Union or not ?

[richwrench]

Anybody here a union member ? I was born & raised in western NY state & couldn't buy my way into a union job even with family members on the inside - lots of politics involved. So I moved to FL in '86 & in '99 I got hired by GTE (now Verizon) & am a member in good standing of the IBEW. Go figure, hardly ANY union jobs in FL compared to NY, but I got in. I'm very greatful for the benefits I have, especially in the current job climate, but the abuse sickens me. You've seen my signature " I must be a mechanic because I sure do work with a lot of tools..." I hate to admit it, but there is so much dead-wood in my company I can't believe we stay in business. Both my Grandfathers started as coal-miners in WV & PA & instilled a very strong work ethic in me from a very young age. I get a lot of satisfaction from a hard days work & I respect anybody who busts their ass for a living no matter WHAT they do, but my union protects some of the biggest slackers I've ever seen in my life, & it just eats me up. Are there any other union members here ? Is anybody pro-union or anti-union ? I suppose I should shut my pie-hole & collect my paycheck every week, but I hate to see so many hard working people unemployed & then have to listen to the whiners at my work complain about nothing, do nothing, & get a great paycheck every Friday for doing nothing. But then again I've had prior jobs where I was RAPED because I had no union to protect me. What do ya'll think ?

 

[joker69]

I work in a factory in Nebraska. We have closed alot of union plants because the union gets the wages high but doesn't put any money into the plant itself. I think in some businesses they are good but alot of the time they seam to hurt the employees. I grew up on the farm and also have a strong work ethic, it seams if a person is with a plant a long time and are lazy, it seams they have protection union or not.

 

[one2dmax]

I was in the union for a number of years and I haven't decided if I want to rejoin with the new union that represents me now in the new position. There is abuse in every level or work.

Sean

 

[naughtyG]

I've seen both sides of it. In the car factory I worked in back in France when I was 17-19 it was a complete joke - very similar to your situation where arseholes and slackers would take advantage of the protection to rape the system and do fuck all.
But then over here in the UK, I've been a Musicians' Union member for a long time, and against the uber-corrupt record companies, shark promoters and other nice fixers and meddlers, it's proven to be a godsend more than once. Also, for people who actually attempt to make a living out of playing an instrument (orchestra players esp) it's the only way they'll actually get paid for a gig, and even the union-agreed rate is shamefully low.

I guess they can have their uses, but are always open to much abuse. Always a bit of a gray area if you ask me..

 

[TURBOVMAX]

Been in and out of unions all of my life. Presently work on the other side of the fence as a manager. Short list UAW (United Auto Workers), IAM (International Association of Machinist's) and Operating Engineers (Construction)

Here's a funny story that kinda sums it up. When I first started as a machinist we had a shop chairman named Augie. He was an old guy with lots of street smarts and every other word out him was F*ck. He actually made a whole sentence with it once. Anyway to the story. Every month he would bring all of the union documents to the meeting in a shopping bag. So he became angry and wrote a f*ck letter to the head union shed complaining about it. Back then Phil Wheeler was president of the UAW. About a week later they sent him a brand spanking new deluxe alligator wrapped brief case.

Of course Augie laughed about it and I remember him saying "Those Mother F*ckers"
Just another layer of suits.

 

[dannymax]

I am also an IBEW member, inactive, from my days as a machinist with GE. Some say that unions were a must back in the early days of the Industrial Revolution, when worker abuse was high, but they have now outlived there usefulness. That they have become too large and powerful and actually hurt the worker more than help him.

This is prolly true. Without unions management would become all-powerful and abusive...with powerful unions there is huge waste and abuse of power!!

Is there a middle ground?...yes there is.....will it be reached?...Prolly not!!

 

[robsplatf4]

Operating Engineers here. We have a realatively small shop here and a pretty good group of guys who all work their asses off. It hasn't always been that way, but some people will always find a way to screw something good up down the road.

 

[maleko89]

IMO, unions are a think of the past. Each worker should be held accountable and rewarded based on their own merit...not a groups. A big part of GM's bankruptcy problem is because of unions. Free employee health care and shoddy workmanship. I remember riding a '00 or '01 Monte and that my '85 Accord ran better and smoother. They are getting better but too little, too late.

 

[Noxx72]

I suppose I should shut my pie-hole & collect my paycheck every week, but I hate to see so many hard working people unemployed & then have to listen to the whiners at my work complain about nothing, do nothing, & get a great paycheck every Friday for doing nothing

I sympathize directly. I have always been independent before my current job for Disneyland, which is of course union (IBEW). I've been here four years now and refer to it as "The best job I never did", yet amazingly, people manage to complain. It can be hard on the ego, remembering how I used to work, and seeing how my friends still do.

BUT.

Bottom line is, I've got a wife and a stack of bills, and it's easy to forget all the screwing over I got in previous jobs. Where I'm at now is money every thursday, good bennies, and a ton of security. My wife also works a union job in the medical field, FWIW. SO I put in eight and hit the gate, and I try to put it out of my mind, because my goal is to retire in my fifties on some land with a creek and a nice berm for a range backstop, I don't want to be 63 and commuting 3 hours a day like my old man.

It's a shitty system full of shitty people, but pretty much you can abuse it, or it can abuse you, there's not a lot of middle ground. You can opt out entirely on moral grounds, but you can't eat righteousness.

 

[Firewrench]

Service Employees Union, for state govt employees. I don't see much abuse of our system in forestry, everybody tends to work hard when forest fires are raging. Of course we do get some slack time during the winter but for the most part we stay busy. The union helps us with our benefit package and cola raises but otherwise doesn't seem to do too much. I've seen what management has tried to do a couple of times that the union (and common sense) declared unjust and I'm glad of their existance. I, too, have worked non-union jobs and gotten screwed royally. It's not like riding the gravy-train but is better than non-represented jobs here locally. I started late in my 20's and hope to retire at 58 yrs. I can't see a better route for me being as how I don't have a degree. All in all, I'm proud to be a union member even with it's inequities between agencies in our state govt.

