The Down Range Forum
Member Section => Down Range Cafe => Topic started by: twyacht on December 31, 2010, 05:31:53 AM
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Good to know the Union folks can "take the high road" for their fellow citizens in times of a blizzard.
NOT.
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/sanit_filthy_snow_slow_mo_qH57MZwC53QKOJlekSSDJK
Sanitation Department's slow snow cleanup was a budget protest
By SALLY GOLDENBERG, LARRY CELONA and JOSH MARGOLIN
Last Updated: 12:37 PM, December 30, 2010
Posted: 2:34 AM, December 30, 2010
EXCLUSIVE
Selfish Sanitation Department bosses from the snow-slammed outer boroughs ordered their drivers to snarl the blizzard cleanup to protest budget cuts -- a disastrous move that turned streets into a minefield for emergency-services vehicles, The Post has learned.
Miles of roads stretching from as north as Whitestone, Queens, to the south shore of Staten Island still remained treacherously unplowed last night because of the shameless job action, several sources and a city lawmaker said, which was over a raft of demotions, attrition and budget cuts.
A sleeping sanitation worker in Queens
"They sent a message to the rest of the city that these particular labor issues are more important," said City Councilman Dan Halloran (R-Queens), who was visited yesterday by a group of guilt-ridden sanitation workers who confessed the shameless plot.
The snitches "didn't want to be identified because they were afraid of retaliation," Halloran said. "They were told [by supervisors] to take off routes [and] not do the plowing of some of the major arteries in a timely manner. They were told to make the mayor pay for the layoffs, the reductions in rank for the supervisors, shrinking the rolls of the rank-and-file."
New York's Strongest used a variety of tactics to drag out the plowing process -- and pad overtime checks -- which included keeping plows slightly higher than the roadways and skipping over streets along their routes, the sources said.
The snow-removal snitches said they were told to keep their plows off most streets and to wait for orders before attacking the accumulating piles of snow.
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OBTW, a newborn baby died, an elderly woman died, as ambulances could not get to them. 45,000, 911 calls took hours to get ambulances to, some EMT workers had to hike a couple blocks due to unplowed streets. Oh, but they got Times Square "all clean" for the New Years Celebration, and the tourists....
I wonder if the union negligence, will make them responsible for their actions.
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I'm not an expert, by any means, when it comes to matters of law, but these miscreants need to be held responsible for their detestable actions. They should be charged with wanton endangerment at the very least and then dragged into civil court by the families of those that died due to their behavior.
Swoop
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Michelle Malkin's column today carries a reminder of back in the 60's when union garbage collectors let trash build up till it was a genuine menace to public health and safety. Cholera warnings and rat infestations.
They simply don't give a damn and the mobbed up unions protect them from any mechanism designed to make them give a damn.
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Question here: are the sanitation supervisors in NYC a part of the same union as the drivers? In my union the supervisors are not members of any union but do hold the power of discipline over their union drivers. If the NYC supervisors are not in the union why is the union being blamed for this action? Too many times the ultra liberals in this country blame all the ills of the work force on "unions". Let's occasionally remember who supervises all the work done in this country. When the head of a corporation makes more than 100 time the average pay of the people actually doing the work there is a problem. Before any of you take the time to flame me for what I just wrote try to understand I'm not a democrat or a communist or a socialist. I'm just a retired working stiff who's tired of the "powers that be" of blaming this country's ills on the working men and women, unionized or not. This country, and I include the government, rewards corporate leaders by investing more money in their corporations when they eliminate jobs here and send those jobs out of the country. If you ask why you get the same pat answer "the unions have priced themselves out of the market". You won't, however, get these same corporate big wigs to take a cut in their multi-million dollar salaries. We've all got to work together, unions, industry leaders, investors, and government, to put people back to work in THIS country not in Mexico, India and China.
Sorry about the rant but I'm tired of this anti-union crud I hear all the time from management types. I know there are some crappy unions and crappy union people but most union people, in my experience, gave an honest days work for an honest days pay and glad to do it.
Pecos
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The Union leadership is so tightly wound up with the Mafia and the Democratic party machine that they are nearly one organization, any one who rocks the boat will lose.
