Since this post was pretty active on the old Garage, I brought it over.
DynoTom - 2:26 am on Dec. 21, 2001
I guess before I was in a union I was not educated enough to know what they do?
My only exposure to a union was my citys workers,garbage and forestry,sewer,maintanace guys.
I know those guys get alot of "flak" for being "lazy asses" but I guess I though kind of the same way about them at one point?
I think the reason they got all the "crap" was because they were so visable to the public,and the public pays their wages!
So I think that exposure to a union gave me negative thoughts about all unions?
Im in one now,and I really like it!
I love that there is complete structure for every aspect of the job I do,and you cant just get fired if the owner has a bad day or something like that?
Are you guys in any unions?
Do you like it better than when you were not?
Im just wondering if you guys like yours or not,or if you like unions or not?
Thanks guys, Dyno Tom Harley-Davidson P.A.C.E. 7209 member.
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1995 F-350 XLT SuperCab DRW 460 EFI ~~~~~~~~~1991 Mustang GT 5-Liter 5-speed
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Gary79F250 - 3:22 am on Dec. 21, 2001
I am a Teamster, It is also the only reason i still have a job. I am currrently being charged for an DUI, that happend this summer. I was arrested bu 2 overzealous small town cops while moving a vehicle around in my driveway. I refused to take a breathalyser and subsequently my licence was suspended on scene. Long story short, union claims it is a hardship, i still will have m job once this gets thru the court's. hopefully within a month or two. In my opinion union's rock.
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Paxtonman - 7:10 am on Dec. 21, 2001
Well, this won't win any friends, I manage a non-union warehouse, our companies highest producing warehouse. The union's have tried for years to get my guys to vote and they refuse. Union's protect and defend the worthless. I have to deal with some union issues from one of our other facilities once in a while, and I can't see what the good members get out of it. Union's come in when you have bad management and the employee's need protection. One more thing about union's, ever notice the percentage of companies that go broke because of union's driving the wages out of control? There are 200 unemployed Sioux tool employees 60 miles away that wished they would have not gone on strike right now. They fought every 3 years and the company finally said enough. They moved to the Carolina's. My supervisors brother worked for Ford, his $30 an hour job was to stand there and put a paint stripe on defective cars going by, $30 an hour. Today my 99 Ranger is at the shop, no heat and this is the 3rd time it has been there for the same problem. I'll bet everyone of you has had a son or daughter with a bad teacher, ever try to do something about it? You can't touch a teacher, union to powerful, and most school administrators don't have the balls to do something about them.There was a time for union's but that time has passed.
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chilly460 - 9:46 am on Dec. 21, 2001
Well, this subject is a little touchy so hopefully nobody gets offended. I can't claim to have a huge amount of experience with unions, but I did work at GM for three months and learned quite a bit in that time. Basically as I see it, if I were an employee somewhere where a union was present, I'd be in it in a heartbeat. But, what makes it so enticing for the worker also makes it undesirable to the company. The higher wages, increased benefits, ability to file "grievances", etc. are a double edged sword.
Now, I think about the economic effect of unions. People claim that they are driving business out of the US, and I agree in some part. Part of the reason much of manufacturing moved overseas is due to the expensive labor in the States. BUT, the high wages give those same workers more buying power, which fuels the economy in other segments so I think it kind of evens out.
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qtrhors - 1:05 pm on Dec. 21, 2001
Ok Im jumping in on this.
Paxtonman...you are way off base when you say the times for unions is past.
Agreed that in some places they are not needed and some are poorly run. But the main reason unions came into existence still exists. That is..companies making huge profits off the field workers labor and only a handful upper management types/stock holders raking it in. Workers putting in 12 days 6 days a week and not even classified middle class is common still. But yet those workers companies are wealthy...this is crap.
Do you think those companies that go overseas
and use what amounts to slave labor bring the savings in labor to the consumer? If you believe that I have a bridge in New York City for sale cheap. No the profit margins just go up and only a handful of people share in it and certainly not the poor overseas worker...in fact this can lead to such things as hatred of rich corporate America...bringing on a violent "workers movement"....then we send our boys to put it down...think that is far fetched? It has already happened. Job safety and fatigue levels are huge probs in a lot of job areas. In a lot of cases the only concern for those 2 issues are addressed if it cost the company no money. Believe me I work for one of those companies. On my job people die when mistakes are made account unsafe working conditions and fatigue. As you stated yourself bad management brings need of unions...don't be fooled into believing there is no such thing as bad management. There are places still were organized workers are needed. I work in one of those places.
Tim West
Div 180
Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers
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351W/AOD 81 Stang Coupe 12.23 111.7
pump gas....street and highway driven regularly
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Johnny Ray - 1:42 pm on Dec. 21, 2001
I am a Proud Union Member of Local 974 out of East Peoria here.
I have 28 1/2 years at Caterpillar (19 of those years running a dyno!
![]()
) and when I hired in a Jan. 15th of 1973 Caterpillar told me that I could not work for them without joining the union.
Collective bargaining to me is just like collective reasoning and other collective efforts, we as a organized peoples, get much farther in life when keeping a 'we' attitude.
United We Stand
Divided We Fall
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69 Red Falcon-69 Green Sports Coupe Falcon
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chilly460 - 2:31 pm on Dec. 21, 2001
Cheap labor does = cheap goods. That's part of the reason we now have $400 stroker cranks to play with.
