Quote:
Originally Posted by Petertherock
I hear people all the time telling people who are moving from up north down to Florida not to try to change things by bringing unions and stuff into Florida. Yet, I hear almost everyone complain about the wages in Florida. Well, the only way wages are going to go up is if labor unions get stronger.
I am not a big fan of labor unions, I feel that a lot of times they protect the dead wood and I have seen this happen in person at one union shop I worked at. But when it comes to getting a decent wage and benefits the unions are the only way to go.
When you have CEO's and executives in these companies giving themselves millions in bonuses and giving the workers maybe a $.25 or $.50 raise that's criminal. The only time I have seen a union that was worthless was when I was working customer service with the airlines. The only good thing about that job was the insurance benefits were pretty good.
The only way wages are going to improve across the nation is if the unions grow stronger again.
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It has little to do with unions down here it is the jobs themselves. There is no industry here or manufacturing. The low paying jobs are a result of what the jobs are. How much can you pay domestic help or someone working at a drugstore or supermarket. When I worked construction I worked as a crane operator, I am in the operating engineers union. Because our cranes are rented out and they get us along with the machines, we worked on many non union jobs. I will say, there was a difference. I saw a kid fall seven floors and land like 20 feet from my crane. He died couple of days later. As soon as he fell all of a sudden chains magically appeared around the deck they were working on.
I saw so many accidents it was crazy and always on non union jobs. They just grab people off the streets, pay them next to nothing and they learn almost by trial and error on the job. About a month ago I was out walking and heard all this yelling and a small mexican guy had almost lost his arm when a scaffold fell on him at a job I was passing. He was bleeding all over the place and the boss would not call 911. He instead stuck the guy in his truck and took off, I hope to a hospital, I never found out. Either way it is not the pay that is bad here it is the jobs themselves, there aren't any, at least none that pay any kind of money. There are just too many people willing to work for nothing as well. My wife's nephew owns a steel company and all he employs are minimum wage workers even though he makes millions and could easily afford to pay a decent wage. Business owners get spoiled by cheap labor, and it is not like they pass on the savings to the customers, they buy new Hummers and boats with it.
I learned a long time ago you don't want to depend on a job and what someone is willing to pay you. You need to figure out how to make money yourself. I have a friend who installs carpet. He makes good money but he is 60 years old now and still installing. At this point he should have crews out working for him but he just has that employee mentality and at some point will find himself in trouble the day he can't get out of bed go to work. I am rambling a little I know.
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