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The Union leadership is so tightly wound up with the Mafia and the Democratic party machine that they are nearly one organization, any one who rocks the boat will lose.
To my knowledge my union was not that tight with organized crime (politicly correct?) but they had their noses so far up the Dems back sides it was and is pathetic that was why I stayed on their butts as best as I could. However, to blame the union in NYC for something the supervisors ordered is not fair either. My point was and still is most liberals blame the unions for all the problems in this country when the non-union leaders are shipping jobs off shore and breaking the country and their being rewarded. Let's all work together and get off this blame the working man kick and fix our problems. (We can start by firing the Federal Government and getting some people in there who want to do the job.) By the by, one of the biggest "corporations" in the country with a large number workers who don't want to work (I've seen this myself) is the NON-UNION federal government.
Pecos
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Unions have been very beneficial in ensuring work place safety and decent pay for its members in many industries. Those glory days are long gone and unions have become a self serving entity that is more interested in the power they wield than in actually doing the job they were designed to do. They are very much like the two major political parties in that respect.
Do they still have a place in the work force? Probably in some more streamlined form. Under the current manifestation they are killing the goose that laid the golden egg with their misplaced sense of entitlement and greed.
To wit:
The power of unions: Average stagehand at Lincoln Center in NYC makes $290K a year
http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/2010/12/power-unions-average-stagehand-lincoln-center-nyc-makes-290k-year (http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/2010/12/power-unions-average-stagehand-lincoln-center-nyc-makes-290k-year)
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"misplaced sense of entitlement and greed"? The head of the corporation I worked for was paid 40 million in total compensation the year I retired (10 years ago) when I made 45k for the same year and that was with some required overtime.
What I'm trying to get at is not that the unions are the savior of the world these days, not at all, but they are not solely responsible for the economic ills in this country. While the national leaders of the unions may have lost complete touch with the rank and file so have the greedy management types who would love nothing better than to return to the "good old days" before the unions when your ability to work was dependent on some asshat who might not like the color of your shirt and would fire you from your .25 an hour job. At one time the company I worked for would suspend you for riding a motorcycle during your off time and fire you if you rode one to work. If that is the type of treatment the union bashers want then let's kill all unions and we can have those days back. Otherwise take a little time to read what's been written or spoken and think for a while about who is causing the problems in this country. By the way I know there are union worker who are making unbelievable salaries I'm not condoning that but can you really blame them for that when a baseball player makes 5 to 10 mil or more a year? I know, I know they're union but it still doesn't equate to the union people I worked with made 40 to 45k a year.
Pecos
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Bill, the relationship between Unions and "organized crime" goes back to the very earliest days of Union organizing in America. The Socialist's and Anarchists who led the fight for workers rights back then needed help to counter the Pinkerton muscle employed as strike breakers by big business. So they turned to the criminal gangs that had demonstrated their abilities as hired muscle for the Democratic parties in NY and Chicago, and later LA.
This has nothing to do with our political sentiments, it is simply History and can be documented by any one who wishes to do a little research.
The fact that that relationship continued is illustrated by the fact that when the Navy wanted to secure NY's docks during WWII, they wound up dealing with Luciano, then of course you had Hoffa,in the Teamsters, and Tony Boyle at the UMWA (the guy who ordered the Jablonski family murdered.)
Up till a couple (?) years ago when it became a pay site I used to read Jerry Capesci's "Gangland" column from the New York Sun, This is a column that is used by NYPD as a source of info on who's who, his notes have been used in court cases, and even the "Five Families" refer to him and occasionally talk to him. He was frequently mentioning scandals involving every aspect of city services, Construction, garbage hauling,Storm windows in city housing the last one I was following was in School bus contracts .
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It's the law of unintended consequences at work.
Like cats on the Galapagos islands. Cats (unions) were brought in to control the rats (bad management) that had inadvertently been introduced to the islands by visiting ships. They made a small dent in the rat population but soon found that the local wildlife (the taxpayer), which had no natural fear of them, was easier prey. So the local wildlife is being decimated by the cats as well as competing with the rats (who are still there but are sneakier now) for food.
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However, to blame the union in NYC for something the supervisors ordered is not fair either.......... My point was and still is most liberals blame the unions.................... Let's all work together and get off this blame the working man kick and fix our problems.
