Trade Unions

For the first half or so of the last century I totally agree with you. But over the last 25 years or so, they've been guilty of taking more more more. Its done a lot to make US industry not able to compete with the rest of the world and exporting all our manufacturing out of the country. Of course there's been some pretty lousy management in the same companies making this situation even worse.

karl

Unions have made more men lazy than any other invention of man.

A good bro cannot get fired after he has been a union member a few days.

As a former employee of a tier one automotive oem I can honestly say, every gain the big three UAW made came on the backs of the supplier base.

Unions exploited non union and union employees of other companies down the line. Trickle down. AKA pissing on everyone else. The local Lear UAW plant is gone along with my non union job that got squeezed to make sure those UAW workers got their benefits.

My brother was a member of the IBEW. Left the union and cut them a check for training when he went out on his own. There is a requirement to work so long to pay for training. He paid them in cash. They called him a scab. Now he sees a lot of unions guys scabbing to feed their faces and they never reimbursed the union for training.

He is now a licensed Master with a Michigan Electrical Contractor License and is working.

I worked for 29 days in a union plant. One more day I'd had to join the union and in 5-7 years I might have had a chance to take a maintenance position for 5 bucks an hour than I made starting out in a non union plant.

Wes

Oh, Ron...thank GOD for the UNIONS!!!! I'm so glad that you keep bringing up the subject, we all need to continually contemplate the huge benefits that unions have brought to us. Manufacturing in the US was getting way out of line, it's such a good thing that we forced them overseas. We NEED the least productive worker to set the pace of what's left of production, if they make too much stuff too inexpensively, the prices will go down...we can't have that! We don't want to compete with our foreign friends now do we? And, we don't want those nasty employers to make any profits that they would invest, modernize and provide more jobs...we want those jobs to go overseas to deserving foreign workers. And, let's not forget that without the unions, organized crime figures would have to rely on just their drug and prostitution income. Yep...thank GOD for unions!

A big tip of the hat to you, sir.

Halleluiah!

Very well said, Tom. Makes a believer out of even me, a guy that swore he couldn't be swayed to become a union member. You've made them sound so good, I can no longer resist. Where do I sign up?

Harold

And the propaganda to enlist new members for a dying entity goes on..................

Here a new produce employee at the local, union controled, grocery store gets $8.50 an hour and Pays $600 every 6 monthss in union dues. Karl

Ron:

You are wasting your time trying to convince most here.

I agree with you completely and have been a union member since I was 14 years old when my parents died and I had to take care of my self. If it hadn't been for my union sisters & brothers, & my union I wouldn't be the same today.

Many will never understand the real reason for a labor union. Most think that it is only about wages & benefits. While what it IS about is MORE about real a "voice" in the work place. Most Americans are proud of our "written" Bill-of-Rights & the Constitution. What many don't realize is that it doesn't apply in the workplace (outside of any state laws and federal laws to protect workers. As far as the Constitution is concerned, without a union, you have no "freedom" of speech, assembly, or any other "right" in the workplace. If you don't like it, without a union, you can quit (or get fired!)!

A free and powerful (equally with business) labor movement is essential to democracy. Maybe that's the real reason for the decline of the American middle class along with many of our "freedoms". With a vibrant labor movement we would be moving the other way on the scale between the 2 extreme "classes" we are approaching.

This rant will be like a ripple in the ocean in this newsgroup but I only come here for machining information. How sad for "those that just won't see"!

Done!

Al

Unions are bullies - organized.

They produce nothing but rhetoric and they degrade the effectiveness of the compaines that are forced to live with them.

See what I mean? A waste of time!!

Oh my, somebody doesn't agree with you...a waste of time! I'm glad you've had such a wonderful union experience. There are millions and millions of workers that owe their jobs to American unions...those workers are overseas now. Did they install the blinders when you joined a union or did you?

On Sun, 18 Nov 2007 07:51:14 -0800, with neither quill nor qualm, "Al" quickly quoth:

Hell, my first job paid $2.35/hr and the union took $0.63/hr of it away for dues. That would have worked out to over $100/month back in

1969 if I'd been working 40 hour weeks. I can't imagine how much the unions are getting from the wages nowadays, but the $100/month Karl mentioned is definitely a lowball figure.

Larry, Boxboy Extraordinaire for the Teamsters and Alpha Beta Market.

-- After all, it is those who have a deep and real inner life who are best able to deal with the irritating details of outer life. -- Evelyn Underhill

I was a member of the same union in 1967 and my dues weren't that high! I just dug out my dues card from Retail Clerks (now UFCW) #770 my dues were $38 per quarter.

The members set the dues in a local union by the union's bylaws, constitution, and federal law.

If the dues were so high where you were, why didn't you change it? Or did you just want to wait 40 years and complain?

Yes, it's true, memory can be faulty for all of us but I still have the receipts/ dues card from that union and that was the best money that I ever spent!!!

I'm sorry for your experience. But the truth is that like most organizations a union is as good as it's members. It worked and still works for me. I and my brothers and sisters work hard and earn every dollar we get but we still have family health care and a pension I can bank on! How about you??

AND my union continues to grow!

Al

How sad for "those that just won't

Indeed! I was about to post the same message, for "those that just won't see".

My life experiences have been diametrically opposed to yours, from all indications. I had no need for those great brothers and sisters that bust their hump, as you suggested. Those that surrounded me when I was employed in a union shop were masters at doing nothing and making themselves appear to be useful. Their reward was killing the job----which closed, never to reopen again. It's a way of life with people like that, coasting along on the sweat and toil of others, and through their convoluted thinking concluding they're endlessly the victim, and convincing themselves that they are contributing, when, for the most part, they're an anchor, dragging down those around them that earn their way.

We see just fine-----we simply don't like what we see, and I'm surprised you see it differently. How sad for you.

Harold

On Sun, 18 Nov 2007 17:00:01 -0800, with neither quill nor qualm, "Al" quickly quoth:

It was my first job, fer chrissake. Besides, I only worked there for

5 or 6 months. It was brutal. We didn't have those nice electric cart retriever units they use nowadays. I had to hump in dozens of carts from the far reaches of that vast blacktop area by hand. ;)

Non-union rate was #1.65/hr, union was $2.35, and I took home $1.72 or something. Hmm, maybe I was including taxes there, too. In any case, union dues were high. Your $38/qtr figure doesn't even sound real to me. I know for a fact it was higher in SoCal back in the day.

Ooh, sure, sure. All union workers work hard. As most guys here can attest...not. I'm self-employed and have no bennies other than a savings account I'm slowly feeding.

AFAIC, their time was last century and they're an expensive waste now.

Enough of this union crap. I grow weary. END

And that sums it up nicely. Many unions suck big time, but there ARE some, with diligent members, that do still provide real benefits to members.

The big issue, where most are coming from here, is that things are changing globally. Unions certainly are contributing significantly to the offshoring of work. And that is just as much the fault of big business as it is of the unions.... With the explosion of cheap manufacturing overseas, unions have to walk a fine line between more benefits/pay for it's members and losing the work to China. Less of an issue for labor oriented unions I suppose.

just my .00002 worth

Jon