I last posted here in the fall of 2009. Given what I felt were the less than sincere responses received, I decided to not waste my time.
It appears, however, the tone of the conversation has changed, which is good, so I figured I'll try again.
In 1979 when I got into this business, techs got rental cars (which they trashed) per diem, a days pay and per diem for travel, plus mileage. Where are we now?
In 1992 I was getting $21.50 and hour plus per diem working as an engineering specialist at Fitz. What were you earning?
Currently at some plants union laborers make as much or more than HPs.
We carry a heavy knowledge burden, plants cannot have an outage with out us, yet we still make lower wages than most, if not all, skilled craft. The only reason why our wages are low is because we are not organized. There is no other answer which makes sense.
Techs have always been a fractious, independent, and stubborn lot, but I can think of no reason why there is no 100% support for the NPUA except fear. Fear of not working, I guess.
Look around. Does anyone see a surfeit of technicians? In most businesses supply and demand determine prices. Why not in ours? Is it possible that the two major contract companies, together with the utilities, conspire to keep wages low? If so, what can we do about it? That is where the NPUA comes in.
All anyone has to do is sign an Authorization Card send it to the NPUA, and wait. That's it. The cards are confidential. The vote, when it comes, will be confidential. There is really nothing to fear.
Bartlett has been sued in the past for retaliating against techs who supported the last effort, and Bartlett LOST. They paid out, rather handsomely in a few cases.
As to why the two major companies do not want to see us unionize, I think the answer is simple: Money.
If pay, per diem, and benefits are equal across the board, then the only way for those companies to compete would be to cut costs and profit margins. The money would come out of their pocket instead of the techs. And, with equal pay across the board, newer, leaner companies would have the advantage at bidding time, not the large bloated ones. Just imagine, 4 or 5 companies again instead of two. Companies who would have to compete for techs, not just threaten them if they went somewhere else to work.
Beercort is right when he says this will fail if techs don't get off their duffs and act. What will be even more pitiful is those same techs, the ones who take counsel of their fears, will be the ones saying "see, I told you it would fail". It takes a little courage to stand up for yourself, apparently more than some people have.
Remember, the Authorization Cards are confidential. The vote is confidential. If you believe you are being retaliated against you can sue, and the NPUA has lawyers on call who can help. You really do have nothing to fear but fear itself.
So, why wouldn't you support the NPUA.
BTW, while they may have been just back ups, the NPUA did supply personnel to 5 outages this spring, 5 outages where the techs made more than most of you did. Granted, that's just one year, but I worked for Bartlett back in 1980 and all Bruce had was backups.
As to those who say the NPUA website doesn't have a lot of content, I'll bet Nukeworker didn't either when it started. We could have this discussion there just as easy as here, but this site is a habit for a lot of people. It will take time to get them all to switch, but I hope they do. Personally, while I have only the word of people who say their posts have been deleted to rely on, I too believe this site may be a little biased towards a certain co-sponsor.
I could go on but I'm a hunt and peck typist, and this takes me way too long.
Hope to read some intelligent feedback in the coming days