Conversation with a union guy

[Amiodynski]

Figured I would share this..

[j-ten-ner]

...

@Jtenner

 

Genau, sehr gut gesagt.

 

(sorry messed up on the quoting part)

 

Yeah..but your German is excellent.

 

so long

j-ten-ner

[SteveBBB]

Figured I would share this

 

 

[Spurshot]

The value of a union will be debated well past when all of us are long gone.

 

In the 40 years I've worked, I have belonged to a couple unions, including the UAW in the mid 70s when I was a machinist. In my experience, they exist to serve themselves. That is: help themselves to worker's dues. The people that were officers in the unions I was in, were self-serving, looking for what they perceived as a better job than the labor they were hired for. The union seemed to level all the workers wages. Everyone got the same thing regardless of your value to the company. I've always strived to be better than the next guy in my work. I want to stand out and be appreciated for it with higher wages than the guy next to me.

 

In the late 80s or early 90's, there was a movement to organize a fair sized group of quality engineers at a large aircraft company I worked for. I had been moving along rapidly in my salary and doing work I enjoyed. I had earned a job in an important role and the other QEs wanted me to join their effort because of my good reputation. I turned them down after they explained their reasons for organizing. Everything they wanted, I already had. I didn't want to be averaged out with the lowest productive QE. I don't recall if they were successful in organizing, since I left the company shortly after that for another avenue.

 

I have friends that were lifelong UAW members and are dyed in the wool union guys. We've debated the usefulness of unions over many beers and campfires on hunting trips. I also have friends that are/were entrepreneurs and have created decent mid-sized businesses, making millions. I get an earful of the opposing view too. An acquaintance who had such a booming business with hundreds of workers was approached by one of the workers who stated that the workers had decided they wanted to organize a union. (I had toured this company with the owner once. Their products were retailing across the country.) The owner said he thought that was a good idea. The next morning the gate to the plant was locked when people showed up for work. The old guy who had created the business and all the jobs for his employees apparently thought it was time to retire. I'm guessing he felt unappreciated too.

 

I know there are many opposing situations where a union is needed to correct injustice. I've just never run into that situation.

[calgator73]

Figured I would share this

 

 

They did jump on the bandwagon...but like everything else...they were late to the fight. Most of the kids were around 12 years old...by the time the law was passed in 1938 child labor had already moved up the age bracket so very few children were impacted.

 

Things weren't all bad. My grandfather had 12 brothers and sisters. He received a 6th grade education before he quit school to provide for his family as a mechanic. He enlisted in the navy (machinist) in 1943 and served until the war was over. He worked as a machinist until his death in 1993. His sister used to talk about how he used to bust his butt 10-12 hours/day to make sure the family was fed and he learned a trade that he continued to use until his death.

 

Important points:

Children weren't enslaved.

Parents frequently put children to work in order to provide for their families.

Families of children caught up in this law found themselves in even deeper poverty.

[SnakeEyeSS]

October Sky is a good movie(it's a side story of it) to get a visual grasp of why Unions needed to start existing.....

 

 

But that stuff doesn't happen very often anymore.....

[jonsnow]

I was in the Steel Workers Union for 20 years and most of what I experienced wasn't good. What I saw was pure socialism. People that were hired from day one were paid the same wage as people that had been there 30 years and couldn't do the job when the walked in. (Personal experience) I had been there 18 years when the company wanted to send me out of state to teach people at another of their property about a specific job that I was trained at. The union put a stop to it because I had less senority than another employee who had zero experience in my job.

To me most of the Union rules were pure socialism. Nobody is allowed to make more than anyone else. Your not allowed to better yourself if you have a good work ethic. The worthless worker makes the same as you and you have to take up the slack.

I remember we had one worker that nobody wanted to work with because he was so lazy,everybody had to do his work for him. The union workers didn't want to work with him,the company wanted to get rid of him. The union reps were fighting for him. I asked my union rep WHY? His answer was "everybody needs a job".

Needless to say my experience with unions has not been good. Hopefully there not all this way.

[Spurshot]

I agree. Unions have a goal of homogenizing. That benefits the lowest performers and penalizes the highest performers. Who wants that? Guess who.

[KARNUT]

I've been self employed invested well sold my business retired at 59 no worries. Two school friends of mine one a county worker, his wife a school teacher. They both are retired too live in Florida. The problem they have is their state is talking cutbacks in pensions, sooner or later it's found that those big plush retirement plans can't stay funded. Their problem is they have no other funds, their state union would never allow cutbacks to their pension, they said. I told them for years it was too top heavy, you don't have to be a genus to see the writing on the wall. I'm glad I turned down the county job years ago.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[BRay'sGirl]

Just curious - is there something like a 'worker's council' in the US?

 

Union = represents trades

Worker's Council = represents worker within one company