Johhny Ray, do you happen to know what happened at the plant in York, PA?
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Cobrajack - 3:38 pm on Dec. 21, 2001
My experience is limited but I do know that unions destroyed the textile industry and sent it packing to third world countries!!
The same thing is happening to the chemical industry though enviromentalists are certainly adding to our woes!!
Exorbitant profits are a thing of the past!! Therefore, $30.00/hr. jobs are not going to be there......Then who will support the unions??
I heard somewhere that dues can exceed $100.00/week??!! If true, unions are more profitable than the companies their members work for!!
My $.02 worth!!
Cobrajack
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Edited by: Cobrajack
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n2omike - 4:02 pm on Dec. 21, 2001
Unions came about for a reason... BUT, they have overextended themselves.
If YOU owned a large company, where would YOU build your next factory???
Would it be in the good ole' union proud USA where the EPA, OSHA, Powerful Unions, $20-$30/hr wages, and most of all silly LAWSUITS are as common as sunburn in July?
HELL NO!!!!
Especially now that they have NAFTA... You know, the North American Free Trade Agreement. You can build a factory right across the border where they have none of the above restrictions and CHEAP labor, and ship the goods right back over here with no extra tariffs! It's a no-brainer!
Companies have to be competitive these days. If a union forces super high wages, they just price the company out of business. If the company wants to survive, they are forced to re-locate their factories.
Why do you think company profits (and their stock prices) went through the roof after NAFTA passed? Their profits went through the roof after moving across the border... Luckily we were undergoing a computer revolution that kept most of the country busy. Now that all the businesses have gotten computerized and networked, the boom is over... and so is the economy.
We can't compete with other countries that play by different rules than we do, but big business got into politics and opened up the borders, and opened up their profits. It probably would have never happened if Unions hadn't pushed the wages as high as they did and supported all the frivilous lawsuits. It just became too expensive to conduct business here.
If you have a $30/hr union job, enjoy it while it lasts. Chances are, it won't be there forever.
Good Luck!
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Mike Burch, 66 mustang real street
302 4-speed 289 heads, 10.63 @ 129.3
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n2omike - 6:19 pm on Dec. 21, 2001
Oh yea, around here there are several large (once MUCH larger) chemical companies. These companies used to do all their own maintenance and on-site construction with their own union workers.
I worked for one of their R&D facilities one summer. While I was there, they were building new labs on the 5th floor of my building (with their own union labor). Those guys would always show up late and leave early. If you did catch them there, chances were they'd be sitting down and talking. Those labe had been under construction for months, if not years, and still weren't completed.
This was at Union Carbide (which has since been taken over by Dow, who did some MAJOR house cleaning and laying off). Their production in the area had shrunk down do a fraction of what it once was, and they had layed off almost all their union construction people and replaced them with a large non-union construction company. (Brown and Root). It was really bad at that facility for a long time. The union was really out of control, and the jobs disappeared.
Better luck to ya'
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Mike Burch, 66 mustang real street
302 4-speed 289 heads, 10.63 @ 129.3
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MonsterMach - 9:11 pm on Dec. 21, 2001
As a retail Manager (in a prior life) in an area of the country where there were both "union" and "non union" stores within the same company I can tell you there was zero benefit to being in a union store. The non union stores always paid more than whatever the union contract called for ... the company benefits were always kept better than the union offered.
The terms of employment were always exactly the same ... Infact Management is required to document what is going on in a case of discipline (or termination for cause) to the point that any union employee coming in for "termination" usually had the union representative just sitting there looking at the employee asking them why they were such a "dumb ****."
I can also assure you that were it not for the 100% vote needed to remove "union representation" and the fact that the union stores all had atleast a couple of "old timers" who's entire retirement was wrapped up in the union ... Unions could have been voted out of each and every store in the chain in very short order.
I don't know that the time for Unions is past but I can tell you in that environment they were worth nothing more than possibly setting the "pace" for the company to exceed in order to make them (the union) look silly.
Hmmm ... and employees in the union stores paid money to the union for that.
Go figure????
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Larry Madsen
Las Vegas Nevada
Edited by: MonsterMach
Edited by: MonsterMach
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qtrhors - 2:27 am on Dec. 22, 2001
Of course US co's are going go outa the country. When you can pollute the air and water freely because there is no envirmental protection laws....you might as well trash the place for big savings(read more profit for the upper management). When you can pay the labor force slave wages...like 1.50 hr(guy thinks he's doing good now because his last job was .50 and hr). Its ok to keep people in other countries at a standard of living far below what we have? Unions are the reason for the standard of living we have. But you right once all the Co's leave because they no longer have to pay fair wages and provide decent work hours or provide health care benefits the middle class will be gone. But you can be assured rich American co's will still be here. Go figure.
"and thats all I have to say about that"
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351W/AOD 81 Stang Coupe 12.23 111.7
pump gas....street and highway driven regularly
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Bossman - 8:28 am on Dec. 22, 2001
I personally see no benefit to it if you are well taken care of by your company.I am a Non-Union Aircraft mechanic for Delta Air Lines.During the recent events which forced the airlines into a financial nose dive,many fellow mechanics at other airlines were shown the door immediately,all union workers.Delta however,grateful for the hard work that made the company what it is, made available voluntary leaves while still retaining benefits and flying priveleges,sweet early retirement packages and had to lay off maybe 300 non union employees,compared to 13,000 union workers at other airlines.At the same time though the Delta pilots,all members of the Air Line Pilots Association who pretty much bullied their way into raping the company of millions with a recent contract,were held TO that contract and 1700 pilots were laid off.You tell ME...how should I feel about joining a union?BTW...Delta aircraft mechanics have been and will be the highest paid mechanics in the industry for years.
