let me just say this, as a Co-op City resident for my entire 25 years on this earth, the workers DO NOT DESERVE ANY RAISE. Most workers lounge around instead of doing there job, when they come to repair anything in your apartment they do mediocre jobs and leave messes behind, They scam and try to get side jobs from you for half the price that their own bosses would charge. I'm all for a raise, IF, the people asking for one truly deserved it. Time does not qualify you for a raise. Just because its been 4, 5, 10 years since you have had a raise doesn't necessarily entitle you to one. I think they need to get rid of the workers they have and hire from the thousands of people who are still unemployed in NYC.

Wage freezes are unacceptable Please fuck off and die already-workers in the private sector haven't had raises in years.

Anecdotally, my employer has resumed raises.

"workers in the private sector haven't had raises in years. "

True, but their bosses have. Some in the millions.

How come you don't tell the bosses to fuck off and die?

Unless you have employees that you pay from your own pocket, there is something obsequiously perverse with what you say.

Or maybe you're just a tad jealous of the union men.

Nope not jealous in the least-their union boss seems out of touch.

That is the problem with money. We are never happy with what we have. $40,000 with full benefits and doing a job a high school grad can do is not bad at all.

They probably just want to be off-site when the huge Co-op City sinkhole exceeds the Guatemalan one.

Some parts of Co-Op City are a dump.

Co-Op City has plenty of problems, as do many other parts of the Bronx, but it is far from a dump.

It was in fact built on a landfill long ago if that's what you were going for.

Wage freezes are perfectly acceptable in a down economy when your company isn't making any money. I haven't had a raise in over two years and I'm not walking off the job.

Oh wait, I don't have the sense of entitlement of a union employee.

They're in the union and will get a raise. You're not.

So you will continue to kowtow to your boss for several more years, if not more, and then accepts whatever crumbs you are offered.

Poor baby.

And to be clear: I'm not anti-union. A hotel union in Providence, RI is striking because their employers are asking for a 20% cut in hourly wages. That's unfair and completely justified.

But when workers strike for an across-the-board raise not based on merit to add to their already cushy benefits package, it's just fuel to the fire for those who see unions as a problem and not a solution.

I respect that, but all I see on this blog is union-bashing and little bashing of the bosses. That is a bit perverse.

If it weren't for the unions, the benefits the non-union folk take for granted would not be a reality.

The bosses didn't willingly abolish child labor, or give us social security, unemployment, health care, the 40-hour week, paid vacations, job security, did they? No, the union men and women did.

Never forget that. Never forget your roots.

Don't turn on your own kind. The workers are not the enemy, are you?

Comparing unions like the ones at Co-op City and the MTA to groundbreaking unions of the past is an absolute joke, an insult. Unions have outlived their usefullness, and have achieved nothing in many decades, aside from bankrupting companies and providing lifelong salaries for employess under no pressure to actually perform their jobs.

To mention the outsized salaries of CEOs and management is a joke as well. Have you checked the salaries of union bosses? They are nothing more than shake down artists. Unions are cripiling this county, and discourage anything resembling creativity or ingenuity. It is a culture of extreme self-entitlement. Millions are getting laid off around the country, and a guy who picks up trash for a living refuses to work because he doesn't get his yearly raise? It's disgusting.

Say what you will.

The union workers will get raises.

You won't.

You are unable to respond to my post, so you fall back on your meaningless mantra of "they get raises, you won't".

You know nothing about how much money I make. It also says quite a bit about your character when "getting a raise" is the only thing that matters to you. Who cares if you are actually doing a quality job? Who cares where the money comes from? As long as you get yours, right?

Some people in this country still believe in hard work, in creativity, in doing something that matters. None of those people are in a union.

If we were all in unions, if we all simply cared about "getting a raise", like you, we would be a fucking third world country. Thanks to lazy assholes like you, we are heading that way.

If I may use your own quote against you: "It also says quite a bit about your character" to call someone an "asshole" instead of addressing my point.

Listen, buster, this is a capitalist society. These guys want more money, just like the big boys. They provide a service. They want more for their service. If you don't want to pay for their service, they won't provide it. You can take our your own garbage, open your own door, mow your own lawn.

Or are you too busy hurling schoolyard invectives at opponents to understand that simple economic concept?

Yup, I won't get a raise. But my company also won't have to make cuts in other areas to compensate for that raise... cuts that would would be passed on to our clients in higher costs, or cuts that would make my job miserable.

I think you're forgetting that the government did those things by legislating it. If not for that, we'd have one set of rules for union workers and another set for everyone else.

The problem is, those arguments in favor of unions are moot to the anti-union crowd these days, as no major reforms for workers' rights have taken place in decades. If unions were really about looking out for everyone as they were in the early 20th century, union membership wouldn't be plummeting.

Just for the record, in my case "the bosses" are small businesspeople who are candid about the financials of our company. I'd venture a guess that's not an ideal environment to unionize.

And Co-op City will go broke and my employer won't. They're not doing this because they hate the workers, they don't this because they can't afford not to.

Look what happened with the MTA. The TWU went to court to get an 11% raise over 3 years and now they're laying off union and non-union employees alike.