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Mgmt will complain about unions holding them to the letter of the agreement THAT THEY THEMSELVES made, but not say a word about a part time CEO who get's a 5M dollar bonus.
And Union Members working for a wage they agreed to, when they took the job, feel that they should be making as much as the CEO, who's job they don't have.
Once you are in a Union, you no loner have to give your employer a good days work for a good days pay. All you do then, is as little as you can get away with, and cut your productivity down to just above the level where folks would be checking you to see if you where still alive.
And Union Members working for a wage they agreed to, when they took the job, feel that they should be making as much as the CEO, who's job they don't have.
Once you are in a Union, you no loner have to give your employer a good days work for a good days pay. All you do then, is as little as you can get away with, and cut your productivity down to just above the level where folks would be checking you to see if you where still alive.
Why blame the union- managers are paid to make sure people work. I have never seen a contract that stops a manager from making someone work. If you have seen one it must have been signed by the stupidest company in the world.
The contract I work under clearly favors the government employer when managers follow it.
Here's a different perspective from a fellow engineer. I'm a mechanical engineer in the aircraft industry. Relatively new to this line of work- only been doing it for a few years. I was a diesel mechanic previously for 16 years... so I have some perspective as to what REAL workers go through.
I'm GLAD our factories are unionized. Some of these guys- quite a few of them actually- make more money than I do (with a high school education for the most part). And I'm ok with that.
Fact is they're busting their ass in 100 degree heat while I'm sitting in an air conditioned office clicking away at my computer. If I **** up... no big deal. I just re-do some paper work and it's all good. If THEY **** up... maybe they've drilled an erroneous hole in a fuselage worth tens of millions of dollars.
But that ain't the important part. The important part is that keeping THEIR wages high keeps MY wages high. I make pretty decent money- FAR more than I ever could've made as a mechanic. There's this silly social social convention that pretty well dictates that we engineers HAVE to make (on average) more than guys on the shop floor. Like I said- it's silly. But it exists just the same. So the fact that some of these guys are making six figures bucking rivets... that does ME a favor. That indirectly impacts how much they gotta pay ME.
It's all about perspective. Try rooting for your fellow man instead of a soulless corporation.
Years ago just out of high school I worked in one of those 100 degrees in the shade plants. We made air conditioners ironically.
One time I was at the front of the line and my partner and I were building up the frames. The guys with the fork lifts came and randomly dropped off the pallets of parts by our line. Over time we developed a system of building where we put together the parts in a way that was the easiest to assemble the frame. We had them rolling down the line.
About this time a couple of the "shirts" came out of their air conditioned office and "observed" our procedure. They decided that we were "inefficient" because we were walking to some of the furthest away pallets (because that's where the forklifts dropped them), and they said they wanted us to build them from the pallets that were closer first in order to spend less time walking to the various pallets. It was awkward as hell to build them that way and the guys down line were basically shut down because we couldn't generate the units very fast.
Anyway the "shirts" finally left and we went back to our old way and started cranking them out.
When the OP came out with his "money saving" plan after his "research" this experience was the first thing came to mind. A young little "detail" man who wouldn't last a week on the line coming up with a way to save millions.
Why if I was the boss, I'd fly him to headquarters to talk to the Board about this one.
Why blame the union- managers are paid to make sure people work. I have never seen a contract that stops a manager from making someone work.
And how do you propose that happening? Fire them? Have you ever had to fire a Union employee? You make it sound like its dealing with a non-Union employee, but its not even close. And you may already know that, but are trying to make the Union look better with misinformation.
I'm GLAD our factories are unionized. Some of these guys- quite a few of them actually- make more money than I do (with a high school education for the most part). And I'm ok with that.
Fact is they're busting their ass in 100 degree heat while I'm sitting in an air conditioned office clicking away at my computer. If I **** up... no big deal.
