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Wow, thank you for posting just because of your name. I haven't heard it since I was a kid in grade school, when I heard a story about Melchisedec. Now I've got to research, because what I'm reading so far on Wikipedia and so forth doesn't ring a bell. Again, thank you. I always thought it was one of the coolest names in history. Something about it always made me feel good.
We've all heard the stories about lazy union workers, but how many have actually seen it first hand? A lot of those tales are apocryphal.
I have.
Teamsters were among the worst, along with IBEW and CWA.
I worked with Teamsters in several different shops, and their behavior was despicable.
I have personal knowledge of IBEW and CWA workers at [the former] Fairpoint Communications, and their behavior during the strike here in ME was particularly egregious- I had access to their 'hotline' and listened to encouragement and threats of violence including arson and assault.
I am not totally opposed to the idea of unions, as I believe that current laws do not afford enough protections for workers from actions taken by powerful corporations, however, I also believe that some unions have become too powerful and act in thuggish ways designed to provide more benefit to union 'leadership' than the workers they [are supposed to] support.
Thanks for that firsthand account of union thug tactics, which in my brief membership I never saw. You are 100% correct that there is now and always has been an element of corruption in unions. Every single institution that gets big enough is going to start to rot from the inside eventually.
It has happened to our government, unions and corporations. But that doesn't mean that each one of those elements doesn't have a place. How much graft do you think is built into the federal budget? I would guess that at least 10% of tax money is funneled away into an untraceable Swiss account to be divided up by the people who really control the world. We probably only get 10 cents for every tax dollar spent in actual services.
The city of Las Vegas used to be run by the mob. Even though it's been cleaned up, I find it hard to believe that all of those connections just disappeared. It's the same issue with unions, there are still nefarious connections, but you simply cannot root out every single bad guy.
The idea that unions are needed now more than ever is valid, even with their past transgressions.
Unions have caused far more harm than good.
I was in the union out here. It was great. Good pay and benefits. But the pay isn't honest at all. They force wages by bribing lawmakers to force prices. Horrible for competition and customers.
It can work in Vegas because the casinos have enough money to deal with the costs, but it's killed other areas.
Look at how bad our education system is. You can't fire crap teachers. You can't change the way things are done. It's because the unions are protecting a crap system.
Unions are killing several city budgets. They need to go.
Then we have the overtime crap they pushed onto us.
Most of the country can only make 40 hours a week. So if you need more money than that, tough crap.
Very few people are getting overtime. Most people working excess hours are salary and not getting overtime because employers are looking at how to get out of OT.
The whole concept is ridiculous.
Jenn the accountant is worth 10 an hour for 8 hours a day and then magically she is worth 15 an hour after 8 hours a day.
It's horrible for businesses and employees.
When times were tough, an extra 10 hours a week would have saved me and my boss would have allowed it if not for overtime laws. Instead I could sent home at 40 hours. So I could either go find a higher paying job or be broke.
2,000 applications later, higher paying job was out of the question.
Now I work for myself. If I need more money, I work longer. There's nothing but sleep preventing me from making more.
No overtime restrictions. No union bs. No holidays. Nothing. Just a smooth path to financial independence that I could have been on long ago if not for unions.
Plenty of overtime is out there! I quit an electric utility because I was tired of working 2000 ot hours every year, yes I said 2000! Your boss (in your hypothetical situation, haha) could’ve very easily hired another employee in Lieu of overtime.
Plenty of overtime is out there! I quit an electric utility because I was tired of working 2000 ot hours every year, yes I said 2000! Your boss (in your hypothetical situation, haha) could’ve very easily hired another employee in Lieu of overtime.
We had a guy as a [telephone line construction] lineman earn $215,000 one year at $37 an hour.
This wouldn't be possible without:
- 1.5x overtime
- 2.0x each hour after 49th hour
- 2.0x call-out pay
- 3.0x holiday pay
- 10% night diff if you clocked out after 7pm
If you're the go-to guy who's always available for on-call, I'd say you deserve it. Since we're not a power utility, we're not required to respond to call outs, there's just the financial incentive to answer the phone. If it's Christmas and no one answers, no one gets fired. The line just stays down until the next working day.