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Run what ya brung..and hope ya brought enough.
1964 Fairlane 2 door hardtop
Edited by: Bossman
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Paxtonman - 9:59 am on Dec. 22, 2001
qtrhors, my father in law was in your union, he was a railroad worker for 39 years. He was also a drunk who should have been fired on several occasions, I read through some of his papers after he died. One night he was so popped they couldn't understand his speech, but he still had his job. One more thing, you obviously work for the railroad, when was the last time they made a PROFIT? We used to ship by rail, but the train people never knew where the product was or when it would arrive. Train loads of product were getting lost for WEEKS!!! After getting burnt too many times we decided trucks were the way to go. You see those of us in the private sector have to do that, make a profit, or we are out of business. They don't raise taxes if I f**k up, I'm just out. As far as the train system in the US, it's about time they showed a profit we have been propping the industry up for years.
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Paxtonman - 10:15 am on Dec. 22, 2001
qtrhors, one more thing, in my town, my people are paid $5 an hour more then the biggest emplorer in town and yes they are union. My brother is a Supervisor at that plant and we discuss the differences all the time. Bottem line is whether you are in a Union or not, you can be fired. Like my boss has told me, if we lose it's $25000, if we win it's nothing. If they are a problem get rid of them, period. Either way the employee isn't coming back. And in case you are wondering what our employees think, my boss walked the plant yesterday and left me a message that he felt morale had never been higher. As for your 6 days comment, I work 6 days, this week will be 7, my people work 4 or 5. My pay is tied to the success of the company, if profit is down I make less, not the employee. I can tell you last year I received less then the year before, not much, $150. It is not us against them it is simply us, together. My people stop at my home, I play golf with several employees, and yes they ask me I don't force them. The last person to talk about unions at our plant was ran out of town by the employees.
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qtrhors - 4:09 pm on Dec. 22, 2001
Burlington Northern Santa Fe RR and prior to the merger the former Burlington Northern RR(where I hired out 22 yrs ago and at one time was the biggest and most profitable....still the most profitable...2nd biggest RR now to the UPSP....Union Pacific/Southern Pacific)
These huge RR co's make money(just ask the CEO and guys just under him who take 6 digit salaries and huge stock option bonuses for 7 digit incomes...it comes off the backs of people who do the actual work) and lots of it.
As far as those probs you mentioned. Those are company managment probs(non union people). And the union employees have nothing to do with the design and decision making as far as tracking the customers commodities they just work within the sys. Im a locomotive engineer and damn good at what I do. We are randomly tested for drugs and alcohol by the FRA(day or night) and The BLE does not protect drunks and drug addicts. Most people who are not union do understand places that unions are still used and needed in some work places. Believe me if you did what I do...you would understand. Try a 24/7 on call work schedule sometime...with no weekends or holidays off or any extra pay for working same. I spend 70-90 hrs a week in company service. Im in charge of millions of dollars worth of equipment and customers commodities and make life and death decisions everytime I go to work. A mistake on my part can kill someone and even put me in prison if proven negligent.
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351W/AOD 81 Stang Coupe 12.23 111.7
pump gas....street and highway driven regularly
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djhoghead - 8:38 pm on Dec. 23, 2001
I also work at a place where the Union is very, very important. The company I work for make millions of dollars a week. The CEO of my company, if he worked a 40 hours work week makes an average of $126.00 a minute with his salary and stock options (that comes to 302,400 a week). I work 7 days a week and get paid no overtime for the sixth and seventh day I work. When I work Christmas Day of any holiday I DO NOT get time and a half. With my job there are many safety issues and without the Union the company would not improve as fast as they do now. Many of my coworkers are very safe and comply 100% with the rules and that slows down the trains, so the bosses are pissed and without the Union these consciences workers would be on the street.
Dave
Brotherhood of Lomotive Engineers Division 404
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Bossman - 6:41 am on Dec. 24, 2001
7 days a week with no overtime pay and you dont get paid on holidays?Sounds like that union of yours is reeeeeeally workin out for ya.I think I'll stay non union and get paid double and a half on Christmas..Thanks.
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Run what ya brung..and hope ya brought enough.
1964 Fairlane 2 door hardtop
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djhoghead - 12:34 am on Dec. 25, 2001
Hey Bossman, My Union lost a lot of power because we lost the right to strike. Everytime we go on strike the President puts us back to work in a few hours, then sends us to binding arbitration.
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qtrhors - 2:05 am on Dec. 26, 2001
right djhoghead
just got your nick haha
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what most of these guys dont understand is almost all the great things they have at these non union work places came from work agreements bargained for by unions elsewhere. Do you think that these companies would give things to the employees like their union counterparts have or once had if they did not have to compete for workers who won theses things at the bargianning table at one time? No Way! Rich corprate America throws out a few extra crumbs once and awhile and keeps the "drones" happy while they become even richer.
