Unions 9

[PSE]

So, are they a good thing or a bad thing, neither, both? I have not worked with unions so do not offer an opinion one way or the other. I've seen them mentioned within a few individual posts and thought to start a thread for discussion.

 

[PSE]

Good post dporte17. A star for that.

 

[funnelguy]

Absolutely!

 

[corus]

As unions in the USA represent only 20% of the workforce it's difficult to imagine how they can bring down the american economy, still, when things go wrong it's convenient to have a whipping-boy somewhere.
Given the low number of holidays americans have compared to the rest of the world, together with the continual erosion of employment conditions/insurance etc, and the proposed removal of over-time pay, they're probably as relevant today as they were yesterday in both developed and under developed countries.


corus

 

[MASSEY]

Unions are out-dated.

I worked for one and the only problems, as I see it, that I had on the job were caused by the Union.

The non-union workers I talk to don't want a Union.

The 'hard-working' union workers I talk to don't want a Union.

The only people I talk to that want a Union are lazy and stupid union workers and if it wasn't for their Union they would not have the job that they complain about regularly.

 

[PSE]

Corus,

Could you bring down a building if you took out 20% of its foundation? While I believe that unions still have significant economic influence, I would say that the greater impact that unions (in the US) have today lies in the political arena.

Regards,

 

[corus]

Not having done the calculation, I would have thought that a 4 sided building would still stand if one of the walls was removed (25%). although the building wouldn't be very comfortable to work in without the contribution from that 25%.

As far as those wanting a union being lazy and stupid, I again refer to Ronald Reagan's words :

"I'd had to join the union and wasn't very happy about it. Make me join the union, whether I wanted to or not, I thought, was an infringement on my rights. I guess I also was a little uncertain as to why actors needed to have a union.


But as I spoke to some of the older career actors I met at Warners and discovered how much they'd been exploited in the past, I began to change my mind. Major stars had no trouble negotiating good contracts and working conditions for themselves but that wasn't the case for the supporting players, many of whom had been blacklisted by the studios and deprived of work after they'd tried to form a union. Once I'd become a believer in the union..."

Some people believe that Ronald Reagan was lazy and stupid, however, so Massey may well have a good point about union workers.


corus

 

[PSE]

Corus,

I haven't done the calculation(s) on a building either, though experimentally I had a crude mockup fall over when I removed less than 20% of the foundation (taken from a corner rather than from a single wall).

I had heard the Reagan quote before. It strikes me as someone using inequities of the past to justify actions in the present. Unions did some great things for workers in the past. Today, at least to me, they seem to be more like guilds.

Regards,

 

[Webber]

A Story from Moncton New Brunswick.........

Union employee shows up at the office drunk and carrying a loaded shotgun. He is angrily looking for the CEO and CFO. Long story short...........he was convicted of carrying a loaded weapon with intent to harm. Neither intended "target" was hurt (nor were they found by the "disgruntled" employee). He was sentenced to jail for 2 years.

The union argued that this was not a "fireable" offence in accordance with the current contract and they battled for this guy to keep his job!!!

 

[ietech]

LAZY and STUPID, ALL???? --- that's a pretty broad statement. Have you met them all???

 

[RDK]

See The Tick's post of 1 Dec for a link to that story.

Rick Kitson MBA P.Eng

Construction Project Management
From conception to completion

http://www.kitsonengineering.com

 

[MASSEY]

IETECH:

The word "ALL" does not appear in my post.

Notice the phrase "I talk to" does.

 

[ietech]

Appologies --- you did qualify your statement. - even among those you talk to, there must be at least one with a relatively positive opinion.

I am not a union member at this time but have been in the past and found during my membership that there were those who were dissatisfied, but the opinions were predominantly positive towards their union.

Sorry for reading between the lines.

ietech

 

[vpl]

This is going to be rather long - but I hope you'all will bear with me.

