[Bug]

Though loath to admit it, Vazquez and others quietly hope the union will concede so they can get back to work.

They're done. You can see it in their faces and body language on the lines. I wonder if these poor folks will blindly follow their union over the cliff again?

[bert]

Last Place of Employment: Union Picket line.

Does this qualify for EEO protection?

[marty60]

Amazing, Gomez will destroy his financial well-being, jeopardize his daughter, and probably end up homeless. For a UNION? That is Third Reich mentality. Family comes first not some corrupt mindless union and it's stupid bosses. !* years with a company, and he's bitching about his medical being cancelled because he is trying to destroy the company. Dumocrats!

[ReagansShinyHair]

She has cable?!?! I don't have cable... We quit the almost $50/month "utility" back when my husband was out of work, because we thought it was one of the unecessary things in life that you cut back on when your income is reduced. We've never started it up again since we found out we could live just fine without it (honestly, as soon as we were both working again, we spent the money each month on DVDs of shows we like - We get a lot more of that than crappy cable).

Obviously now, I see that it is a basic human need and no one should have to go without it. Especially now that I think that most supermarket workers probably don't read all that much, either. What would they do with themselves without tons of channels? Well, they'd have time to go back to school and get some training for an actual skilled job, for one, but that would be going beyond the status quo...something that is definatly anti-union.

[Bug]

Other strikers report similarly grim stories from the job-hunting front.

These folks are getting a tough lesson in economics. When you're unskilled and earning $15+/hour plus health benefits that the most workers, skilled and unskilled don't receive, it's not a smart idea to attempt to force a settlement through union solidarity. I wonder if the lesson will penetrate through the union propaganda? I doubt it.

They're likely to blame the greedy companies that make their middle class lifestyles for unskilled labor possible and look to Howard Dean to make everything right for them in 2004. Find someone else to blame rather than take matters into their own hands and acquire marketable skills that don't rely upon a labor cartel to earn higher than market rates.

[ATOMIC_PUNK]

Union's are good for nothing but laundering money !

[BJungNan]

Maria Vazquez's electric bill is two weeks past due. She scraped together enough to pay her phone bill a month late. She's not sure when the cable bill is due because she stopped opening her mail.

All she had to do was cancel the cable service. What they heck did she leave it on for if she knew she was going out on strike? Not too bright. She's gotta be the one that packs the milk on top of the eggs.

[Jim Noble]

Maria Vazquez's electric bill is two weeks past due. She scraped together enough to pay her phone bill a month late. She's not sure when the cable bill is due because she stopped opening her mail. "It's too overwhelming," said Vazquez

And the really amazing thing is -she had a job.

Some people are just too stupid.

[Jim Noble]

"(Company managers) don't even look at us as people," she said. "They don't get to see who we are and the families we have. To them we're just a bunch of numbers."

They do look at you as people, Ms. Vasquez-people who are trying to destroy what it took them years to build, while denying inocent bystanders access to fresh and affordable food.

[Lancey Howard]

bttt