For you labor union haters out there

[billwald]

www.heraldnet.com/article/20090202/NEWS01/702029892&news01ad=1#Ferry.workers.to.forego.pay.raises

All the unionized workers in the Washington State Ferry System have volunteered to forgo raises won in their last contract settlements.

 

[Aaron]

. . . . . . . . . . So?

 

[Jim1999]

Love those socialist unions :applause:

Cheers,

Jim

 

[billwald]

When's the last time a scab shop with several thousand employees volunteered to give up a raise?

 

[Jim1999]

When the union bus operators of the Ottawa Bus Service refused to settle and leave 1000's of needy citzens without bus service...............oh, wait, scabs can be union too!

Cheers,

Jim

 

[Bro. Curtis]

Take a drive from Washington D.C. up to Boston, and count the unionized shops that aren't in operation anymore.

Like the zero's administration, unions foster corruption, and like the zero's administration, people applaud it all the way.

And please don't give me the "child labor laws" speech. Union shops that are now overseas employ children, take advantage of no E.P.A., and wouldn't allow an O.S.H.A. rep anywhere near them.

 

[Aaron]

When's the last time a scab shop with several thousand employees volunteered to give up a raise?

All this proves is that intelligent parasites can sometimes know when to suck less blood to avoid killing the host.

. . . . . . So?

 

[ajg1959]

When's the last time a scab shop with several thousand employees volunteered to give up a raise?

I resent veing called a "scab" because I refuse to work for the unions.

I am a fitter/welder and the union jobs are the worst I have ever been on.

First of all, they couldnt care less about their people. They treat you like a tool and not a person.

The only jobs I have ever been laid off from were union jobs.

The union cancelled my buddie's health (even tho he kept his dues current)insurance right before his wife had a baby because work was slow and he didnt get 129 hours/month in for 3 months straight....not his fault.

The attitude on union jobs is very sour to say the least. Everyone acts mad, frustrated or just plain miserable.

On the other hand, my experience in non-union shops has been the opposite.

And, as an American, I feel like I have the right to work for whoever I want to, for whatever wages me and my employer agree upon. Who are you or anyone else to tell me that I cant? And then to call me a "scab" when I do exercise that right?

Yeah, I have worked union, but I will take "right to work" any day over a socialist union.

AJ

 

[rbell]

Last time I worked in a union shop (years ago), I tried to not join.

My tires were slashed and I was physically threatened.

An eye-opening experience, it was. Had I not been trying to eke through seminary, with a new, scared wife, I would have told them to take a long walk off a short pier. I learned a great deal about union "ethics" (I use that term very loosely) and the "work ethic" by many union folk (another oxymoron).

Oh well, yet another "post and run" by billwald.

 

[targus]

www.heraldnet.com/article/20090202/NEWS01/702029892&news01ad=1#Ferry.workers.to.forego.pay.raises

All the unionized workers in the Washington State Ferry System have volunteered to forgo raises won in their last contract settlements.

Your comprehension of the article is incorrect.

The union workers did not "volunteer to forgo raises".

"State budget director Victor Moore decided the state could no longer afford the raises after the November revenue forecast showed $1.9 billion less in expected revenue than when the contracts were signed.

He then signed a declaration they were not feasible, which he has said is allowed in the state's collective bargaining rules."

"Employees, including deckhands, engineers and vessel operators, agreed to strip the salary hikes out of contracts signed with Gov. Chris Gregoire rather than try to preserve them through legal or political means."

IOW the budget director took back the raises because the money isn't there. The union decided not to fight it in court.

 

[BigBossman]

I can understand having unions for some of the most dangerous civilian jobs like working in mines or something along those lines. For the most part, I think unions are useless.

When I was 16 years old, I started working for Food World. They were part of the UFCW (Union of Food & Commercial Workers). I signed up for that union, which I had stay with them for 1 year. $5.00 came out of my pay check each week. It was a waste of money. I was averaging 15-20 hours a week. When a year passed, I didn't renew my "membership". When I got rehired, I also didn't sign up for it & the management tried to make me feel bad for not doing it. Part-time employees don't need to sign up for unions.