I answered a call out to hear a very exasperated manager asking me to report to a broken pole. I said I'd be glad to take it, but something sounded "off". He stated I was the 55th person he called. I told him 55th time is the charm and headed to the work center to get my bucket truck. I ended up making $1200 that night.
Teamsters were among the worst, along with IBEW and CWA.
I worked with Teamsters in several different shops, and their behavior was despicable.
I have personal knowledge of IBEW and CWA workers at [the former] Fairpoint Communications, and their behavior during the strike here in ME was particularly egregious- I had access to their 'hotline' and listened to encouragement and threats of violence including arson and assault.
I am not totally opposed to the idea of unions, as I believe that current laws do not afford enough protections for workers from actions taken by powerful corporations, however, I also believe that some unions have become too powerful and act in thuggish ways designed to provide more benefit to union 'leadership' than the workers they [are supposed to] support.
..."their behavior during the strike
Here I thought you were going to point out their " laziness" when they wereworking under a contract.
I couldn't care less abouttheir behavior during a strike as I regard scabs as some of the lowest creatures on earth !
Here I thought you were going to point out their " laziness" when they were working under a contract.
Oh, you mean like CWA members, former 411 operators who *had* to be provided with jobs and were given data entry positions in accounting, but couldn't seem to correctly copy information that was right in front of them? Who produced 1/3 of the work that some new hires were able to produce, and most of that being wrong and had to be corrected by managers who got no overtime while they made substantially more for base pay *plus* overtime? Who couldn't be fired despite the fact that they were slow and poor performers?
Oh yeah, got plenty of those stories too.
Quote:
I couldn't care less about their behavior during a strike as I regard scabs as some of the lowest creatures on earth !
Who said anything about scabs? These were threats against management and non-manager exempt employees who were not members of the unions. These people were scum who should have been jailed.
... So, while I may bemoan some of the minor annoyances, the greater good is served that when I direct a movie, it's not me against the producers, it's an entire union -- a very wealthy, very powerful one -- and me against anyone who would dare break the rules of employment. For me, I've realized there are times where a union makes a lot of sense. What I don't understand is unskilled people "unionizing," and if I were a business owner I'd fire them all and replace them immediately. This is like a game of poker, the two sides have to be equal in some way. If I'm running a company, like say a large HVAC company, and there are only a few thousand people who understand how to build these units and repair these units, then I better make sure my employees are taken care of and paid fairly, because I depend on these people and it may take years to train them. If I'm running Taco Bell, do you think I'm going to negotiate with a union of 10,000 Taco Bell workers?! Of course not! Quit, make my day, I'll fire you all and replace you next week with more unskilled labor. You have no negotiating power or position, it's not a numbers game. It's a SKILLS game.
JonathanLB, as you described it, your similar to many AF of L union member. They're more generally craftsman, such as musicians.
[I respect and believe in unions. I preferred spending our wedding reception budget on music rather than some other things, but I refuse to consider paying less than union scale. At someone's suggestion, I called the Julliard school of music, described what I wanted, and trusted them to provide it with no audition. I paid union scale and I paid to feed them, (it was only a trio or a quartet), as well as I fed my guests. It's among such decisions, that I sometimes acquire some additional satisfaction of self-pride. My self-respect, rather than the opinions of others, is of greater importance to me.]
You wrote of being aware of the advantages, and I hope the political preference for the sake of our economy and our society), that labor unions provide. Despite your ability and craftsmanship that should entitle you to some degree of autonomy, you acknowledge your union enables you to better obtain the respect you are and should be entitled to.
Unlike Afof L, (American Federation of Labor), the CIO. (Congress of Industrial Organizations) was organized as separate industries rather than as separate types of tasks. The two major umbrellas of USA's organized labor organizations finally have merged.
