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CAN'T TAKE GIVEBACKS

Can't Take Givebacks

To the Editor:

A daily newspaper printed a news story entitled "EMS deal cuts starting pay." I also read that the EMS Superior Officers gave up vacation days for a much less lucrative pay raise. As a member of the Transport Workers' Union, I again point out that a giveback is not a raise. It's a reshuffling of your own money. And you're paying taxes on that money when it's redistributed back to you.

All unions, including the one I belong to, must empower themselves with education and economic strategy that affects the decisions made by politicians and corporations in regard to labor and society.

America is vastly becoming a service-oriented labor market while losing its manufacturing base. So in other words, service-oriented labor (police, fire, EMS, transportation, sanitation, Teachers, etc. ...) will have to set the pace for the new labor markets. We can't afford any more givebacks or false raises.

AL LOVING, Shop Steward, TWU Local 100