quote:

Originally posted by JALLEN:

quote:

Originally posted by qxsoup:
I am a union member (teamsters) and in the airline industry. I can tell you without a doubt that in the airline biz it is ESSENTIAL to belong.
I personally am against a 3rd party trying to dictate to a business owner who to run his own business but in my case I wouldn't have a job (in fact no one at my company who does the same thing that I do would) if it were not for the fact that my employee group is organized.

How can this be?

Would the work go undone by anyone? Would the organization cease to exist?

If there is essential work to be done, someone would do it.

Easy. It happened to another work group here. All of one particular group were fired over the span of two days. The company had a already trained and ready to go workforce in position to start the next day, in a different city at a much lower payscale. It is going to happen again come January to another workgroup here. The replacements are in my office being trained as i type this.

quote:

Originally posted by qxsoup:

quote:

Originally posted by JALLEN:

quote:

Originally posted by qxsoup:
I am a union member (teamsters) and in the airline industry. I can tell you without a doubt that in the airline biz it is ESSENTIAL to belong.
I personally am against a 3rd party trying to dictate to a business owner who to run his own business but in my case I wouldn't have a job (in fact no one at my company who does the same thing that I do would) if it were not for the fact that my employee group is organized.

How can this be?

Would the work go undone by anyone? Would the organization cease to exist?

If there is essential work to be done, someone would do it.

Easy. It happened to another work group here. All of one particular group were fired over the span of two days. The company had a already trained and ready to go workforce in position to start the next day, in a different city at a much lower payscale. It is going to happen again come January to another workgroup here. The replacements are in my office being trained as i type this.

Those work groups weren’t/aren’t organized?

If the pay scale is much lower, the employer will eventually free itself of your work group, or stop the activity, or be forced out by competition.

Unions didn't start in a vacuum and they served a good purpose 120 years ago. So did buggy whips.

Since the 1950s, they have destroyed American jobs and driven industries overseas while their leadership got fat and supported governmental policies that worked against the interests of the rank and file membership.

Full disclaimer, I was a teamster while working at UPS in college. I was technically not forced to join, but strongly encouraged.


.

I remember here in Maine when one of our paper manufacturing plants union workers were encouraged to strike by the national union that assured them they had their backs. So they struck over the most insignificant issues imaginable (1. When a paper machine broke down and the parts to fix it wouldn't arrive from Germany for 2 months, they wanted to have those workers do something else, etc). Well, they struck and people like Jessie Jackson came and said nice words. Then the money quickly dried up from the national union, and the local folks were screwed. The mill de-unionized, and the hard core union folks had fire sales on their ATV's, snowmobiles, boats and houses in order to put food on their tables. Yeah, that worked out just fine.

I was a business owner for almost 40 years and I would have closed down rather than deal with a union. That's what Quimby Veneer Mill of Bingham, Maine did in the 1970's when the workers unionized. They said that they were already losing money and only stayed open out of loyalty to the town, and they couldn't keep the place open dealing with a union. The workers didn't believe them, instead they believed the national union sales people. The week after they unionized Alan and Langdon Quimby closed the whole place down and Bingham NEVER recovered and the workers were a sorry lot.

quote:

Originally posted by Balzé Halzé:
My opinion on Unions changed some after I saw how non-union sailors were treated compared to those who worked for a shipping union. I work for a shipping union and would frankly be loathed to do otherwise.

My opinion on Union leaders however has not changed. They're still all crooks. Don't even get me started on that.

I don't know much about the modern day shipping industry and merchant marines in general, but as you're no doubt aware - they pioneered the very term and practice of Shanghaing or otherwise straight up kidnapping people to serve on ships in the early days of such industries, so it's easy to understand how Unions came to be, at least in the olden days where they were truly necessary to prevent variations of slavery, abject conditions for workers, and other terrible practices in the pursuit of money above all else - including basic freedoms and human rights.

In theory, a trade guild would make sense. I could see a real value if a tradesman union meant someone had actually earned the right to be a master/journeyman/etc/a union policed itself, to an extent.

But, that's not what's done.

We have a significant bonus program - smartest thing we ever did. Everyone at the company makes money together. We are all on the same team.

And, most importantly, instead of screw-ups being covered for, the other workers want them gone ASAP, because they're costing them money, as well.

In the "Old days" I know of unions trying to force labor forces to unionize against their will.

The problem with unions is the guy that works hard, gets paid as the guy that's a slacker...

quote:

Originally posted by downtownv:
The problem with unions is the guy that works hard, gets paid as the guy that's a slacker...

This is true. But.. In construction, the slacker is the first guy to go down the road. There is no seniority in construction, and the employer is in the game to make money. Most jobs are bid and it's all "hard Money". It doesn't take long for the slackers to be known by the employers and not hired to begin with. They may be making the same per hour, but at the end of the year the W-2's tell the story of who worked and who didn't. The union halls are full of the guys that are all hat and no cattle..

quote:

Originally posted by JALLEN:

quote:

Originally posted by qxsoup:

quote:

Originally posted by JALLEN:

quote:

Originally posted by qxsoup:
I am a union member (teamsters) and in the airline industry. I can tell you without a doubt that in the airline biz it is ESSENTIAL to belong.
I personally am against a 3rd party trying to dictate to a business owner who to run his own business but in my case I wouldn't have a job (in fact no one at my company who does the same thing that I do would) if it were not for the fact that my employee group is organized.

How can this be?

Would the work go undone by anyone? Would the organization cease to exist?

If there is essential work to be done, someone would do it.

Easy. It happened to another work group here. All of one particular group were fired over the span of two days. The company had a already trained and ready to go workforce in position to start the next day, in a different city at a much lower payscale. It is going to happen again come January to another workgroup here. The replacements are in my office being trained as i type this.

Those work groups weren’t/aren’t organized?

If the pay scale is much lower, the employer will eventually free itself of your work group, or stop the activity, or be forced out by competition.

Correct, they are not organized.