[TheForge] OT Union Rant (Was Re: concrete)

Wed Mar 17 11:00:10 2004

I'm of two minds about Unions.

On the one hand I've seen them encourage their members (my father) to 
strike, and then sold them out in the settlement.

On the other hand I've seen them come to the defense of my wife and help 
her and the other members save their jobs.

One thing that I think made the difference is that in my wife's case the 
people negotiating were also the ones affected, i.e. the employees... In my 
father's case I believe that the people negotiating were employees of the 
Union, rather than the ones directly working the jobs.

It also is worthy to note that in my wife's case the local union was 
totally incompetent, at one point hiring a lawyer to fight the employees 
rather than to represent them. (Once the National Union President was 
notified that got it straightened out that the local unions was supposed to 
hire the lawyer to REPRESENT them, not disavow them!)

I think that whether Unionized or not, there are employees that are 
interested in making a quality product. There are also people who are 
simply there to get their time in and get their check. They're not 
interested in the product, or whether they're doing the best job they can. 
And those people also can have a Union sticker on their bumper or not. 
(Although knowing how hard it can be to fire a totally incompetent union 
represented employee, even for well documented just cause, I tend to think 
that such an employee will last longer in a Union job than not)

Aaron

At 10:18 AM 3/17/2004, you wrote:

>Dan Scheid wrote:
> >
> > don't get me going on that $40.00 a hr to push a shovel is too much. The
> > unions worst enemy is it self
>
>         They are political entities, therefore they suck.  I was a
>         member of the nation's largest local (60K members) when I
>         was a teacher in NYC.  When I signed on to teach, I was
>         given no choice but to join.  I could have turned down the
>         membership, but dues would have been taken in any event and
>         I would have had no benefits.  In 1984, the UFT sold its
>         members down the river in NY.  Unions have no place of warmth
>         in my heart, that is for sure.
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