quote:

Originally posted by john crusher:
I work in a Union shop.
There is a guy who makes the same as me and produces about a third.
He does not have the technical skill I have, or the tools.
But he's been Union for so long he's just riding the system.
Burns my Balls!

From my union experience, you might be the problem because you've exposed your union "brothers" to be less valuable employees (not that anything would come of that). Getting your car keyed was one way it might be dealt with, message sent.

quote:

Originally posted by nhracecraft:
^^^So then what?

A downward spiral into economic recession or collapse. Full Weimar or Zimbabwe. Remember that these workers are actually making something of value, unlike a large chunk of our economy. If those people can’t support a family and mortgage on their pay, then our industry will collapse. After that middle management and money movers won’t have anyone to manage, or money to move.

IIRC the UAW tried this several years ago and failed, but VW wanted the union in the plant, they are of course German and Unions are normal there.

Europe does have lots of unions. Even for engineers and other professionals. But in my experience with some of my company's plants in England, there isn't as much "union attitude". Then again, they are in smaller towns in middle and northern England, and the people are more "homogeneous".

We will soon know whether or not this was a good idea for the workers, and if it wasn’t then it’s easy to point the blame and let them reap the repercussions

quote:

Originally posted by john crusher:
I work in a Union shop.
There is a guy who makes the same as me and produces about a third.
He does not have the technical skill I have, or the tools.
But he's been Union for so long he's just riding the system.
Burns my Balls!

Anywhere you have protected workers whether it's Unions, Fed Civil Service, and sometimes variations of affirmative action or a flavor of DEI, other things being equal, you're more likely to see that situation than in other shops where those programs don't exist and the owners run the company with an eye on the bottom line where productivity trumps protected statuses.

Yea, there are lots of slackers and carpet riders across the spectrum. It's basically a personal moral failure, disregard of work ethic, and outright thievery. And NONE of those are curable by any method except firing.

quote:

Originally posted by Lefty Sig:
Europe does have lots of unions. Even for engineers and other professionals. But in my experience with some of my company's plants in England, there isn't as much "union attitude". Then again, they are in smaller towns in middle and northern England, and the people are more "homogeneous".

Compared to American unions in general, and the UAW in particular, European unions are downright cooperative. VW’s works councils consider themselves, and are, integral parts of the company.

The combative, antagonistic tactics used by a-holes like Shawn Fain are the polar opposite.

quote:

Originally posted by nhracecraft:

quote:

Failure to raise pay to 'offset' inflation is a big issue.

Who here has gotten a 30% pay raise in the last 3.5 years? I'll wait...

Most likely management. Yeah yeah I know they are the saviors of the company.

quote:

Originally posted by Lefty Sig:

Gov't workers with COLA's and Social Security recipients. Private sector not so much.

Not in disagreement with you in general, but minor point of order: Social security has seen a 20% effective increase over the 2019 base year. Federal employees have seen 15% in the same time.

Still considerably below inflation. Not even close to 30%.

IMHO, what these VW workers in Chattanooga fail to acknowledge is the "cost of ownership" in being in the UAW.

By the term "cost of ownership", I mean that they will all give a percentage of their wages to "Big Union", so every time they get a union-negotiated raise, so does the union. This has been the plan of the UAW all along; it's "all about the Benjamins". There are numerous stories available to verify this claim.

Secondly, the UAW usually supports the democommunist (more communist than democrat these days IMHO) candidate, so there's that for all the conservative union members.

And finally, unionization itself is a mild form of DEI. As others have said, the slackers will be treated as equal as the hard chargers. Throw in a minority "perk" (race, gender, sexuality, religion (not Christian), etc.), and they get "special" status within the union.

I make all these statements based on my own personal experiences with unions, as a former union member.

Many people don't realize that management wants a few bad apples in the union. The employee will get written up for bad behavior or poor performance. The union will fight for him/her. The company will say something like "We'll dismiss this issue if you drop the grievances against us". The union rep. will say OK.... and allow the cycle to restart.

quote:

Originally posted by Lefty Sig:
Europe does have lots of unions. Even for engineers and other professionals. But in my experience with some of my company's plants in England, there isn't as much "union attitude". Then again, they are in smaller towns in middle and northern England, and the people are more "homogeneous".

The unions in Europe don't have that nasty "us vs them" mentality of American unions.

VW is going to quickly find out just how much of a mistake they made by allowing this, then it will end with the plant moving to another country.