Tim
Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers Div 180
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351W/AOD 81 Stang Coupe 12.23 111.7
pump gas....street and highway driven regularly
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Bossman - 9:14 am on Dec. 26, 2001
So what you're saying is..even though my company treats me very well and I enjoy my job..I should join a union and instantaneously transform the relationship between management and myself into an"Us versus Them" kinda thing.Why would I do that?I get so tired of hearing"Im such a victim...management is abusing me and the owner of the company is sooo rich and Im not"....HELLO ...HE OWNS THE COMPANY!Ya want some bum that lives under an overpass running the place?Would that make you feel better?
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Run what ya brung..and hope ya brought enough.
1964 Fairlane 2 door hardtop
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n2omike - 10:13 am on Dec. 26, 2001
The ONLY reason an employer hires an employee is to make himself money. They aren't in the welfare game.
If he's going to pay someone $30k or more a year, he's going to expect the employee to make him quite a bit more.
Unions DEFINITELY came about for a reason, but some have pushed things too far. As in "OUT OF THE COUNTRY". They've pushed things further and further, and business's have been forced to find ways to make themselves more competitive. In our world economy, profit margins can make or break a company in no time. When the stock price falls, bad things happen.
For profitability, big business influenced the government to open the borders to free trade (NAFTA). Now, the big corporations can play by a new set of rules and increase their profit margins. Initially, the country seemed all for it, stock prices (and the baby boomers retirements) shot through the roof!
The computer revolution masked all the manufacturing job losses, so everyone thought all was well. Guess what, now that we are all computerized and networked, the boom has pretty much leveled out, and we are starting to see where the real economy is going to be for a while.
Unions pushed companies to look elsewhere, and the government opened up the borders. Now we are all going to suffer.
I have zero respect for the UAW. $30/hr to any idiot who cares to stand in one spot doing a no-brainer task... and with KILLER benifits and profit sharing to boot. People go to school for years and work extremely stressful jobs MANY hours a week for way less than they are making. THIS is just a line job!
I don't blame the employee... I'd be all over it as well, but the union that pushed things to this level will eventually push ALL the jobs into other countries.
Rant off...
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Mike Burch, 66 mustang real street
302 4-speed 289 heads, 10.63 @ 129.3
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qtrhors - 10:55 am on Dec. 26, 2001
It doesn't matter what poor examples of union labor probs you bring out. Unions are needed in many places still. Safety and fatigue issues a very real and jobs where life and limb are at risk it can be a benefit for workers to organize and have major input on these issues. Like I said I work in one of these places. Those who sit behind a keyboard all day in perfectly controlled indoor climates...sleep at night...with days off(alot with weekends off) and holidays off have no clue what it is like. Just this month and engineer was killed and a conductor injured and it was not their fault. As far as NAFTA is concerned. Well if you think ANY jobs...union or non will benefit from that your dreaming. Like I said before when American companies can go to say Mexico and pay people slave wages and not have to pay any attention to safety and enivermental concerns it's pretty obvious what they would do. Is it right for American companies in the name of the almighty dollar to pollute other countries air and water and pay those slave wages? I think not. Like I said also watch and see who comes out the winners....American companies will make their profits. While American workers go backwards in cash flow. One day the American consumer will be broke and in debt(already happening before Sept 11) these companies will sell nothing because people have no money. The tax base will go down and the US gov will have even bigger debt. This consumer driven economy will go right down the drain. Your right the dot com boom is over and now the real numbers will begin to come in...the ones that reflect the true economy.
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351W/AOD 81 Stang Coupe 12.23 111.7
pump gas....street and highway driven regularly
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n2omike - 11:21 am on Dec. 26, 2001
I'm not arguing that ALL unions are evil... Just that many of them became too powerful and forced jobs out of the country.
The UAW is a prime example.
However, there is an even LARGER factor in jobs walking across the border. That factor is LAWSUITS. A buddy of mine is the General Foreman at a large chemical plant construction facility. Everything they do is done with the fear of an impending lawsuit. You wouldn't believe some of the safety rules they must follow. Some are downright silly. BUT, people still manage to hurt themselves out of their own stupidity... By no fault of the company at all, and end up calling their lawyer and end up winning HUGE lawsuits. If it was the case of the company directly telling them to do something that got them hurt, I could see it... but 99% of the time, that's NOT the case. These types of occurances are what force the companies to adopt all the silly regulations to protect themselves from the stupid.
Lawyers have too much of a stranglehold on big business. Combine this with UAW type unions, and you get to hear that "giant sucking sound" of jobs leaving the country that Ross Perot used to talk about.
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Mike Burch, 66 mustang real street
302 4-speed 289 heads, 10.63 @ 129.3
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qtrhors - 11:53 am on Dec. 26, 2001
No question that the liability laws in this country need some work. They do force companies to come in with some silly operating procedures. I have seen this happening where I work too. But this would happen regardless of organized workers. I'm not saying unions are an end all. If you have a good work situation no reason to fix what isn't broke. Actually there isn't that many union workers in America anymore. The truth is ultimately we shouldn't have to have unions(in a perfect world). Unions are not needed everywhere they never were. But think about the past when "sweatshops" and child slave labor were common(still is outside the US). Do you think that a worker getting say 30.00/hr would concede to 20.00/hr or 10.00/hr is going to stop companies from taken advantage of overseas workers who will work for 2.00/hr. No way. Until we establish laws that prevent companies from doing out this country what is illegal inside this country you can kiss all the jobs goodbye regardless of unions.