But that ain't the important part. The important part is that keeping THEIR wages high keeps MY wages high. . So the fact that some of these guys are making six figures bucking rivets... that does ME a favor. That indirectly impacts how much they gotta pay ME.
It's all about perspective. Try rooting for your fellow man instead of a soulless corporation.
SO you want folks to root for a Union because it raises everyone's wages including yours ? Wow, Why didn't you say so. Will get my letter of support in the mail, first thing tomorrow. After all, I want them to keep raising your wages, so you can live better, and so they can raise the prices of what the Union workers make, when selling it to me. I have no problem paying your wages, so I can make less..
And how do you propose that happening? Fire them? Have you ever had to fire a Union employee? You make it sound like its dealing with a non-Union employee, but its not even close. And you may already know that, but are trying to make the Union look better with misinformation.
Yes I have fired a union, civil service employee. But better yet I normally do not have to fire them because they know I will document what I assigned them to do and if they fail to do it I will utilize the contract in a manner not favorable to them. I will assign them work and give them a deadline. I will hold them to their scheduled lunch and breaks. If their task is not completed they will receive progressive discipline. If they refuse to listen to me or answer my questions they will be written up. They also know I will treat them fairly and that the rules apply across the board.
Like, taking a $2 mln dollar installation contract away from the vendor (the company pays $$ to the vendor for the broken contract), then after spending all this money and only having about 40% of work done turning back to the management and telling them to bring the vendor back in. So the $2 mln installation job turns into $4.5 mln job. And the quality is terrible because the union doesn't give a flying f@ck and the vendor is in the rush to have it done since all the deadlines have been blown. And this had been happening year after year.
My other favorite thing was catching people drunk on assembly line, reporting them to line supervisor, and then seeing them back at work 2 hours later doing something less dangerous. Who cares what effect it has on product quality, the guy must get his beer money, can't send him home.
I am so happy I no longer have to deal with all this bull****.
And yet the principle of trade unions is good, without them we'd be screwed by the corporations. I really have no idea how the situation can be fixed without either turning into Mexico where labor is disposable, or having mafia run our plants and ports. Somehow they manage to have unions in Germany yet not the same excesses we have here. Something must be really screwed up in the good ol' US.
Yes I have fired a union, civil service employee. But better yet I normally do not have to fire them because they know I will document what I assigned them to do and if they fail to do it I will utilize the contract in a manner not favorable to them. I will assign them work and give them a deadline. I will hold them to their scheduled lunch and breaks. If their task is not completed they will receive progressive discipline. If they refuse to listen to me or answer my questions they will be written up. They also know I will treat them fairly and that the rules apply across the board.
And "Hope" you don't die of old age before you accomplish all that. LOL
Like, taking a $2 mln dollar installation contract away from the vendor (the company pays $$ to the vendor for the broken contract), then after spending all this money and only having about 40% of work done turning back to the management and telling them to bring the vendor back in. So the $2 mln installation job turns into $4.5 mln job. And the quality is terrible because the union doesn't give a flying f@ck and the vendor is in the rush to have it done since all the deadlines have been blown. And this had been happening year after year.
My other favorite thing was catching people drunk on assembly line, reporting them to line supervisor, and then seeing them back at work 2 hours later doing something less dangerous. Who cares what effect it has on product quality, the guy must get his beer money, can't send him home.
I am so happy I no longer have to deal with all this bull****.
And yet the principle of trade unions is good, without them we'd be screwed by the corporations. I really have no idea how the situation can be fixed without either turning into Mexico where labor is disposable, or having mafia run our plants and ports. Somehow they manage to have unions in Germany yet not the same excesses we have here. Something must be really screwed up in the good ol' US.
Good Post.
The only "Supporters" of Unions are the ones who benefit from their abuse, since when it comes to "Money" some people would support robbing and beating up retired old people, if they got part of the "take."
I knew this one guy in the paper mill union, he hated his job so much, he just stop going, well they could not fire him because of the union, and they kept sending him paychecks
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