12,000 UAW Workers Plan Strike
Will sit around doing nothing, as usual

Thousands of United Auto Worker members at job banks around the country are planning to strike against unfair wages, poor non-working conditions, and threats of outsourcing. Unless the Big Five Auto manufacturers (GM, Ford, Chrysler, Delphi, and Visteon) immediately agree to the non-workers' demands, the union members plan to go on strike.

"We'll play crossword puzzles, watch videos that someone brings in or read the newspaper," threatened one UAW member. "Basically we'll do the same thing we do every day, except we'll be on strike."

The UAW members are complaining that the average $26/hour that they're making doesn't adequately cover the hardships of their non-jobs. "It's hard work to sit around for 8 hours a day, doing nothing," said a representative of the employees. "The mental fatigue caused by the boredom of it all is not an easy thing to cope with. Plus, our health care costs are rising with the increased cost of blood clots from sitting down doing nothing all day." In addition to pay increases, the union is demanding that the Big Five manufacturers improve the quality of the job banks, citing such inadequacies as uncomfortable, hard plastic chairs, flickering flourescent lighting, and sub-par non-high-definition televisions in the job banks.

But perhaps the biggest issue for the workers is the rumor that GM and Ford are in talks to out-source their job banks to China. "What sort of way is that to treat your non-workers?" demanded one angry UAW member. "They think that just because they can pay someone in China 56¢/hour to sit around doing nothing they can get away with it. Well, I say they need to stop taking non-jobs away from non-working Americans!" Officials at GM and Ford have refused to comment on the matter of outsourcing.

The Big Five have made an offer to the UAW members that includes compromising on a number of issues. The offer includes a 5% pay increase over 12 months, factory-supplied cushions for the job bank chairs, and the promise that no existing job-banks non-jobs will be transfered overseas, although the possibiltiy of creating foreign job-banks in the future, in addition to the domestic job banks, is left open. The UAW has yet to vote on accepting the compromise.