I say agian if you have a good non union job no need to fix what isn't broke
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DynoTom - 2:26 am on Dec. 21, 2001
I guess before I was in a union I was not educated enough to know what they do?
My only exposure to a union was my citys workers,garbage and forestry,sewer,maintanace guys.
I know those guys get alot of "flak" for being "lazy asses" but I guess I though kind of the same way about them at one point?
I think the reason they got all the "crap" was because they were so visable to the public,and the public pays their wages!
So I think that exposure to a union gave me negative thoughts about all unions?
Im in one now,and I really like it!
I love that there is complete structure for every aspect of the job I do,and you cant just get fired if the owner has a bad day or something like that?
Are you guys in any unions?
Do you like it better than when you were not?
Im just wondering if you guys like yours or not,or if you like unions or not?
Thanks guys, Dyno Tom Harley-Davidson P.A.C.E. 7209 member.
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1995 F-350 XLT SuperCab DRW 460 EFI ~~~~~~~~~1991 Mustang GT 5-Liter 5-speed
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Gary79F250 - 3:22 am on Dec. 21, 2001
I am a Teamster, It is also the only reason i still have a job. I am currrently being charged for an DUI, that happend this summer. I was arrested bu 2 overzealous small town cops while moving a vehicle around in my driveway. I refused to take a breathalyser and subsequently my licence was suspended on scene. Long story short, union claims it is a hardship, i still will have m job once this gets thru the court's. hopefully within a month or two. In my opinion union's rock.
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Paxtonman - 7:10 am on Dec. 21, 2001
Well, this won't win any friends, I manage a non-union warehouse, our companies highest producing warehouse. The union's have tried for years to get my guys to vote and they refuse. Union's protect and defend the worthless. I have to deal with some union issues from one of our other facilities once in a while, and I can't see what the good members get out of it. Union's come in when you have bad management and the employee's need protection. One more thing about union's, ever notice the percentage of companies that go broke because of union's driving the wages out of control? There are 200 unemployed Sioux tool employees 60 miles away that wished they would have not gone on strike right now. They fought every 3 years and the company finally said enough. They moved to the Carolina's. My supervisors brother worked for Ford, his $30 an hour job was to stand there and put a paint stripe on defective cars going by, $30 an hour. Today my 99 Ranger is at the shop, no heat and this is the 3rd time it has been there for the same problem. I'll bet everyone of you has had a son or daughter with a bad teacher, ever try to do something about it? You can't touch a teacher, union to powerful, and most school administrators don't have the balls to do something about them.There was a time for union's but that time has passed.
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chilly460 - 9:46 am on Dec. 21, 2001
Well, this subject is a little touchy so hopefully nobody gets offended. I can't claim to have a huge amount of experience with unions, but I did work at GM for three months and learned quite a bit in that time. Basically as I see it, if I were an employee somewhere where a union was present, I'd be in it in a heartbeat. But, what makes it so enticing for the worker also makes it undesirable to the company. The higher wages, increased benefits, ability to file "grievances", etc. are a double edged sword.
Now, I think about the economic effect of unions. People claim that they are driving business out of the US, and I agree in some part. Part of the reason much of manufacturing moved overseas is due to the expensive labor in the States. BUT, the high wages give those same workers more buying power, which fuels the economy in other segments so I think it kind of evens out.
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qtrhors - 1:05 pm on Dec. 21, 2001
Ok Im jumping in on this.
Paxtonman...you are way off base when you say the times for unions is past.
Agreed that in some places they are not needed and some are poorly run. But the main reason unions came into existence still exists. That is..companies making huge profits off the field workers labor and only a handful upper management types/stock holders raking it in. Workers putting in 12 days 6 days a week and not even classified middle class is common still. But yet those workers companies are wealthy...this is crap.
Do you think those companies that go overseas
and use what amounts to slave labor bring the savings in labor to the consumer? If you believe that I have a bridge in New York City for sale cheap. No the profit margins just go up and only a handful of people share in it and certainly not the poor overseas worker...in fact this can lead to such things as hatred of rich corporate America...bringing on a violent "workers movement"....then we send our boys to put it down...think that is far fetched? It has already happened. Job safety and fatigue levels are huge probs in a lot of job areas. In a lot of cases the only concern for those 2 issues are addressed if it cost the company no money. Believe me I work for one of those companies. On my job people die when mistakes are made account unsafe working conditions and fatigue. As you stated yourself bad management brings need of unions...don't be fooled into believing there is no such thing as bad management. There are places still were organized workers are needed. I work in one of those places.
Tim West
Div 180
Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers
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351W/AOD 81 Stang Coupe 12.23 111.7
pump gas....street and highway driven regularly
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Johnny Ray - 1:42 pm on Dec. 21, 2001
I am a Proud Union Member of Local 974 out of East Peoria here.
I have 28 1/2 years at Caterpillar (19 of those years running a dyno!
Collective bargaining to me is just like collective reasoning and other collective efforts, we as a organized peoples, get much farther in life when keeping a 'we' attitude.
United We Stand
Divided We Fall
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69 Red Falcon-69 Green Sports Coupe Falcon
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chilly460 - 2:31 pm on Dec. 21, 2001
Cheap labor does = cheap goods. That's part of the reason we now have $400 stroker cranks to play with.
Johhny Ray, do you happen to know what happened at the plant in York, PA?
