Drew,

Its an uphill battle. People looking in don't understand nor will you get much sympathy. I am currently a Fed Employee (hopefully jumping ship in the next couple of weeks) and no one really cared about the Shut down and the loss of pay (got the back pay though). I am also in the National Guard, no one really cared that they for a short time did away with Federal Tuition Assistance.

If people don't have a dog in the fight, its tough to get genuine support or advice with respect to your stance. Unions help get your bennies and increase your pay, but at times of strike it can be scary.

If they bluff is called then what? Its scary stuff messing with people's money. I do echo the comments about the CEO Pension being irrelevant. If that is what people want, get your education, and get into the Foster School of Business and earn your MBA. I have a friend that is making six figures shortly after graduating there. He started out as a PFC in the Army. If the will is there, you can achieve it. It should be used as a motivation more so than a way to discriminate the stance.

I wish you the best of luck, I have friends from college that are Engineers at Boeing and my wife's uncle is a pretty high up Engineer there as well. Make sure you challenge the Union to look at the reprocussions that may occur if they don't negotiate. Its one thing to stick to your guns but they need to remember to look at the negative results that can occur and the impact it will have on both the Union Members and the localized economy.

RB