Pecos
That's like saying the guards at the NAZI concentration camps shouldn't be blamed for what they were ordered to do............The unions ARE the liberals. Look at their leadership and their political objectives................If the "working man" had actually been working, we wouldn't be talking about this at all.
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That's like saying the guards at the NAZI concentration camps shouldn't be blamed for what they were ordered to do............The unions ARE the liberals. Look at their leadership and their political objectives................If the "working man" had actually been working, we wouldn't be talking about this at all.
If the "working man" in NYC had done what was needed in defiance of his non-union supervisor (as I read the article) he would have been suspended or worse. Union or not you do what the boss says unless what he says brings up a safety problem. To automatically blame the unions is the same as blaming the fish if your 10 year old line breaks, competely unthinking.
Pecos
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If the "working man" in NYC had done what was needed in defiance of his non-union supervisor (as I read the article) he would have been suspended or worse. Union or not you do what the boss says unless what he says brings up a safety problem. To automatically blame the unions is the same as blaming the fish if your 10 year old line breaks, competely unthinking.
Pecos
So your saying that "a newborn baby died, an elderly woman died, as ambulances could not get to them. 45,000, 911 calls took hours to get ambulances to, some EMT workers had to hike a couple blocks due to unplowed streets." is not a SAFETY issue?!?
Brian
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The number one issue that these supervisors are going to need to answer for is "Why was a plow truck assigned to each emergency vehicle in the city?" From my years of serving as a lowly EMT, to supervising the ambulance service, to teaching many levels of emergency response, to overseeing special rescue teams in a multi-county setting, of the list of "first things" was assuring that there was always plow equipment ready to escort emergency response equipment and personel.
The task of assigning plow equipment came right behind items like do we have employees that are trained and ready, do we have equipped vehicles, do we have radios, do we have a dispatch system, do we understand everyone's service area and chain of command, can we get help to those in need 99.9% of the time?
This investigation will resemble an onion: First layer will be if the procedures were in place; who dropped the ball on setting up or activating the procedures; who hindered the procedures; if things weren't in place, why was the issue addressed when the first emergency response failed; and did frontline employees act on their own to slow down or fail to act to their capacity even if not told by supervisor? This is only a partial list, but you can easily see the depth.
The mayor was right to take the heat as a local official unlike what we saw with Katrina and the buck passing. I give him a huge thumbs up and initial support for that step. His future and how history treats him will be revealed by #1. How he digs into the issues and makes corrections, and #2. What is revealed as his or his administrations mistakes in the past. If reports and inspections showed that "his" response forces were ready it will fall just to how he handles this moving forward.
The biggest issue that I see and fear is that this is what has been mentioned here: The union has too much power over its workers and the possibility of organized crime being deeply entrenched in the supervision positions. Investigations like this in a city like New York is causing ulcers for the Mayor's security team I'm sure.
No matter what is found in the investigations I see some supervisors and/or plow drivers facing endangerment charges for sure, possible manslaughter, and maybe even low levels of murder. I hope the MSM doesn't sweep this under the carpet like the workers that abandoned their posts during Katrina (what ever happened to those bus drivers and emergency workers that parked their vehicles and fled while citizens drown). So much more fun to rip leaders, responsible or not, than to go after the true problem.
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And the result will be half a dozen people who just did what their paychecks demanded will get screwed and those who were truly responsible will get the "Rangel" treatment.
That's how it works.
Go forth my crony and sin get caught no more
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They kept, (not all, but some), their plows higher than they could have, so they could do it two,three times. Padding checks for the OT.
It's the same mindset that the dope smoking drinking Chrysler union workers, that got busted, have... We're good, I'll punch my time card, and "F" the rest.
Just like the SUV, and tow truck operator......I get $48.00 an hour, hazard pay, OT, double-time if over a given shift allotment, bill the city, and I'll plow your side street when I get there....After lunch,.....
Granted, the citizens could have shoveled themselves out, but I saw the Brooklyn locals, cry out: " why do "I" have to shovel".....
Won't even reference the type of "hood" it was,....