If you've clicked on my profile, you'll find that I work for a branch of the US government. My job involves inspecting the engineering work done by other people, and, as with many government jobs, there is a certain amount of politics, especially for those in management.

Not too long ago, I did an inspection at a plant and had some concerns about the quality of their engineering products as did several other inspectors. (I'm deliberately trying to be vague here!) My concerns were such that, for various reasons, I ended up sending a couple of very carefully worded e-mails to one of our upper managers. In these e-mails, I (again carefully) expressed my concerns (ok, I may have been doing some CYA'ing) about the proposed course of action my management was taking. In the e-mails I stressed that I was expressing my beliefs as a professional based on my activities.

My company supposedly has a "differing professional concern" policy and an "open door" policy where employees are supposed to be able to feel free to raise concerns. (So this is where the Union comes in...) However, today I had the "opportunity" to talk to some representatives of the Office of Inspector General - with the interview being transcribed for the record - about my concerns and why was I raising them.

My feelings, when told I had this wonderful opportunity, were, for some reason, not entirely positive. So, as I am a member of a Union, I asked my Union steward to come with me to the interview. It started off with one of the IG folks saying that he wanted me to lay out my technical concerns in general so he could "judge the merit of the concerns." Let's just say that it went down hill from there and finished with my stating that I felt I was being retaliated against for raising concerns.

At the end, one of the IG investigators stated that, from what they were told, I had a very good reputation within my organization and that when I said I had concerns, that got management's attention - because I had the reputation of being right. They also acknowledged that I had not done anything wrong. However, that sure didn't explain why I was grilled for over 1-1/2 hours on technical issues.

Today, I was glad that I was a Union member. My Union steward helped me prepare for this meeting and made sure the interview was conducted properly and that all pertinent facts were brought up. He's also ensuring that appropriate paperwork is kept in case there is any actual retaliation (rather than just an attempt to intimidate me).

While it's easy to blame Unions for everything that's wrong, they do exist for a reason - to make sure that management doesn't trample on employee rights. And, as I've tried to describe here, it's not just "lazy, stupid, gun-toting idiots" who sometimes need Union protection. Sometimes it's people who are trying hard to do "the right thing" in their job.

Oh, and by the way, just because someone's a janitor doesn't make them stupid. I know one senior utility manager who started his career as a janitor.

Patricia Lougheed

Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of the Eng-Tips Forums.

 

[JTMcC]

Reading this thread I have to wonder, what replies I would recieve if I posted a question "Fillipino's, good or bad?"

reply #1) I knew a Fillipino once, he was fat, stupid and lazy! Fillipino's are no good.

reply #2) If it wasn't for a Fillipino man, I would be dead! They are the best folks on the planet!

Several (not all of course) that have replied to the union question have formed strongly held opinions based on a very limited amount of anectdotal evidence. Not very engineer like if you ask me.

And, lumping all unions (like lumping all Fillipino's), from all sectors in one big pot, good or bad, ignores the fact that there is a wide variety in how the organizations work as well as their philosophy.

I have personal experience in what I consider the extremes of the spectrum. The NEA (school teacher union), which in my opinion serves only to furthur a political agenda, and ends up hurting, not helping, the teacher members, is on one extreem end. On the other we have several of the building trade unions, which operate with a different philosophy than they did a few years ago. They have shifted to emphasizing training and productivity as the only way they can survive.

My little company is signatory with one of the construction unions and I can guarantee the hands we get out of the hall are better trained and more productive than the non union counterpart. That doesn't make them better people (I have good friends on both sides), or one choice or the other evil, it just means they have available huge training resources, and most take advantage of them.

It also means the people we employ can feel free to take the kids to the doctor when they get sick, they have insurance. They can also look forward to a pretty fair retirement, and live comfortably during their working years. They make premium wages for the craft but we expect a lot from them, they produce or they are gone. Period.

All my opinion of course, but based on quite a few years experience, up close and personal.

JTMcC.