The dispute — which involved a company known for setting an example for corporate America in its tough bargaining and a union known for resisting givebacks — has become a test case in American labor relations. . . .      

Tim O’Brien, president of Machinists Lodge Local Lodge 851, with about 700 members on strike, said the local’s bargaining committee would urge members to vote against the deal on the grounds that it contained steep concessions even when Caterpillar was making record profits. . . . 
      
Mr. O’Brien and many of his local’s members have repeatedly voiced unhappiness about Caterpillar’s insistence on a six-year wage freeze for the more senior tier, a pension freeze for those workers and a significant increase in the workers’ contributions to health insurance coverage.

“I’m not for this deal,” Mr. O’Brien said. “I haven’t been out on the picket line, doing all these things, so that I now have to put my tail between my legs and say I’m giving up.”

Steve Jones, the top official in Machinists District 8 in Burr Ridge, Ill., and the union leader who reached the deal with Caterpillar, defended the settlement’s terms.

“It does not address every issue for every member, but it deserves to be brought to the membership for a vote,” he said in an interview, noting that many members were under financial strain after nearly four months on strike.

“It shouldn’t be individual leaders, a committee or the district who decide. We should allow the membership to voice their views.”

Mr. Jones added: “We’ve got some local people playing politics with people’s livelihoods. If there was a better agreement out there to be had, we would have taken it.”

But Mr. O’Brien said the parent union was giving up too easily and was feeling stretched from paying about $100,000 each week in strike benefits."

Summing Up

If Mr. O'Brien and his cohorts want to resign, so be it. My guess is that would quite ok with most of his fellow employees, Cat and the union.

If others decide to listen to Mr. Jones about the company's offer being as good as it is going to get, then make up their own minds and elect to go back to work in Joliet and provide for their families, why do they have to vote with the majority to be able to do so?

I thought this was a free country where freedom of choice prevailed. Free speech, too, to be certain, but not the right to keep those from working who choose to do so and where there's work available for them to do and a job to be done.

The tyrrany of the majority is alive and well in unions. And union intimidation is very real.

Whatever happened to our individual God given natural rights as described in our American Declaration of Independence to make our own way in life?

Among those individual rights are "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." 

Remember those, Mr. O'Brien? What about the individual's right to choose to accept work, too?

Thanks. Bob.