When we think of unions and strikes, we think of people saying, save our jobs, this is, you know, they're cutting too many jobs and the company doesn't care about us. And right now one of the main issues is, we're getting too much work. There's too much overtime. And so what that tells us is the economy is screaming. It has been growing for several years.
Unemployment is at a historic low.
And so times are good. This is not about divvying up, you know, what remaining jobs we have, they're really negotiating about the fruits of prosperity, the spoils of growth. And forced overtime is a way for the company to keep from expanding employment. And the union sees it as a job security issue. The workers see it as a job security issue because if you reduce the number of employees you have but require them to work longer hours, that means there's not as much job security in the future as opposed to expanding employment when the work expands.