Because They Can

The past couple of years we have seen unions pressured to "giveback" benefits and wage scales so that employers could avoid going under. Big corporate losses have had to be trimmed and the usual targets have been not the CEOs with their generous pay schemes, but the line workers who do the actual producing. One company, however, one that is profitable, has decided to take the same approach with their unions. The Mott’s apple juice plant in Williamson, New York wants union concessions on pay and benefits from the union for a very unusual reason: the union did its job in representing its members.

The union movement and many outsiders view the strike as a high-stakes confrontation between a company that wants to cut its labor costs, even as it is earning record profits, and workers who are determined to resist demands for wage and benefit givebacks. ...

The company that owns Mott’s, the beverage conglomerate Dr Pepper Snapple Group, counters that the Mott’s workers are overpaid compared with other production workers in the Rochester area, where blue-collar unemployment is high after years of layoffs at employers like Xerox and Kodak.

Chris Barnes, a company spokesman, said Dr Pepper Snapple was seeking a $1.50-an-hour wage cut, a pension freeze and other concessions to bring the plant’s costs in line with “local and industry standards.” [Emphasis added]

Got that?

Because unemployment in the region is high, wages are lower, so the union should back off and accept comparable wages. Or something.

Another strange Tea Party, yes?

"Clean cups! Clean cups!"

I swear I am going to take to my bed.