I am sick and tired of hearing how the city is using "ultimatum bargaining". I would love to hear the union president explain how their strike actions are not "ultimatum bargaining", because it seems to me to be exactly the same thing. The union says "you give us what we want or we will strike", I'm not a symantics expert but that sounds like an ultimatum to me.

I am also wondering how the union has the nerve to say that the city negotiators are not willing to bargain. The union president was on a local news radio station and stated that there were three main points of contention (deal breakers) and 270 concessions. All three of the deal breakers are off the table, and depending on who you talk to, there are now only 70 (union count) or 27 (negotiator count) concessions on the table, which are not being publicized for some unknown reason (that sounds like the city removed 200 concessions from the agreement). If the city was not ready to bargain, the count would still be the same, no? The fact that neither side is willing to make public the supposed concessions really burns my ass. If this was a private union negotiating with a private profit driven company/corporation, this might be acceptable, but in light of the fact this has to do with MY tax dollars, these should be publicized. My first reaction to this situation is that these are frivolous concessions, and the union is in a major pissing contest with MT management and holding the tax paying public at ransom. If the relationship between the two (which seems to be the case) is that toxic, some sort of review should be initiated to see where the real problem lies. Either way this is completely unacceptable, and as this strike goes on, public support will undoubtedly wane. —Tax Payer