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Cobrajack - 3:38 pm on Dec. 21, 2001
My experience is limited but I do know that unions destroyed the textile industry and sent it packing to third world countries!!
The same thing is happening to the chemical industry though enviromentalists are certainly adding to our woes!!
Exorbitant profits are a thing of the past!! Therefore, $30.00/hr. jobs are not going to be there......Then who will support the unions??
I heard somewhere that dues can exceed $100.00/week??!! If true, unions are more profitable than the companies their members work for!!
My $.02 worth!!
Cobrajack
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Edited by: Cobrajack
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n2omike - 4:02 pm on Dec. 21, 2001
Unions came about for a reason... BUT, they have overextended themselves.
If YOU owned a large company, where would YOU build your next factory???
Would it be in the good ole' union proud USA where the EPA, OSHA, Powerful Unions, $20-$30/hr wages, and most of all silly LAWSUITS are as common as sunburn in July?
HELL NO!!!!
Especially now that they have NAFTA... You know, the North American Free Trade Agreement. You can build a factory right across the border where they have none of the above restrictions and CHEAP labor, and ship the goods right back over here with no extra tariffs! It's a no-brainer!
Companies have to be competitive these days. If a union forces super high wages, they just price the company out of business. If the company wants to survive, they are forced to re-locate their factories.
Why do you think company profits (and their stock prices) went through the roof after NAFTA passed? Their profits went through the roof after moving across the border... Luckily we were undergoing a computer revolution that kept most of the country busy. Now that all the businesses have gotten computerized and networked, the boom is over... and so is the economy.
We can't compete with other countries that play by different rules than we do, but big business got into politics and opened up the borders, and opened up their profits. It probably would have never happened if Unions hadn't pushed the wages as high as they did and supported all the frivilous lawsuits. It just became too expensive to conduct business here.
If you have a $30/hr union job, enjoy it while it lasts. Chances are, it won't be there forever.
Good Luck!
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Mike Burch, 66 mustang real street
302 4-speed 289 heads, 10.63 @ 129.3
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n2omike - 6:19 pm on Dec. 21, 2001
Oh yea, around here there are several large (once MUCH larger) chemical companies. These companies used to do all their own maintenance and on-site construction with their own union workers.
I worked for one of their R&D facilities one summer. While I was there, they were building new labs on the 5th floor of my building (with their own union labor). Those guys would always show up late and leave early. If you did catch them there, chances were they'd be sitting down and talking. Those labe had been under construction for months, if not years, and still weren't completed.
This was at Union Carbide (which has since been taken over by Dow, who did some MAJOR house cleaning and laying off). Their production in the area had shrunk down do a fraction of what it once was, and they had layed off almost all their union construction people and replaced them with a large non-union construction company. (Brown and Root). It was really bad at that facility for a long time. The union was really out of control, and the jobs disappeared.
Better luck to ya'
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Mike Burch, 66 mustang real street
302 4-speed 289 heads, 10.63 @ 129.3
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MonsterMach - 9:11 pm on Dec. 21, 2001
As a retail Manager (in a prior life) in an area of the country where there were both "union" and "non union" stores within the same company I can tell you there was zero benefit to being in a union store. The non union stores always paid more than whatever the union contract called for ... the company benefits were always kept better than the union offered.
The terms of employment were always exactly the same ... Infact Management is required to document what is going on in a case of discipline (or termination for cause) to the point that any union employee coming in for "termination" usually had the union representative just sitting there looking at the employee asking them why they were such a "dumb ****."
I can also assure you that were it not for the 100% vote needed to remove "union representation" and the fact that the union stores all had atleast a couple of "old timers" who's entire retirement was wrapped up in the union ... Unions could have been voted out of each and every store in the chain in very short order.
I don't know that the time for Unions is past but I can tell you in that environment they were worth nothing more than possibly setting the "pace" for the company to exceed in order to make them (the union) look silly.
Hmmm ... and employees in the union stores paid money to the union for that.
Go figure????
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Larry Madsen
Las Vegas Nevada
Edited by: MonsterMach
Edited by: MonsterMach
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qtrhors - 2:27 am on Dec. 22, 2001
Of course US co's are going go outa the country. When you can pollute the air and water freely because there is no envirmental protection laws....you might as well trash the place for big savings(read more profit for the upper management). When you can pay the labor force slave wages...like 1.50 hr(guy thinks he's doing good now because his last job was .50 and hr). Its ok to keep people in other countries at a standard of living far below what we have? Unions are the reason for the standard of living we have. But you right once all the Co's leave because they no longer have to pay fair wages and provide decent work hours or provide health care benefits the middle class will be gone. But you can be assured rich American co's will still be here. Go figure.
"and thats all I have to say about that"
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351W/AOD 81 Stang Coupe 12.23 111.7
pump gas....street and highway driven regularly
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Bossman - 8:28 am on Dec. 22, 2001
I personally see no benefit to it if you are well taken care of by your company.I am a Non-Union Aircraft mechanic for Delta Air Lines.During the recent events which forced the airlines into a financial nose dive,many fellow mechanics at other airlines were shown the door immediately,all union workers.Delta however,grateful for the hard work that made the company what it is, made available voluntary leaves while still retaining benefits and flying priveleges,sweet early retirement packages and had to lay off maybe 300 non union employees,compared to 13,000 union workers at other airlines.At the same time though the Delta pilots,all members of the Air Line Pilots Association who pretty much bullied their way into raping the company of millions with a recent contract,were held TO that contract and 1700 pilots were laid off.You tell ME...how should I feel about joining a union?BTW...Delta aircraft mechanics have been and will be the highest paid mechanics in the industry for years.
