Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, May 3, 1990 TAG: 9005030525
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A14 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
True there have been some employee cuts, but the workloads were cut, company profits cut, and agents' commissions cut too. The cost-of-living increase was not caused by Greyhound, but the unions wanted to drastically raise fares and make the poor passenger pay for their hikes from ranges of $25,000 to $35,000 per year for full-timers.
The only employees seeking assistance are the clerks, baggagemen, freight handlers, and station agents like us, who had our income reduced 86 percent these first 50 days of this vile and vicious strike. My wife and kids received $331 in food stamps for March.
There are no drivers on food stamps. Of the 16 we know, all have other interests including ranches, farms, general store, transit-mix companies, janitorial services, orchards and the like. Plus working wives, which is, we suppose, irrelevant. To the man, they bragged about the low wages they pay their unionless hirelings. Chew on that a while.
Mr. Curry, although not entirely or always correct, does care about his employees. He owns a majority of the stock, and good employees make that stock more valuable.
As to the unqualified scabs, these valiant and volunteering men, with families, former Trailways drivers, school-bus drivers, taxi drivers, and truck drivers, all federally licensed and just as qualified at driving skills as the strikers, have committed far fewer acts of violence and had far fewer reportable accidents.
Singlethink is the enemy of the public today. Unions and organizations that are self-serving and full of greed and avarice are tainted and immoral. International Garment Workers Union, Textile Institute, United Auto Workers, National Association of Manufacturers, Cosa Nostra, Union of South Africa, U.S.S.R., Tobacco Institute, Teamsters, Mafia, American Medical Association, the list goes on and on. Let us not forget that grand old group of retired misfits, the Congress and the good old American Civil Liberties Union, so anti-American that only in America could such an organization exist.
\ EDWIN G. and RAYETTA M. SHAVER\ LEXINGTON
by CNB