All Union Brothers and Sisters

[Stringer]

Originally posted by Airhead

But I also wish to grow a business that provides careers for people, not just jobs.

Airhead, if you own the business, you can do that with or without a union.

[Airhead]

Originally posted by Stringer
Airhead, if you own the business, you can do that with or without a union.

True Stringer, but the benefits to me as a business owner is the additional market having the bug opens up. Also if I hire through the Hall I know the employees will be more skilled and qualified than hiring off the street.

[TheflyingElk]

I am proud to say that I am a Union member and a executive board member of my local, I have watched my company deal with employee's thru the years and we have a good relationship with our management.  I have noticed that the presence of the contract  has made things more constent for all employee's if the company has a favorite son they have to put  them in mangament ortherwise they have to be treated the same as all of us. the local members make or break their union, some are better than others It's llike anything else It's what you make it.

[GRUNHERZ]

Originally posted by Rolex
I had the pleasure of negotiating with both the IBEW and the Steelworkers in the early 80's.

In the IBEW case in St. Louis, the union workers on the floor sabotaged $18 million worth of custom engineered equipment being manufactured as a 'pre-bargaining' warning. I shut the plant down and put 230 people out of work while moving the product line to another facitlity. Only moved 3 people to the new facility after they spent 3 months in the field repairing the shipped equipment.

Never had a problem with the IBEW after that.

In the Steelworkers case, I was trying to turn around a factory in Chicago that had been losing money for 3 years - for no reason other than complacency by a workforce with an average of 27 years seniority.

Had a million dollar bottom line turnaround in first year by working with the local union to establish some work and production incentives that would pay those who produced, and not pay so well those who didn't want to produce. Everything was going fine until... the national union guys decided they wanted a big raise (more union dues) so they sent a 'negotiator' to deal with the big bad management - me.

We were already paying $6 more per hour than our competitors and had an offer laying on the table to move the facility to North Carolina. NC would help finance construction, pay for employee training, subsidize wages on a graduated scale for 3 years and defer local property taxes for 5 years if we moved the factory. I resisted out of loyality to the employees who worked hard to help make the plant profitable again.

As I sat at the table across from the national union guy and the local shop rep ( a single mother with 2 kids), the Steelworker big shot laid out his demands for 20% across the board increases and a no layoffs contract for 3 years. of course, I said no.

Union guy says they'll strike and the local rep smirked.

I looked at the local rep and explained that after your strike benefits are up, you'll have to find another place to work and the union bigshot will simply go back to New York and collect his salary.

It was a losing battle. The union big shot filled the union workers full of "brothers and sisters solidarity" stuff at the union meeting that night. They bought it hook, line and sinker and vowed to strike.

The factory was moved, the workers lost their jobs, the union guy went back to New York and I ended my career as a turnaround specialist. I couldn't stomach it any more.

Union brothers...

You are my hero!

[oboe]

Why is he your hero Grun?   Because he stood up to the union's demands to the point of moving the factory away?   Or because he had enough of a conscience to leave his career after having to do something he found so distasteful?

[GRUNHERZ]

Originally posted by oboe
Why is he your hero Grun?   Because he stood up to the union's demands to the point of moving the factory away?   Or because he had enough of a conscience to leave his career after having to do something he found so distasteful?

Depends on who is asking and how they are asking. Both are admirable deeds.

[oboe]

The answer to the question depends on who is doing the asking?

Sounds like something Kane's master would tell him...

But I think "both" is quite a fair answer.

[GRUNHERZ]

 Just having some some fun and seei g where this thread will go considering the original poster also had this in mind.

Yea I think both were the right thing to do.

On one hand I think managers have every legal and moral right to persue the survival and growth of their business in the best way possible if the union machinery is taking things too far and pressuring them too much.

Unfortunatly it sometimes happens that the working union members are hurt very badly when this comes to a head and the business closes shop.

It seems Rolex was not comfortable with this so he stoppedc playing the game and did something else..


Still, DETH TO UNIONS!  <--- Not like they need much moew help doing that to themselves in the USA....

