terms.
"I don't think that we understood some of the things (in
the original proposal) because they were not clarified and brought into the
light of day. But the current proposal will allow our members to cast an
intelligent vote," said Rich Michalski, general vice president of the union's
national leadership in Washington, D.C.

You didn't understand some of the things in the original proposal? Isn't the job of the union to negotiate, clarify all items, and then present it to their membership to vote on? This is the same BS Congress does when passing legislation. This is failure of union leadership to allow members to vote on a contract that they admit they didn't understand. Throw in excuses about how things were crossed out and language wasn't clear. Though it is possible, I find it doubtful if not laughable. Did someone forget to accept all changes in the Word document before sending it off to a vote? And how do you not clear up the parts that were hard to follow?

I am happy to see Mercury Marine may not be shutting down in Fond du Lac afterall. It is good to see a union opening their eyes to the current economic climate and realzing they may not have a union if they keep insisting on more and more when companies are failing. But sadly they still don't get it.

"It's sad that we have laws allowing states to try and compete with each
other like this," Michalski said. "This is all about jobs and people doing
things like making house payments, buying groceries, and just trying to
survive."

It is sad that you don't like competition. Embrace it. It makes the company and the workers better. It makes communities stronger when they can adapt to prevent competition from taking their jobs. The union failed here and allowed Stillwater Oklahoma to have the chance to take their jobs from them. Hopefully they and other unions learn a lesson. Work with companies; they are not your adversary. Together you both prosper.