CIO workers are typically similar to production line workers and in aggregate have fewer and lesser degrees of skills and enjoy less or no autonomy at their work. I'm a populist, convinced a nation's democracy is dependent upon conditions of the least of its population. (The federal minimum wage is of some critical importance to our democracy).
You recognize the benefits you derive from your union, but would wish to deny it to others? Those others are “untermenschen”, unworthy of consideration or any respect? Obviously, you're not ashamed of your opinion. If I understood your post correctly, I think you should be ashamed. It's my hope your convictions will change, but I don't wish that they should change due to experiencing personally detrimental circumstances.
I don’t wish ill on anyone, but I judge a society by its best and brightest and not by the lowest common denominator. Every society will always have people at the bottom, by nature, there’s no avoiding that. If you spend all of your time and resources pandering to that demographic at the expense of encouraging innovation and the creation of wealth you ruin your country. Everyone deserves an opportunity, no more, no less.
And no, I don’t think unskilled people need a union to represent them. I don’t think most skilled people do, either. I happen to think in some limited situations it makes a degree of sense. Do directors really need a union? Probably not, the best directors negotiate terms far above and beyond the standard ones that are required of the studios. But it honestly just makes it easier for both sides because you’re not reinventing the wheel constantly. The union is also I think very fair to the studios because we all want to make movies. Our days are 12 hours long and all film unions acknowledge those long days without issue.
To suggest that a union should set the prices of labor, though, is of course ridiculous. Capitalism sets the value of anything. If a business can find people to do the work for $12/hour why should they pay any more than that? If they can’t find anyone to do it for that, clearly they need to pay more. My business happens to be able to afford to pay higher rates for all of our work, but even then we are undercut repeatedly by competitors. I just refuse to pay people less because I know to make quality work this is the cost. Trust me I would love to pay my videographers half the rate if it meant making more money for myself - mainly because I’ve had entire years of zero money left over for me, not so I could screw anyone over but just so I could actually make more than $0/hour that year (lol). But the reality is I have quality standards for my company and the good people cost a certain amount of money to obtain their services.
I don’t know what exactly you think a union would accomplish for labor that’s not worth much money and that anyone can perform their duties. How would that help the economy? The market determines the value for goods and services and it does a nearly perfect job of it.
I don’t wish ill on anyone, but I judge a society by its best and brightest and not by the lowest common denominator. Every society will always have people at the bottom, by nature, there’s no avoiding that. If you spend all of your time and resources pandering to that demographic at the expense of encouraging innovation and the creation of wealth you ruin your country. Everyone deserves an opportunity, no more, no less.
And no, I don’t think unskilled people need a union to represent them. I don’t think most skilled people do, either. I happen to think in some limited situations it makes a degree of sense. Do directors really need a union? Probably not, the best directors negotiate terms far above and beyond the standard ones that are required of the studios. But it honestly just makes it easier for both sides because you’re not reinventing the wheel constantly. The union is also I think very fair to the studios because we all want to make movies. Our days are 12 hours long and all film unions acknowledge those long days without issue.
To suggest that a union should set the prices of labor, though, is of course ridiculous. Capitalism sets the value of anything. If a business can find people to do the work for $12/hour why should they pay any more than that? If they can’t find anyone to do it for that, clearly they need to pay more. My business happens to be able to afford to pay higher rates for all of our work, but even then we are undercut repeatedly by competitors. I just refuse to pay people less because I know to make quality work this is the cost. Trust me I would love to pay my videographers half the rate if it meant making more money for myself - mainly because I’ve had entire years of zero money left over for me, not so I could screw anyone over but just so I could actually make more than $0/hour that year (lol). But the reality is I have quality standards for my company and the good people cost a certain amount of money to obtain their services.
I don’t know what exactly you think a union would accomplish for labor that’s not worth much money and that anyone can perform their duties. How would that help the economy? The market determines the value for goods and services and it does a nearly perfect job of it.
Not always true, because if it did, then we wouldnt have huge void between wages for the exact same work. Walmart pays 7$ but go across the street and get pay $10 for exact same job and duties. Only difference is profit margin the owner is willing to take.
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