Union Members Unite!

There's definitely skilled non-union tradesman. I work with guys that have joined our local that were non-union prior and they are smart guys that know their shit.

That's good that your CEO understands that. It's too bad most companies don't follow his lead. Can you imagine Walmart treating their employees like that. lol They use child labor in Mexico in their stores. It may be legal, but it doesn't make it right.

 

Yeah. Its common sense to him and the other owner. They'd happily pay several thousand dollars a year to keep us happy if it means that we will then keep their customers happy and keep us working hard. Plus the loyalty you have to a company like this is hard to beat.

Turn over is extremely high in IT and its actually very low at this company. We get a few people here and there leave for higher paying jobs doing less work but out of the 10 that have left for the company, 7 have reapplied here.

But for sure I can see why unions are needed in mining for example. Those poor bastards are exploited like crazy. Friend of mine works up north in a diamond mine. He makes like 150 grand driving a truck 6 months a year but the hours are insane and the conditions are brutal. And he lives in a shipping container with 2 other guys.

 

I worked in one of the strongest pro union regions in the US managing tradesmen for almost a decade.

I now choose to not manage union personal.

You can take from that what you will.

IMO anyone claiming union workers are of a higher skill than non-union personal need to stop drinking the cool aid at the meetings. Ive seen both sides and I currently sell to both sides.

My thought on the topic of "collective" anything is I am a man of my own free will and in this day and age I can negotiate for myself. I don't need "brothers" to tell me what to do or how to do it or who to vote for.

I fully understand the need for collective bargaining WAY back during the industrial revolution, but in today's global economy unions have done only one thing - sent our jobs overseas or worse yet, foreign workers are being sent here. I now see entire highrise buildings being imported and built by the Chinese while thousands of union laborers sit at home or on picket lines with no work.

Pick your poison... you can stick to your guns and not work, or wake up to reality that a journeyman shouldn't be retiring at age 55 with a 2 million dollar pension and lifetime medical while people in the private sector retire at 75 and partially have to work so long to pay for a tradesman's pension.

I'm waiting for the ball to drop on NJ unions. It's coming. The bloated salaries and horrible management will lead to its slow painful death.

 

You guys have a hard time finding work down there? Shit man electricians up here with 5 years experience and no union make easily into the 100k range, plumbers 80k+, framers 40-50k, drywallers 40-50k, bricklayers 60-70k, etc, etc.

Best advice I ever got was "If you go into trades, you better be willing to move where the work is"

 

Unions down here took on too many apprentices years ago and are now over bloated with workers and not enough work. For almost a decade I can remember 300+ guys sitting on the bench for one trade. No idea how many of the other trades have guys sitting.

 

That sucks. Up here the government is offering incentives like paying for people to go back to school to become electricians or plumbers because we need them so bad the pay is WAY over bloated.

 

Would you prefer those children have no job at all and their family can't feed them?

 

LOL. Wow, just wow.

 

Wanna answer the question or just gonna troll?

 

Aside from being a carpenter, I'm also a superintendent. It's been my experience that, over all, the union tradesmen are far better trained. There is an apprentice program that almost every union member has to go through, is there any requirement like that in an open shop? We also work with some nonunion outfits that are pretty good, because the company goes above and beyond to train their workers and make them want to work for them. The problem is, the training is not required, so you never know what you're going to get when awarding to an open shop.

I will agree that there are some lazy union members, like everywhere else. And there is definitely corruption. It's this kind of people that make us all look bad. If there's a guy on my job not pulling his weight, I lay him off and get someone else. The typical mindset of a union worker is "you and I cost the same amount of money, which of us wants to work harder for it" especially this day and age where you can lose your job any time.

 

There's plenty of starving kids in the US. Maybe it's time to get rid of those pesky child labor laws so they can eat. No, I don't think any corp should be using children.

 

No starving union bosses. Keep paying the union dues.

 

So you prefer them to go hungry. Nice.

 

this is the most badass thing about working for a union

 

What that they bankrupt every business, state, county or city they get their greedy paws in. Look at California for example or better yet the city of San Diego. The city workers retirement has bankrupt the city. How about Greece. Yep unions are awesome.

 

thats why if you cant beat em join em. then you can enjoy the benefits of them. i got in when i was 20 with the electicians last year. by the time i hit 55 ill have 35 years in and wont have to worry about working after that and still enjoy the benefits

 

Your argument to exploit children or they go hungry is ridiculous.

We'll just have to agree to disagree. There's nothing you can say that will make me alright with corporations using child labor.

 

Do you have to do 35 years? I'm pretty sure after my 30 im out if I choose to do so.

 

To worry about a union bankrupting a city it hilarious when you just pretend that stock traders and government are not doing the same this except 100 times worse over and over again. Unions are the only way to fairly even out the pay scale. Your complaining a teacher and a trades worker are too far apart on the pay scale, while also just pretending that the business owner who sometimes makes 10 times both their salaries just sits back making their money.

 

You're seriously going to blame unions for child labor in a foreign country for goods sold here cause you dislike unions?

Every business, state, county or city has gone bankrupt that uses unions?
While some of the rules need to be adjusted, before the market crashed those civil service jobs were a joke. 10-15 years ago how many people were jealous of a garbage mans salary or pension?
Not until all of the mismanagement and bad investments went bust did certain agendas point out that unions had contracts that were agreed on that protected their members. So the war on labor began. How are all those right to work states doing? They must all doing well and in the black right?