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Run what ya brung..and hope ya brought enough.
1964 Fairlane 2 door hardtop
Edited by: Bossman
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Paxtonman - 9:59 am on Dec. 22, 2001
qtrhors, my father in law was in your union, he was a railroad worker for 39 years. He was also a drunk who should have been fired on several occasions, I read through some of his papers after he died. One night he was so popped they couldn't understand his speech, but he still had his job. One more thing, you obviously work for the railroad, when was the last time they made a PROFIT? We used to ship by rail, but the train people never knew where the product was or when it would arrive. Train loads of product were getting lost for WEEKS!!! After getting burnt too many times we decided trucks were the way to go. You see those of us in the private sector have to do that, make a profit, or we are out of business. They don't raise taxes if I f**k up, I'm just out. As far as the train system in the US, it's about time they showed a profit we have been propping the industry up for years.
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Paxtonman - 10:15 am on Dec. 22, 2001
qtrhors, one more thing, in my town, my people are paid $5 an hour more then the biggest emplorer in town and yes they are union. My brother is a Supervisor at that plant and we discuss the differences all the time. Bottem line is whether you are in a Union or not, you can be fired. Like my boss has told me, if we lose it's $25000, if we win it's nothing. If they are a problem get rid of them, period. Either way the employee isn't coming back. And in case you are wondering what our employees think, my boss walked the plant yesterday and left me a message that he felt morale had never been higher. As for your 6 days comment, I work 6 days, this week will be 7, my people work 4 or 5. My pay is tied to the success of the company, if profit is down I make less, not the employee. I can tell you last year I received less then the year before, not much, $150. It is not us against them it is simply us, together. My people stop at my home, I play golf with several employees, and yes they ask me I don't force them. The last person to talk about unions at our plant was ran out of town by the employees.
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qtrhors - 4:09 pm on Dec. 22, 2001
Burlington Northern Santa Fe RR and prior to the merger the former Burlington Northern RR(where I hired out 22 yrs ago and at one time was the biggest and most profitable....still the most profitable...2nd biggest RR now to the UPSP....Union Pacific/Southern Pacific)
These huge RR co's make money(just ask the CEO and guys just under him who take 6 digit salaries and huge stock option bonuses for 7 digit incomes...it comes off the backs of people who do the actual work) and lots of it.
As far as those probs you mentioned. Those are company managment probs(non union people). And the union employees have nothing to do with the design and decision making as far as tracking the customers commodities they just work within the sys. Im a locomotive engineer and damn good at what I do. We are randomly tested for drugs and alcohol by the FRA(day or night) and The BLE does not protect drunks and drug addicts. Most people who are not union do understand places that unions are still used and needed in some work places. Believe me if you did what I do...you would understand. Try a 24/7 on call work schedule sometime...with no weekends or holidays off or any extra pay for working same. I spend 70-90 hrs a week in company service. Im in charge of millions of dollars worth of equipment and customers commodities and make life and death decisions everytime I go to work. A mistake on my part can kill someone and even put me in prison if proven negligent.
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351W/AOD 81 Stang Coupe 12.23 111.7
pump gas....street and highway driven regularly
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djhoghead - 8:38 pm on Dec. 23, 2001
I also work at a place where the Union is very, very important. The company I work for make millions of dollars a week. The CEO of my company, if he worked a 40 hours work week makes an average of $126.00 a minute with his salary and stock options (that comes to 302,400 a week). I work 7 days a week and get paid no overtime for the sixth and seventh day I work. When I work Christmas Day of any holiday I DO NOT get time and a half. With my job there are many safety issues and without the Union the company would not improve as fast as they do now. Many of my coworkers are very safe and comply 100% with the rules and that slows down the trains, so the bosses are pissed and without the Union these consciences workers would be on the street.
Dave
Brotherhood of Lomotive Engineers Division 404
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Bossman - 6:41 am on Dec. 24, 2001
7 days a week with no overtime pay and you dont get paid on holidays?Sounds like that union of yours is reeeeeeally workin out for ya.I think I'll stay non union and get paid double and a half on Christmas..Thanks.
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Run what ya brung..and hope ya brought enough.
1964 Fairlane 2 door hardtop
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djhoghead - 12:34 am on Dec. 25, 2001
Hey Bossman, My Union lost a lot of power because we lost the right to strike. Everytime we go on strike the President puts us back to work in a few hours, then sends us to binding arbitration.
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qtrhors - 2:05 am on Dec. 26, 2001
right djhoghead
just got your nick haha
what most of these guys dont understand is almost all the great things they have at these non union work places came from work agreements bargained for by unions elsewhere. Do you think that these companies would give things to the employees like their union counterparts have or once had if they did not have to compete for workers who won theses things at the bargianning table at one time? No Way! Rich corprate America throws out a few extra crumbs once and awhile and keeps the "drones" happy while they become even richer.
