Two Americas?Follow

I've got a pretty good retirement package waiting for me in the near future. Full base pay and all the Disney princesses I can punch.

Things have been going downhill up there steadily for a long time. The workers were stuck in a tight place. Not only were some 30 different cities offering up attractive bids for the work, but the workers there (even with the new contract), are among the best compensated in the state, especially for a traditional manufacturing job.

Adding to it all, there's a lot of people in the region who feel the members of the union are downright spoiled, which makes for an interesting twist in the whole mess. Add in those who aren't in the union, but are still relying on Boeing either directly or indirectly for income. They're usually paid less, and don't get a vote in the whole thing. Crabs in the bucket perhaps? An odd thing for a state with such a high minimum wage, but no one accused Washington of being normal. On the flip side it's not like Boeing has had huge success exporting their work elsewhere. Their newer non-union factories in other locations are still working to get up to snuff, so it was a giant game of chicken. Who needed who more?

Anyway, I think the actual vote was something like a week ago or so? There's was a lot of controversy about the union holding the vote before everyone had returned from the holiday break. In seems a lot of the younger folks pushed through the vote, ones who are looking to work there the next 30 years. I hear the $10k checks helped a bit too, that and the $5k check they all get later on.

I suppose if there's a silver lining they don't have to worry about the company pulling a Detroit and not being able to fund the pensions in the future.

I thought it happened in the uBB era so it wouldn't be surprising that Samira would remember and Elinda not know of it. But then I haven't been taking notes either.

I'd always assumed he tried to overthrow the monarchy.