I got's mine,.... >:(
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Truth is that the city dwellers are getting exactly what they deserve. They allowed it to happen, and they allow it to continue. As long as they get their welfare, and subsidized housing, rent controlled Apt's and the other little scams that 80% have going on they will do no more than bitch when their ox gets gored.
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Sad thing here is that they talked about this storm for a week before it got to NY and New England. Boston has to deal with this sort of thing every year. Who's bitching up there? Hartord? Albany? Providence? I've not heard of any....
Everyone fails the test in this one!
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To be a supervisor in the NYC unions you must first come up through the ranks. Thus, by the time you get to be a supervisor, you are already deeply in bed with the union leadership, and will do their bidding otherwise the union will shut you down.
In Chicago, one of the great abominations was McCormick Place - the city's huge trade show facility. There, if you were a vendor at a trade show, and unknowingly plugged in a display, the union workers would raise a ruckus. There was little they could actually do to you, so, according to the rules in the contract you signed to show there, a union electrician would walk over, unplug your display, charge you something on the other of $500 to do that, then walk away. Your booth just went to the bottom of the "get hooked up" list, and if you were lucky you might actually get hooked up before the show ended.
Of course, slipping the individual electrician a $100 would do wonders for getting hooked up before the show started.
The city was and is in bed with the unions, and they run the town and the county for that matter. That is why the electrical codes in the county still require EMT conduit for wiring, and many places still forbid PVC waste pipe or PEX for supply lines.
The role of unions in the big cities especially is nasty, vile and disgustingly venal and counter-freedom. They served a purpose at one time (think coal miners) and still do when the bosses get too uppity. But in general, they wield too much power and serve only their own short-sighted interests. If you disagree, fine. But consider why the American automobile industry is in such sad shape. Union workers making $42 an hour pretty much made the cars too expensive and anti-competitive practices resulted in crap cars that were clearly inferior to the imports.
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Maybe buying booze, and staying warm, as a Union Employee, helped.
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/brooklyn/slushed_sloshed_fX907nPJIEevDILBvlYAtK
Sanit bigs boozed amid snow chaos: witnesses
By REUVEN BLAU and BRAD HAMILTON
Last Updated: 9:19 AM, January 2, 2011
Posted: 2:10 AM, January 2, 2011
EXCLUSIVE
Instead of plowing, they got plowed.
A group of on-duty Sanitation supervisors is under investigation for allegedly buying booze and chilling in their cozy department car for hours Monday night after the blizzard stranded a bus and three snowplows blocks away.
The city Department of Investigation is probing the incident after witnesses said four snow blowers blew off their duties to get blitzed, buying two six-packs of beer from a Brooklyn bodega. The workers then walked five blocks to their car, which was in 20 inches of snow in the middle of 18th at McDonald avenues near the F train entrance, passing the stuck bus and idle plows on 18th Avenue between Third and Fourth streets.
The four remained in the idling sedan until morning -- then told their bosses they could do nothing about the blizzard because they had run out of gas, one witness said.
"They just sat in their car all night with the heat running," the witness said.
MICHAEL GOODWIN: EMPEROR MIKE'S SNOW BLINDNESS
Customers who saw the group buying beer at the Ocean Mini Mart at 3917 18th Ave. in Kensington shouted at the workers.
"They were saying, 'How can you do this? You should be outside!' " a witness told The Post.
But the Sanitation team was unmoved.
"One guy said, 'Don't worry about it. We know what we're doing,' " the witness recalled.
A block from the deli, six riders remained on the snow-stalled bus all night.
The supervisors had shown up at the deli near Ocean Parkway at 8 p.m. when a smiling, uniformed Sanitation honcho bought a six-pack of Heineken Light, the witnesses said. About 30 minutes later, another worker from the group bought a six-pack of Corona Light.
Later, they ducked inside their car and hunkered down.
"I saw them drinking, but I'm not sure what it was," said a witness who lives in the area.
In the morning, the four men returned to the deli, where they were heard telling their bosses over the phone that their car had run out of gas.
"This guy was on his cell and said, 'We're out of fuel,' " a witness said.
Department of Investigation Assistant Commissioner Keith Schwam said "we're looking into what happened."
The DOI is also investigating whether Sanitation workers contributed to the chaos with an organized slowdown.