[FUNKED1]

Originally posted by Lazerus
Unions are legalised, organised crime. They are absolutely traceable to the downfall of American industrial superiority by their terroristic attack on corporations, causing the economically unsupported increase in wages that has led to our products and skills being uncompetitive in the world market.

I agree, and I'm an NEA member.  

[Creamo]

Originally posted by Rolex
I had the pleasure of negotiating with both the IBEW and the Steelworkers in the early 80's.

In the IBEW case in St. Louis, the union workers on the floor sabotaged $18 million worth of custom engineered equipment being manufactured as a 'pre-bargaining' warning. I shut the plant down and put 230 people out of work while moving the product line to another facitlity.

Ok sparky.

[JB88]

lazerus.  running and hiding is nothing more than BnZ BBcm.  get back here and fight!

DWEEB!  

[Toad]

We have to have Unions.

You had a time when there were no Unions. It brought this:

TRIANGLE SHIRTWAIST FIRE

On March 25, 1911, a fire swept through the Triangle Shirtwaist Company in the Greenwich Village section of New York City, a sweatshop where workers, mostly women, did low-paying piecework in a building with no safety precautions. The blaze killed 146 workers who were trapped by the lack of fire escapes and management's practice of locking all the exits to keep workers from leaving the job for breaks. The factory's owners were indicted, but a jury acquitted them, fanning the outrage over the tragedy.

Oh, wait... that could never happen in these modern times. Now management is so much more enlightened and fair. They would never lock the doors on their employees.

Right?

The Hamlet, N.C., Fire

Last September 3, (1991) a fire broke out near the deep-fat fryer in Imperial’s chicken-processing plant and spread quickly through the one-story building. The plant had no windows and no sprinkler or fire alarm system. And workers who got to the unmarked fire exits found some of them locked from the outside.

Imperial’s management was using the same "loss control" technique as the bosses at Triangle Shirt Waist--and with the same result. Twenty-five of the 90-odd employees working at the time were killed, suffocated by the black smoke that filled the plant, and 55 more were injured.

See, the only effective tool to combat bad management so far has been an equally bad thing called Unions.

Either one alone, you're screwed pal. Both in opposition, you're still screwed but not as deeply.

Believe it.

[Sled]

There is plenty of corruption on BOTH sides of this fence. Any complaints about union corruption, is a case of the pot calling the kettle BLACK. Fact is, I wish we didn't need unions, and when the day arrives that we can trust corporate America to treat it's workers well. I will be the first in line to abolish them. I won't hold my breath for that.

[Sled]

Fine post Toad, Thank you

[Bodhi]

Toad,

That fire is almost impossible to happen again, especially with the nationwide acceptance of a standardised code for fire suppression and protection.  Beyond corporate management, local code enforcement should shoulder just as much blame as the company did in the responsibility for those deaths in 91.

As for unions, the ALPA union is a FAR cry different thatn the Teamsters, UAW, USW, and ALWA are.  Those organisations are nothing short of organised racketeering outfits that prey on workers salaries to support their existence.  When these same workers struggle to keep afloat, their union hierarchy spends millions to build club houses and amenities available only to union leaders.  

Thats bullcaca and we all know it.  

You remember all the BS with Delta ramp workers, flight attendants, and mechanics being "lured" all these wonderous incentives to go union.  The only ones for it were mostly those guys that worked at one pace, slow, or non existent.  The rest of us saw no need to give more salary away.  In the same token, had the employees as a whole worked harder on the ground and in the air, and management not been so freaking corrupt (I am still trying to decide who was worse Ron Allen, or Leo Mullins) then Delta would not be in the shape it is in today.  I was so tired of these demands for higher wages for my dept when no one wanted to work harder, it was sickening.  As for the union lures to get us to join, there was offers of leadership in the new union to those of us that were popular with fellow employees along with cash incentives if we got people to vote for it... naw nothing corrupt there.  

As far as I am concerned, most unions have far outlived their usefulness and now are more concerned with union survival then workers rights.