Boeing Oak Ridge Strikes: A Trip to See the Elephant?

It was reported by the Washington post today that 300 members of IAM local 2709 in Boeing's Oak Ridge Tennessee plant rejected a contract offer and went out on strike over free health care for the shirts that Boeing does not offer to the worker bees. The contract in question also would permit vendors to take over the logistics functions in plant.

Fellows, there was a phrase that the soldiers in the civil war used. One who had been in combat would say he'd "gone and seen the elephant". The folks in Oak Ridge, probably shoulda changed the name to Sleepy Hollow, because they are all slated for a trip to see the elephant before this is all over. I know, because I was there.

It reminds me of nothing so much as a day 25 or so years ago when I went to the emergency room with a persistent itch. I didn't even have my shirt all the way off when the doctor looked over at the new intern and said "This is a classic case of shingles" and to me as he wrote out the script for percodans "This is going to get worse before it gets better."