Yesterday, city officials claimed every street in the city had seen a plow and said garbage pickups would resume tomorrow, starting with street-corner cans and, possibly, residential trash.
Additional reporting by C.J. Sullivan
Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/brooklyn/slushed_sloshed_fX907nPJIEevDILBvlYAtK#ixzz19vi7XTvw
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Sure am glad unions are up to the challenge.
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If the "working man" in NYC had done what was needed in defiance of his non-union supervisor (as I read the article) he would have been suspended or worse. Union or not you do what the boss says unless what he says brings up a safety problem. To automatically blame the unions is the same as blaming the fish if your 10 year old line breaks, competely unthinking.
Pecos
PecosBill, I have been trying for a couple days to come up with a reply to your posts, This is the best I have come up with :
While you and some other individual Union members may be men of integrity, Unions as organizations do not and never have had that virtue, They are little more than political whores.
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If the "working man" in NYC had done what was needed in defiance of his non-union supervisor (as I read the article) he would have been suspended or worse. Union or not you do what the boss says unless what he says brings up a safety problem. To automatically blame the unions is the same as blaming the fish if your 10 year old line breaks, competely unthinking.
Pecos
YES, it's the Union's fault. And yours for supporting them.
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I give up! All unions suck! Let's leave everything to the managers they are the only people i the corporate and governmental worlds who are doing their jobs! The stupid, lazy union pukes just want to show up and collect an overblown paycheck for sitting on their collective butts. If we disband all the unions our economy will flourish, there will be a chicken in every pot, and we'll all live on the big rock candy mountain.
Now that I've said that let me say this: I DO NOT, CAN NOT AND WILL NOT condone what was done in NYC. No matter who started it or who participated that was ignorant and selfish at best criminal at worst. My point was and is don't automatically blame union people when something goes wrong. By the way, the Nazi guards at the concentration camps faced death not just fireing.
Brian, when I spoke of safety I was speaking of on job safety. The safety of all participants in a work force must be of prime importance. If the work force is disabled then everyone's safety is compromised. If you were paying attention I think you would have heard that those 45,000 911 calls were in the first few hours of the blizzard and the 911 system overloaded. This was well before the streets could have been cleared.
In closing I again concede that unions should be disbanded and outlawed. Let the managers do whatever they want the country will be better off.
Pecos
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No one here bashes the unions in a blanket condemnation Pecos. If we review some of the union history, from the Teamsters, to the Longshoreman, to the IBEW, to the SEIU, GAWU, NEA, etc,... .....the facts are not flattering.
The fact is they support Liberal agendas, they fund Liberal ideology. The DOT in your state, whether union or not follows the same mindset:
5 Men watch, as 1 man digs. All get paid a crapload more than non union employees.
Unions don't suck, but their politics do. Ask the car manufacturers that went to the Southern states, or the gun manufacturers that moved to more cost effective states.
Until they get off their high horse, and power trip, in the end management, will never be able to sustain them......
If a union worker gets $38.50 an hour, to do the same thing a non-union worker in South Carolina will do for $15.00, the bottom line is exactly that.
Unions are worthless without an employer, and BHO and his policies, aren't making it easier for them....
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While I have a tendency to "bash unions" under blanket statements, I really do not believe they are all bad. However, unions for the most part have become must like government - Top heavy, inefficient, and "one size fits all" administrators. Unions did fix problems in the past, and they do from time to time fix issues now. However, I see more harm than good to the general public in today's world.
Answer this question and justify the union stance to me: Our local city and county workers are union employees. They get above average (median, mean and mode - every way that average is described) salary for our area, and that is without figuring in their good benefits. It is not uncommon during winter snow removal times for them to put in a normal work week Monday - Wednesday, working eight hour days. Wednesday night it snows, and they start plowing. After a ten hour day they go home only to get called back in early on Friday due to blowing or more snow. Saturday they work another twelve hour day due to blowing. Sunday is six hours because of blowing, but Monday through Friday of the next week there is nothing to do after their first six hours of repair and maintenance to the trucks, graders and blades.
