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Originally Posted by Jamo
Wes, with all due respect, I gotta call bullsh!t on most of your statements.
Working that many hours without overtime, and then you talk about how good unions are? If your union is so good, they would have already solved that issue via the DOL or a grievance. Actually, I find your statement extremely hard to believe.
And unions now understand about running companies out of business? Again...total BS. Explain Delphi, GM, Ford... I can run down a list by the hundreds of companies that have been ripped apart and left for dead by unions..
Unions can't even agree on what's good anymore...note the largest ones leaving the old political bosses at the AFL-CIO: SEIU, Unite, UFCW, Teamsters and a few others. What's the fight about? Money. The interest of the workers mean little.
Card Check legislation...you don't even want folks to have the right to vote anymore. Instead...use peer pressure and hand folks a pen to sign up while the union organizers watch, or suffer the consequences. Karl Marx would love it.
Unions basically suck...the industries that are taking us into the future are the non-unionized ones. May they stay that way forever.
Course, that's just my opinion.  |
Jamo,
Considering the strength of opinions I gotta say I appreciate the civil manner in which you and Bernie replied.
The reason we don't normally get any overtime is because we work by the mile (my operations-craft as a train crewmember, roadcrew). Working all around us are Mechanical (car/locomotive repair), Maintainence of Way (ex: section gang), Yardmaster, Dispatcher and Switchmen... all of which work an 8 hour day with overtime over 8. I can guarantee you we, the train crews, do try to get over the road as quickly as possible since pay/miles are the same regardless of time essentially on duty. There are times that it seems everybody else plots against us with delay after delay. After 12 hours, FRA (Feds) require that we no longer operate. We may be stranded on a dead train, riding in a van or passengers on another train to get to a terminal where we can become "rested" off duty for at least 8 hours, that we may legally work again. The next duty call can come in 6:45 hrs with 1:15 advance duty notification. Whenever we excede 12 hours and about 45 minutes we
do get overtime. Ex: My last trip out, 11:59 hrs, the last trip in, 12:00 hrs with 14:51 hrs rest layover, but alas, no overtime.
Explain Delphi, GM, Ford...
This is a little more complicated. Basically what you, and many others, are saying is that the workers are a terrible burden to their company. They took advantage of their contract. What we have here is a situation where Wimpy, of Popeye fame, says, "give me a hamburger today and I will pay you on Tuesday". It may be down on paper as a contract... but you, of anybody reading this, should know what a piece of paper is often worth today. Never ever believe Wimpy.
I can make a couple of biased comparos you may use for additional perspective.
Contracts:
Imagine that you are the counsel that has freed O.J.
Right up front you told him it would cost a lot of money. But O.J. is desperate and he agrees to pay. In a contract, mind you. Then after you win the case, he says, "You know, the real reason I'm free is because I'm obviously innocent. And I was just thinking about all the money you charged me, in my panic, for the obvious. I think it was too much. I don't deserve to be treated like that. It will be a hardship on me to pay it. I need the money for important stuff. So I'm going to ask my favorite politicians to reduce what you say I owe. And furthermore I'm going to loudly tell the public what a burden lawyers are... until the public actually believes it. Ripping us apart and leaving us for dead. Fighting back and forth at our expense and for what... money. The interest of the criminals...I mean clients... means little."
Jamo, as a sometimes berated union member, I know better and so do you. Should you as a lawyer for O.J. in this hypothetical instance, a provider of service, roll over or stand your ground? What about other providers?
Another comparo:
Some guys row the boat. Others call cadence and crack the whip. Still others man the tiller. And somebody(s), maybe one or all own the boat.
The guys rowing the boat sweat and work hard. For their effort they get an agreed upon "free lunch" even after retirement. To increase the bottom line the young guys still rowing get less food and/or row harder with less rowers. United, all (most?) of them agree they don't feel like rowing so much anymore. Damn uniters. To sweeten the deal, the owner provides free 5 cent bandaids for their blisters... even after retirement. It's in the contract. This was a good deal for the owner... until the price of bandaids went up to $100 each.
Arghh. The workers are now a terrible burden. Worse yet, the guy at the tiller was (and is?) steering in circles. So how can the boat owner afford the bandaids? Easy. Let the rowers pay for them. Or get cheaper rowers from China. Understandably, enough to make a rower want to sink the boat rather than give up a seat. Maybe some boats should be sunk. But I agree that's not realistic. The rowers should never have believed Wimpy. More importantly, somebody has to address the new cost of bandaids. Seems everybody only worries when everybody buys the bandaids. It's starting to happen.
Hmmm. Somewhere I saw a good joke on corporate rowing competition.
Card Check legislation... Hard call. But I will say that during the
long drawn out National Labor Relations Board secret ballot elections, shrewd management has often intimidated or fired employees (est aver 1 in 5 if union-active) to the point that many certainly resent the ordeal. Card Check is merely a quick vote to circumvent this gauntlet. And admittedly gain advantage. Unfair? I don't know. There is a good reason for corporate to fight this and it highly likely isn't for the workers benefit. Follow the money. Also see more, both sides: Employee Free Choice Act (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employee_Free_Choice_Act ).
Unions basically suck...
Yeah. It's too bad we need still them, after all these years. Need them to fight back against blue-blooded capitalist owner/manager coalitions that show little socialistic mercy towards the evil guy who actually does the pickin'. Unions are a necessary evil, not for the bluebloods of course.
But do you know what else is a necessary evil? With all due respect... and sorry to say it... but lawyers are. You may not agree lawyers are a necessary evil. But if the world was perfect and fair, there would be no disputes and I would not need to belong to a union... nor you to the bar.
We could work together. I think you'd make one he11 of a railroader.
Or maybe we could both pick grapes since everything would pay the same. Frolicking through the vines.
There wouldn't be any lawyers. But there would be balance of sorts, of course. Little too creamy and dull for me, I like a little conflict just to keep things interesting. A little unfairness. A continuing variance mixture of capitalism and socialism. That's just my opinion.
The industries that are taking
us into the future are the non-unionized ones?
I don't know. Might not be much of a future for
us caucasians. Even the Chinese are rethinking their vast government union policies... according to the latest Teamster propoganda. Seems like over half of Chinese exports aren't from Chinese owned factories. Outsiders, taking advantage of previously cheap labor no doubt. Hoffa was over there corrupting them, according to the article. It's getting to be a world economy.
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