 

[5thhorseman]

I work for the State of Ohio and am a member of the OCSEA / AFSCME. All they do is take my money and give it to their favorite political party (read: Democrat). Grievances filed are often ignored or worse, so mishandled that it makes the union employee look bad. My boss routinely violates sections of the contract......nothing has ever been done about him regardless of the numerous grievances being filed.

At one time, back when I was new, I was a shop steward. The other members of the shop would file grievances and make it look like I was the one who did it. They'd then back out leaving me holding the ball. Adam Henry's the lot of them. I decided to drop the shop steward thing. Funny, shortly after that, the two biggest trouble makers in the shop left to go work in the mail room. Hmmmmm.

It is so bad that I am seriously considering going fair share and leaving the union. I'd have to pay my dues, but at the end of the year I could get them back.

I would not recommend anybody to take a job with the State of Ohio at this time. Benefits were destroyed by the current Governor, healthcare costs went up and now we don't get holidays any more. We still have to work them, but we don't get paid for it.

In the shops that have to take the day off, it is now without pay. They automatically take the money out of our paychecks.

Pay raises have been frozen for three years. Personal leave has been frozen for two years....then they give us 36 hours of pay half way through the third year.....as if that makes up for it. Vacations are frozen at current level....meaning that we won't get any more hours of vacation added to our banks for three years.

All of this because of mismanagement of the budget by the current administration.

Great job OCSEA on that contract negotiation!!!!

 

[2stangs69-91]

I have been a Union memeber for almost 14 years now. There are allot of hard workers at my buisness. There are also some slackers , but not very many. I would hate to work my job non-union because some of the bosses are power hungery idiots. They work so hard at trying to fire people which is a joke beacuase they can't lol. That being said I have never been writen up. I used to think my Union was great but here latley I am not so sure. Bottom line is you have to be accountable for yourself , if you fall into the same routine as your lazy coworkers then you are no better.

 

[EvilD]

I'm a nurse and in a union, but it's CWA, go figure, they are about as corupt and useless as you get, they keep unemployable people in good paying jobs, they keep good experienced people from coming in at the proper pay level and provide nothng for people with less than 15 years in the union and even then you dont' get much benefit. I've also worked as management inthe hospital so i've seen the rediculous stuff they do, ie, i person had 16 call in s before she was fired, you should get fired after 12 per contract, but they had every reason inthe world to not let her get fired, which she endedup getting fired anyway... Union+extreme communism. you really have no say in what they do, and they "know whats best" for you.... Unions are bad news.

 

[Frosty72]

I don't know what CWA is, but if you don't have a say in what they do that's not how a union is supposed to run. YOU ARE THE UNION! I go to meetings monthly and keep up on what's going on, we talk about the issues at work and if we want to change something we get TOGETHER and do it, that is the whole idea behind it.
We are losing alot right now too, but I'm still glad that we are union, otherwise we would lose alot more, no doubt. The economy is mostly to blame, but wasteful government spending is huge also.
2 cents and all.

 

[EvilD]

I don't know what CWA is, but if you don't have a say in what they do that's not how a union is supposed to run. YOU ARE THE UNION! I go to meetings monthly and keep up on what's going on, we talk about the issues at work and if we want to change something we get TOGETHER and do it, that is the whole idea behind it.
We are losing alot right now too, but I'm still glad that we are union, otherwise we would lose alot more, no doubt. The economy is mostly to blame, but wasteful government spending is huge also.
2 cents and all.

CWA= Communications Workers of America, telephnoe companies and such. Meeting are pointless, they tell you what they are doin and thats it, you have no say. As i already stated, unions are the purest form of communism there is.

 

[robsplatf4]

CWA= Communications Workers of America, telephnoe companies and such. Meeting are pointless, they tell you what they are doin and thats it, you have no say. As i already stated, unions are the purest form of communism there is.

Well there's your first mistake if you're a nurse in a communications workers union. As Frosty said the workers are the union. Sorry but one bad union shouldn't lump all of them into the same group. Not all unions are like that.

 

[EvilD]

Well there's your first mistake if you're a nurse in a communications workers union. As Frosty said the workers are the union. Sorry but one bad union shouldn't lump all of them into the same group. Not all unions are like that.

Yeah they are all bad, i've worked for others also, and live in a area infested with unions. If unions weren't bad you would be given the oppertunity to not join them, Said it a million times before and will say it till the day i die, unions= communism. Communism is bad.

 

[robsplatf4]

Yeah they are all bad, i've worked for others also, and live in a area infested with unions. If unions weren't bad you would be given the oppertunity to not join them, Said it a million times before and will say it till the day i die, unions= communism. Communism is bad.

Oklahoma is a right to work state, meaning you don't have to join the union in the shop where you work. This means even if you don't join the union still represents you and you receive the benefits you just don't pay dues.

 

[richwrench]

Oklahoma is a right to work state, meaning you don't have to join the union in the shop where you work. This means even if you don't join the union still represents you and you receive the benefits you just don't pay dues.

Same here in FL - I pay my dues because I don't want to freeload, plus I figure it gives me a right to bitch. It's funny, we're IBEW down here & everybody wishes we were CWA because we heard they are so much better - the grass is always greener.

IBEW = I Barely Ever Work :rofl_200:

 

[EvilD]

NY is a right to work state but the scumbag unions use that as part of their barganing, ie you want ot work here, you join the union or you don't get hired, is in the agreement with the employer.