Current union negotiations require that time and a half for every hour over 40 in the Sunday - Saturday week; They can not bank "comp time" at regular or time and a half for over time hours worked; They can not be sent home on a slow day to balance hours (they get to sit around and collect pay when there is nothing to do, and then get over time after they've had an easy week); and if you even go half an hour into a holiday it is automatic double time.
This same type of system goes on in factories, schools, and transportation around here. I am not against treating a worker fairly, but guaranteeing set hours in a flexible situation is unrealistic, and paying them to be on hand when their is no work while paying overtime the next day is something that nobody can afford.
Our county highway and parks departments have tried to work four ten hour days for eight months of the year. It took special permission from union officials out of state to allow them to do it without collecting two hours of overtime per day (eight hours is the standard day and anything extra is time and a half). They could only get permission to do it Memorial day through Labor day, and because of the union rules Memorial, Labor and July 4th are weeks when they can only work eight hour days or the union requires double time. I don't know about your business, but when you work roads or park maintenance you will get far more productivity out of four ten hour days than you will out of six eight hour days. Project mobilization is a killer!
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Look, I'm with Pecos here (I know, you're shocked ;)). Bottom line is this. Employers and employees are locked in a complex relationship. On the one hand, its adversarial, they both want a larger piece of the pie. On the other, its symbiotic. If the company fails, they both lose. As a society, we also are stuck in the middle. We want businesses to suceed. On the other, to keep both social peace and stimulate the economy, we need workers to make a decent wage and prefer private health isurance and pensions to government programs. Unions and labor bargaining are no different than other types of competition in the free market. Nothing is free and everyone wants to profit. If its done right, and both sides are reasonable, a company with unions can prosper, look at UPS. If on the other hand it goes to far, you have the BS described in the OP. Still, if you didn't have unions, you'd be working for $5 an hour with no benies, low saftey and a lot more people would be advocating for REAL socialism, not the watered down welfare state version.
FQ13
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I would give just about anything for the trade unions from the 60 and 70s to come back( atleast the ones on the west coast)
Back them if you didn't cut the mustard, you were out of the union. Now days they would never think about that. Nor would they think about violating some one from using illegal tools.
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No one here bashes the unions in a blanket condemnation Pecos. If we review some of the union history, from the Teamsters, to the Longshoreman, to the IBEW, to the SEIU, GAWU, NEA, etc,... .....the facts are not flattering.
The fact is they support Liberal agendas, they fund Liberal ideology. The DOT in your state, whether union or not follows the same mindset:
5 Men watch, as 1 man digs. All get paid a crapload more than non union employees.
Unions don't suck, but their politics do. Ask the car manufacturers that went to the Southern states, or the gun manufacturers that moved to more cost effective states.
Until they get off their high horse, and power trip, in the end management, will never be able to sustain them......
If a union worker gets $38.50 an hour, to do the same thing a non-union worker in South Carolina will do for $15.00, the bottom line is exactly that.
Unions are worthless without an employer, and BHO and his policies, aren't making it easier for them....
This is only to be expected by groups that were founded by socialists and anarchists. We in America actual benifit from the influence that organized crime has exerted on unions since it has prevented some of the abuses seen in Europe, and South America, where "Trade unions" are nothing but fronts for socialist/communist political organizations.
That was part of Hoovers reason for refusing to admit the existence of the "Mafia" for so long.
"Unions", no matter what political flavor, and even if they are pure as the driven snow, approach the problems of the Labor/Management relationship in the wrong manner. They set up an adversarial relationship between 2 groups who can not survive without each other.
Some one else mentioned something about safety. Is any one reading this stupid enough to think the best way to address safety concerns is to issue "Demands" and threats ? Isn't it more effective to point out that "If fewer workers are getting injured insurance expenses go down and production goes up do to fewer days lost to injury, which means profits go up, allowing the employer to give the workers more money while still increasing profits for investors."
Ever notice that the Companies that are best to work for are the ones where there is no dividing line between "Management" and "Labor"and instead everyone sees themselves as fulfilling a particular function with in one coherent team ?
The truth is that a union is nothing but another bunch of bureaucrats with their hand in the working mans wallet, whether it is shaking down business owners for ridiculous wage and benny packages, or taking the laborers dues to fund politicians who's policies kill jobs.