This provides a little background info on this situation.
Got a kick out of MMP’s shot at MEBA from the linked article above:
Daniel Twohig, vice president of the International Organization of Masters, Mates & Pilots in the Pacific maritime region, said…“Bargaining is all about relationships,” said Twohig when asked about the pay difference. “It’s called collective bargaining; some people are better at it than others.”
Coming from MMP, the king of invoking the ‘me too’ clauses in our contacts, is comedy gold.
Edit: just noticed this article is 2 years old, my apologies. I’m going to leave it though for background and the aforementioned comedy gold. Below is an article published 10/5:
Damn, covfluenza season can be brutal when you’re being underpaid, have no official leverage to rectify that, and get offered a 0% raise to boot. I’d probably come down sick too, and keep getting sick until the state pulls its head out of its ass. Cough cough.
Comments on the WSF facebook post are also pretty good: https://www.facebook.com/wsferries/posts/1746580457469808?ref=embed_post
They should find the money inside the WSF’s budget to pay these engineers a better wage.
Wait a minute. If they take the money from somewhere or someone else, that group might strike as well & cause the same problem?
Then perhaps they should charge more to ride the ferries to create more funds to pay these engineers?
Wait a minute, if they charge the passengers extra, they might quit riding the ferries or protest, disrupting the social order?
Okay, maybe the State of Washington should do more to come up with the money to subsidize the passages or help the WSF to pay these engineers a better wage?
Wait a minute, the State of Washington doesn’t own a printing press for US dollars & can only spend what they take in from taxes or borrow through bonds. Maybe taxpayers might protest & cause social disorder?
IMO, the citizens of Washington State have very little power over the taxes they pay & the state will step in to pay these engineers the money they deserve. The worse case scenarios which I don’t think will happen is they find a cheaper work force to come in to do the job or the current employees go back to work for the same wages.
They can apply for a Jones Act waiver!
Same as any other public transit operator. The government will subsidize some of it and increase taxes, fare increase will help, and the market will settle on what the fair value of their labor is. I think this would be called a “Sick Out”, which is a type of walk-out. If the union didn’t know about it before hand and officially call a strike, it could be considered a wildcat strike. If they are able to be out sick legitimately with their accruals and their leave policy, the management might not be able to directly retaliate. Also idk if Washington is an At Will state, but their collective bargaining agreement likely has a specified disciplinary process, so I’m sure they couldn’t be straight up fired.