Tim
Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers Div 180
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351W/AOD 81 Stang Coupe 12.23 111.7
pump gas....street and highway driven regularly
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Bossman - 9:14 am on Dec. 26, 2001
So what you're saying is..even though my company treats me very well and I enjoy my job..I should join a union and instantaneously transform the relationship between management and myself into an"Us versus Them" kinda thing.Why would I do that?I get so tired of hearing"Im such a victim...management is abusing me and the owner of the company is sooo rich and Im not"....HELLO ...HE OWNS THE COMPANY!Ya want some bum that lives under an overpass running the place?Would that make you feel better?
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Run what ya brung..and hope ya brought enough.
1964 Fairlane 2 door hardtop
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n2omike - 10:13 am on Dec. 26, 2001
The ONLY reason an employer hires an employee is to make himself money. They aren't in the welfare game.
If he's going to pay someone $30k or more a year, he's going to expect the employee to make him quite a bit more.
Unions DEFINITELY came about for a reason, but some have pushed things too far. As in "OUT OF THE COUNTRY". They've pushed things further and further, and business's have been forced to find ways to make themselves more competitive. In our world economy, profit margins can make or break a company in no time. When the stock price falls, bad things happen.
For profitability, big business influenced the government to open the borders to free trade (NAFTA). Now, the big corporations can play by a new set of rules and increase their profit margins. Initially, the country seemed all for it, stock prices (and the baby boomers retirements) shot through the roof!
The computer revolution masked all the manufacturing job losses, so everyone thought all was well. Guess what, now that we are all computerized and networked, the boom has pretty much leveled out, and we are starting to see where the real economy is going to be for a while.
Unions pushed companies to look elsewhere, and the government opened up the borders. Now we are all going to suffer.
I have zero respect for the UAW. $30/hr to any idiot who cares to stand in one spot doing a no-brainer task... and with KILLER benifits and profit sharing to boot. People go to school for years and work extremely stressful jobs MANY hours a week for way less than they are making. THIS is just a line job!
I don't blame the employee... I'd be all over it as well, but the union that pushed things to this level will eventually push ALL the jobs into other countries.
Rant off...
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Mike Burch, 66 mustang real street
302 4-speed 289 heads, 10.63 @ 129.3
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qtrhors - 10:55 am on Dec. 26, 2001
It doesn't matter what poor examples of union labor probs you bring out. Unions are needed in many places still. Safety and fatigue issues a very real and jobs where life and limb are at risk it can be a benefit for workers to organize and have major input on these issues. Like I said I work in one of these places. Those who sit behind a keyboard all day in perfectly controlled indoor climates...sleep at night...with days off(alot with weekends off) and holidays off have no clue what it is like. Just this month and engineer was killed and a conductor injured and it was not their fault. As far as NAFTA is concerned. Well if you think ANY jobs...union or non will benefit from that your dreaming. Like I said before when American companies can go to say Mexico and pay people slave wages and not have to pay any attention to safety and enivermental concerns it's pretty obvious what they would do. Is it right for American companies in the name of the almighty dollar to pollute other countries air and water and pay those slave wages? I think not. Like I said also watch and see who comes out the winners....American companies will make their profits. While American workers go backwards in cash flow. One day the American consumer will be broke and in debt(already happening before Sept 11) these companies will sell nothing because people have no money. The tax base will go down and the US gov will have even bigger debt. This consumer driven economy will go right down the drain. Your right the dot com boom is over and now the real numbers will begin to come in...the ones that reflect the true economy.
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351W/AOD 81 Stang Coupe 12.23 111.7
pump gas....street and highway driven regularly
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n2omike - 11:21 am on Dec. 26, 2001
I'm not arguing that ALL unions are evil... Just that many of them became too powerful and forced jobs out of the country.
The UAW is a prime example.
However, there is an even LARGER factor in jobs walking across the border. That factor is LAWSUITS. A buddy of mine is the General Foreman at a large chemical plant construction facility. Everything they do is done with the fear of an impending lawsuit. You wouldn't believe some of the safety rules they must follow. Some are downright silly. BUT, people still manage to hurt themselves out of their own stupidity... By no fault of the company at all, and end up calling their lawyer and end up winning HUGE lawsuits. If it was the case of the company directly telling them to do something that got them hurt, I could see it... but 99% of the time, that's NOT the case. These types of occurances are what force the companies to adopt all the silly regulations to protect themselves from the stupid.
Lawyers have too much of a stranglehold on big business. Combine this with UAW type unions, and you get to hear that "giant sucking sound" of jobs leaving the country that Ross Perot used to talk about.
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Mike Burch, 66 mustang real street
302 4-speed 289 heads, 10.63 @ 129.3
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qtrhors - 11:53 am on Dec. 26, 2001
No question that the liability laws in this country need some work. They do force companies to come in with some silly operating procedures. I have seen this happening where I work too. But this would happen regardless of organized workers. I'm not saying unions are an end all. If you have a good work situation no reason to fix what isn't broke. Actually there isn't that many union workers in America anymore. The truth is ultimately we shouldn't have to have unions(in a perfect world). Unions are not needed everywhere they never were. But think about the past when "sweatshops" and child slave labor were common(still is outside the US). Do you think that a worker getting say 30.00/hr would concede to 20.00/hr or 10.00/hr is going to stop companies from taken advantage of overseas workers who will work for 2.00/hr. No way. Until we establish laws that prevent companies from doing out this country what is illegal inside this country you can kiss all the jobs goodbye regardless of unions.
I say agian if you have a good non union job no need to fix what isn't broke
