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By RightMichigan.com Posted in Breaking News | job killing | Michigan | public schools union | right to work | strike | Teamsters | www.RightMichigan.com — Comments (1) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

Cross-posted on Right Michigan at www.RightMichigan.com.

Have you heard about that new movie from M. Night Shyamalan?  The one with Marky Mark?  It's called The Happening and no it wasn't filmed in Michigan.  I haven't seen the flick and I probably won't.  I read a couple of early reviews and folks haven't been particularly frightened or impressed but the movie certainly has an interesting premise.  SPOILER ALERT!!!  (Let it never be said that I'm not concerned about the sanctity of your movie-going experience.)  The Earth wants to rid itself of human beings so it releases a gas or a toxin or something that causes everyone on the planet to... ahem... dispose of themselves in creative and, I'm sure the movie makers hope, terrifying ways.  

People flying off buildings.  Laying down in front of lawn mowers.  The ads are kind of gross.  

But it's all fantasy, right?  Mass psychosis?  A giant universal compulsion to do irreparable harm to oneself?  The stuff of movies.  And union economics.  The sudden battle at Performance Transportation Services is something right out of a slasher flick but the reality of the situation makes it far more gruesome.

Join a union kids, it might inspire you to kill your own job!  Weeeeeeeeeee!

The Detroit News reports this morning that the Teamsters weren't bluffing when they threatened recently to walk off the job.  They officially struck the bankrupt company yesterday.

The union is upset that PTS, which delivers 2.7 million vehicles a year including 10,400 vehicles a day for General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and Toyota Motor Corp., won federal bankruptcy court approval to immediately impose a 15 percent pay cut on the drivers through July 31. The company wants the temporary cut while it continues to negotiate a new contract. The Teamsters refused and walked off their jobs Monday, including seven locations in Michigan...

PTS is trying to compete with their largest competitor, Allied Holdings, Inc, which also did the bankruptcy thing and walked away with a 17.5% pay cut for their work force.  The car delivery market sadly doesn't support current Teamster wages.  And when the Detroit News talked to the carmakers and dealerships who rely on PTS they heard the unanimous sentiment--`eh, we'll be OK.'  

Now don't get me wrong, taking a pay cut stinks.  I've been there.  In spades.  And when you're contracted to do a job for a certain salary it's more than OK to expect that salary.  But bankruptcy court has a way of shaking things up.  The company's CEO says that a strike that lasts even through today (Tuesday) could kill the business permanently.  They aren't bankrupt because they've got hordes of rainy-day cash sitting around in hidden wall safes.  

Many striking members said they know walking out could cost them their jobs.

"We just have to do it on principle," said one, who requested anonymity because of union instructions not to talk to reporters. "Most of us don't expect to go back."

So lets get down to brass tacks.  The Teamsters have two options.  1) Accept a fifteen percent pay cut for two months.  2) Kill your own job.  And they chose option number two.  What?  They're laying down in front of giant riding lawnmowers and tossing themselves off buildings.  

Talk about a "Happening."  

Sounds like labor / management relations aren't so hot over at PTS.  There've been bosses in the past I didn't get along with but I don't remember ever having the sudden impulse to personally and intentionally kill their business.  Those Teamsters, swell guys.  

Let's just hope the MEA doesn't pick them up as personal heroes.  Could wind up biting the Lansing Public School District in the backside.  The LSJ reports this morning that the District is suddenly facing a nearly $11 million hole in next year's budget and by law has to balance it pronto.

The district faces a $2.3 million budget deficit because of an expected loss of 300 students next year. It also is losing $5.9 million in expiring grant funding and must meet $2.4 million in costs tied to inflation - mainly contract salaries, benefits, higher utility bills and rising gas prices...

The Lansing School District, with 15,290 students, has lost more than 3,500 students in the last 10 years and expects to have 300 fewer in the coming school year.

Lansing is not alone. More than 75 percent of districts across the state have seen enrollments fall, due to lower birth rates, more families moving out of state and fewer families moving in.

One of the areas the District plans to examine is the potential for the elimination of a few teaching positions to bring the staff in line with the reduced class sizes.  Of course there are years of effective public relations spin cluttering the landscape and the newspaper is more than happy to quote one concerned parent who decries the potential for over-crowding.

I'm going to give the woman the benefit of the doubt and assume the reporter didn't share with her the declining enrollment numbers.  That she was just given a statement like "LPS might cut teaching positions" then asked "how do you react?"

Because any LPS product could tell you that when you lose 15,290 students overcrowding is not your problem.  Mass-migration away from Michigan's public schools tied to mass-migration away from Michigan... that's the problem.  Pesky economy.  Maybe if there were jobs... wait, nevermind.  I forgot, the Teamsters are killing their own jobs now too.  Pesky... uh... Matt Millen.  Must be his fault.