Gaze Into The Crystal Ball Frodo Baggins...

As Halloween approaches I thought I would share something really scary with my brothers and sisters who fight daily against attacks on Labor from those who seek to profit from us.

This scary story involves a look into the crystal ball where you will see the possible future of those who work for the State of Washington and a reading assignment. Are you brave enough gentle reader (note the use of the "singular")? I know that you are.

First read this link. The author is a professor of Economics at PLU named Eli Berniker. He is writing about the dilemma of our brothers and sisters at Boeing:

http://www.thenewstribune.com/471/story/484625.html

Professor Berniker is very eloquent in his breakdown of the situation facing our Boeing brothers and sisters and the potential consequences if management prevails. Note the battle with outsourcing of jobs, the high cost of business being largely due to administrative overhead, and the loss of quality work that comes with a lack of value with seniority in the workforce and a lack of concern for quality products that make it into the hands of customers. Sound familiar? You know that it does.

I would submit to you that the battle that Labor faces at Boeing today is the battle state employees may face tomorrow. A battle in which management says "none for you" while their tax brackets continue to rise, their kids head off to Ivy league schools and they upgrade their used cars for new ones every year.

If Dino Rossi becomes our Governor do you think that the thousands of institutional cooks, grounds keepers, maintenance workers will have a job? Low hanging fruit from the outsourcing point of view. Social Services and Corrections jobs are only a little higher on the tree, with many business out there ready to take on the new business opportunity. Will you, gentle reader, have anything to say about it once Rossi is in office? All one must do is to read some of the other posts on this blog to see first hand what Dino thinks of State Employees. At the very least, if Rossi should prevail, your "to say" factor diminishes exponentially.

The time to speak up is now. In a race as close as the last one, if just 5% State Employees would have voted who did not we would not have had to pay for all those recounts. There are several thousand of us not registered to vote, or who didn't make it to the polls for the primaries. Just 5% more....

Is this the future that will be, or the future that might be asks young Frodo to the wise elf Galadrial? Her reply, "all our futures ride on on the razors edge, and only you shall decide it" (not an exact quote, but can I have some props for the reference?!!)

So it goes for State Employees. The time to act is now. Vote. Get 3 friends to vote. We will face the battle that Boeing faces now to one extent or another. You must carry the ring... will you toss it into the fire or be tempted by the smarmy words of the dark one?

So what will you do? Those who do nothing will surely destroy the shire that we all love.

Happy Halloween
Matt
z