Here in Mobile, Coca-Cola, went on strike last year. It helped our business out because the company needed helpers to run routes. Those that were striking were already making good money. My question is if you're already making good money, why would you want to strike? When you are striking, you don't get paid anywhere near as much as you would if you were actually working. If I were the employer, I would have issued an ultimatum. Give them 48 hours to report back to work, or get terminated.

The same thing applies to most of these other strikes that I have heard of. In 1994, all of the Major League players went on strike. I'm sure that if you were the owner of the baseball league, you go out & find people who would play baseball for $500,000 a year. I would. Of course I would have started everyone out at the same pay, & would give increases according to their performance on the field.

The other strike I thought was stupid was the writer's strike that took place recently (about a year or two ago). Hollywood writers get a whopping amount of money for their ideas, but yet they feel they weren't getting paid enough money.

Unions, while they try to keep people safe, for the most part they are for the greedy.

 

[sag38]

I had a friend who was the grounds keeper at an Alabama Power Company Dam. Can you believe that he couldn't even add new line to the weed eater. He had to stop his job and go find the union maintenance man to add new line. Stupid!! Unions are full of this kind of stuff in the name of job protection.

 

[Magnetic Poles]

As in any organization made up of human beings, there is good and bad in unions. However, they have been weakened by a government run by and for corporations. Employees need representation to act as a buffer against employer excesses. What amazes me is how working people can vote against their own interest and be vehemently against one of their only safeguards in the workplace. Many of the things we take for granted would not be there had it not been for collective bargaining. In today's world where CEOs need to bump their excessive compensation and stock options up a few points by firing those who made their companies successful, I believe the unions need to be made stronger, not weaker.

 

[North Carolina Tentmaker]

I know the history and know that even today there are some places that need a union to secure the rights of the workers.

But no matter how you slice it a union is going to add another layer of management and increase your labor costs at least 25%.

If your industry has trouble competing with overseas competition now, just wait till they unionize.

BTW - We did not bail out the automobile industry, we bailed out the UAW!

 

[Revmitchell]

As in any organization made up of human beings, there is good and bad in unions. However, they have been weakened by a government run by and for corporations. Employees need representation to act as a buffer against employer excesses. What amazes me is how working people can vote against their own interest and be vehemently against one of their only safeguards in the workplace. Many of the things we take for granted would not be there had it not been for collective bargaining. In today's world where CEOs need to bump their excessive compensation and stock options up a few points by firing those who made their companies successful, I believe the unions need to be made stronger, not weaker.

What does that mean "one of their only"?

As a former Union member and one with a father who was a union organizer I can say that the corruption of the unions goes much farther than is being represented here.

Add to that so many of the reasons that Unions began are no longer necessary since all the federal laws on labor.

Companies now need to start a union to fight unions.

 

[North Carolina Tentmaker]

As MP stated there is good and bad in every union.

One of the real problems with unions comes from their only real strength, collective bargining. As a union member you give up your right to individual arbitration and instead agree to group arbitration. Naturally this would appeal to those workers who's individual arbitration ability is weakened by their performance.

I have worked with successfull union stewards and weak ones. Where unions are successfull they succeed because of the strength of the employees. Where unions are willing to police thier own ranks and run off the sorry employees who are not pulling their own weight they work very well. Where instead they try to ensure that everyone is equally compensated no matter how sorry they are they fail. They fail because the employees loose the incentive to work hard.

The biggest problems with unions is not the unions themselves but the people, to use a mountain term, "riding the saw."

 

[padredurand]

I have two part-time jobs at the local school - a cleaner and a substitute bus driver. I was told that I did not have to join the union but that dues would be taken from my paycheck anyway. I didn't join the first month but was pestered by the union secretary almost daily inquiring when I was going to join. The last time she asked me publicly I answered, "The only thing your union has done for me so far is reduce my wages by forty-five cents an hour."

