February 3, 2009
Are you prepared for a strike?
Remember a year ago?
Everything was looking good. The economy was rocking. We were fully employed with lots of travelers working as well. We were all looking forward to great new contract in 2009. There was several years worth of work on the boards and everybody knew the contractors were going to open up the purse strings…
Isn’t it funny how everything changed in just a few short months?
I’m not sure if we’ll go on strike or not, I’m not even sure if I would vote for a strike. But I do know this, the situation is a lot bleaker today than it was a year ago. Also, there is a pretty good sized contingent in the local that will vote for a strike. So, there is a chance that when negotiations roll around there’s a good chance we will be voting to go out. And that begs the question…
Are you prepared for a strike?
What I’m asking is, do you have enough money set aside to survive going on strike?
Because there is no strike fund. There is no vacation fund. And there will not be a fund before the contract is up.
However there is something you can do to help prepare yourself for a strike… you have the option of having money held out of your check and deposited into a savings account at Tinker Federal Credit Union.
That’s something I’ve been doing for a long time. I created my own vacation fund… and I must tell you it comes in quite handy at vacation time.
So, if you are worried about surviving a strike, you might want to look into having money held out of your check and sent to your own savings account and use that money for a rainy day/strike fund.
Comments on Are you prepared for a strike? »
I know the sheet metal union has the vacation fund and I am so glad that the 344 doesn’t have it.
I was in back when we used to have a vacation fund. I enjoyed having it the money every six months was nice. Was devastated when all the money disappeared.
But, like I said, I have created my own vacation fund by having money taken from my check and deposited into the credit union.
Do you care to elaborate on why you don’t like/want a vacation fund?
I have never been one to agree with the vacation fund. If there are people that want a vacation fund, then by all means let them have it but don’t think that everyone wants it. I don’t want to wait for money that belongs to me to be released when big brother sees fit for it to be released. If its voluntary fine. There may be a death in the family and a person needs access to more money. Whatever the case may be I have no problem managing my own money. Besides we have much larger problems to overcome. Do I need to start a new thread about “United we stand divided we fall”?
Want me to set you up as an author?
sure. you’ll have to direct me to the guidelines again though
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I don’t think we will strike but setting up a rainy day fund is a good idea no matter what the case is we all need to save money.As far as the Hall setting up a vacation fund is not the answer for me. Iremmeber what happen to alot of the members last time we had one. I did’nt loose anything but alot of brother members did.
Back to the subject of striking over contract, if we use common sense on the issues of a new deal and what really matters I believe we can avoid the stike.
I don’t think a strike would help anybody’s situation right now, but as a person who can’t strike due to being under a national agreement, I wouldn’t feel right voting yea or nay on it.
Also, as a member who has had his money stolen twice, once locally and once nationally ( oh sorry,nationally it was just mismanaged) I would still like to have the vacation fund as long as no one had any kind of access to the funds but myself. I put money into the credit union voluntarily also, but that out of sight out of mind money every 6 months was great.
It will be a while before I make that post, I want to chose my words wisely.
my text is getting eaten…
» the members of plumbers and pipefitters local 344 oklahoma city oklahoma @ 11:36 pm
[...] We had a short discussion about the vacation fund way back in the early days of this site. The are quite a few more visitors coming around these days and the vacation fund came back up again… so I’ve decided to open up the discussion again. Here’s a link to the original discussion http://weare344.com/are-you-prepared-for-a-strike [...]
I THINK the last time we striked was back in 69 we wont ever strike again. so if anybody is scared dont be cause it aint gonna happen