I was scheduled to drive three runs yesterday. The transportation supervisor called and told me I would not be needed. A driver with more seniority requested the runs and I was bumped.

I clean a room that has very large windows along the hallway. I cleaned the windows on the inside and was starting on the hall side because you could see hand prints on the other side of the glass.... I was stopped because the hallway was another union members area. The hall side is still dirty.

A student splashed chocolate milk on a wall and ceiling. I went for a ladder. I was not allowed to clean above what I could reach without the ladder because I didn't have union approved ladder training.

On snowdays, when the school is closed, I still work my shift. Mind you, I just cleaned that area at 10pm the previous night and nobody has been in the room...

There were seven large boxes in front of the overhead door of the receiving room. I would have to move the boxes so I could take other items in and out of the door. Rather than handling these boxes twice I got a handtruck and started taking them to the office to which they were addressed. I moved six of them. I was stopped moving the seventh by a union member who informed me I was working out of class. I was a cleaner. Moving packages was a custodian's job. The custodian, at twice my wages, moved the seventh box.

Our church meets every week in the school's auditorium. We sent in a request to use the auditorium on Christmas Eve. A custodian volunteered his time so there would not be any expense in having a custodian present. The union president is a groundskeeper. Upset that a custodian was volunteering his time, the president insisted that a groundskeeper be present on Christmas eve in case it snowed and the sidewalks and drive needed snow removed. The Superintendent buckled and agreed to approve our request as long as there was a groundskeeper in addition to the volunteer custodian. Proud of his accomplishment, the groundskeeper/union president informed the district that he did not have any groundskeepers available on Christmas eve....
:BangHead: :BangHead: :BangHead:

Oh. I almost forgot. I do not have any health insurance or any other benefits. I need to work at least 30 hours per week. I work, on the average, 40 hours per week. Why no benefits? I work 25 hours a week as a cleaner and 15 hours a week as a bus driver. The jobs have different classifications under the union contract.

So now we're supposed to applaud a bunch of folks for not taking a pay raise? Now if they had agreed to take a PAY CUT I would pat them on the back....

 

[carpro]

All this proves is that intelligent parasites can sometimes know when to suck less blood to avoid killing the host.

. . . . . . So?

At least they're smarter than the UAW. But then they don't own a president.

 

[Berean]

Having been raised in the "coal fields' of SW West Virginia I saw first hand what the unions did to the miners with their outlandish demands, even going out on strike at the call of their fearless leader during WW II. Which hastened the demise of the coal industry. The UAW is repeating this with the auto industry.The Auto Ind. would need no bailout if it could get rid of the union and gov interferance. (My father was a miner and so was my family including both maternal and paternal grand parents along with several uncles.)

 

[Jim1999]

I take my hard-earned money and invest it in a business. From the ground up, I do all the work until it grows large enough to employ staff. I pay them within reason, treat them humanely and expect them to work for me.

The company grows and prospers. A few people decide they want to form a union! Wait a minute. It is my money, my investment, and now employees want to run my business! They haven't invested a red cent. They have no risk or insurance costs. They come to work and go home free. My concern is there 24 hours a day and my pocket-book is always at risk!

I thought America believed in free enterprise. I was fooled! I thought so many Americans were opposed to socialism! I was fooled again!

The above is not fiction. It happened to my father who saved 5 men's jobs when the owner decided to close down the business. My father bought the business and it still runs "union free" to-day, some 40 years after my father's death.

When two employees talked union, my father sent everyone home and locked the doors. He said it would be open at half seven next day. When people arrived he had the company books laid out on counter and the accountant with them. He had all the employees walk by the books so they could see my father and other family members had no wage. My father then said, "Youhave a job and a wage with benefits, but look at the books! Now, if you don't get off your backsides and start working there won't be a job, period." There was never talk of union again to this very day.

This is what I think of unions. Invst nothing, do as little as possible, and steal all one can.

Cheers,

Jim