Poll: Unions Weaken America

[whaleboat]

Unions ..... $20.00 an hour , one thumb on a button , the other up their ass .

 

[editec]

I worked mainly in various consruction fields from the late 70's into the early 90's always non-union in non-union states . Then I went to San Jose , California which is heavily union . Found a non-union 6 story poured in place concrete building going up and hired on there . Had to cross a picket line every morning , union people would stand at the gate with crazy dogs , they'd throw sheet rock screws in our parking lot , I had five or six in each one of my tires . In general they acted like big babies . Hey , somebody had enough money to buy property and build a big building on it , and chose to use a non-union general contractor , what's the big deal . I suppose unions believe they should just automatically get everything handed to them , they don't believe in choice or competition . Granted there were some tough working conditions 100 years ago , but those days are long gone .

scabs get treated like they deserve to be treated.

I wish.

 

[Bfgrn]

I worked mainly in various consruction fields from the late 70's into the early 90's always non-union in non-union states . Then I went to San Jose , California which is heavily union . Found a non-union 6 story poured in place concrete building going up and hired on there . Had to cross a picket line every morning , union people would stand at the gate with crazy dogs , they'd throw sheet rock screws in our parking lot , I had five or six in each one of my tires . In general they acted like big babies . Hey , somebody had enough money to buy property and build a big building on it , and chose to use a non-union general contractor , what's the big deal . I suppose unions believe they should just automatically get everything handed to them , they don't believe in choice or competition . Granted there were some tough working conditions 100 years ago , but those days are long gone .

Thank you for the great post - you have a similar story to that of members of my own family. There was a time unions served a legitimate purpose in our society - but that time passed decades ago.

The unions of more recent times are simply another extension of the era of entitlement...

SO...what you're saying is SUDDENLY human nature has changed...NOW, the captains of industry have become soft-hearted and altruistic...without pressure or negotiations they will just pay out higher wages and hand out benefits like candy...

You right wing pea brains are dumber than a steaming pile of dogshit... the "I'm not worthy" Monica Lewinskys that suck the dick of the rich...

The REASON unions have lost popularity is because Republicans since Reagan have made a massive effort to break unions, and moron right wing pea brains mindlessly puppet their propaganda...even though most of those "I'm not worthy" pea brains are cutting their OWN throats...

The only thing your right wing pea brains are not worthy of is citizenship!!!

"We're going to crush labor as a political entity"
Grover Norquist - Republican economic guru

WHAT don't you understand about Norquist's statement???

 

[noose4]

Unions ..... $20.00 an hour , one thumb on a button , the other up their ass .

i bet you dont have a problem with wealthy ceo's running companies into the ground and walking away with multimillion dollar golden parachutes but god forbid a joe six pack gets a good deal.

 

[whaleboat]

Why would a company hire a CEO to run them into the ground , couldn't middle management take care of that ?

 

[noose4]

Why would a company hire a CEO to run them into the ground , couldn't middle management take care of that ?

dont know why but they seem to do it all the time.

 

[Polk]

I don't suppose the goonish behavior of union thugs and rent-a-mobs has anything at all to do with their falling into disfavor.

which unions? which thugs?

If you don't believe management is looking out for your best interest, you're clearly a thug.

 

[whaleboat]

Seriously , I don't begrudge anybody the right to be union if that's what they want . My wife is from a Midwestern steel town , during the mill's heyday it was great , it employed probably a 1/4 of the workforce of a small city and the periphial factories employed many , many more . Life was good , you worked 30 or 40 years at the mill or one of the factories , making good money while you were there . Then you retired , drove your motorhome around for five or ten years and croaked . It was all union , that's the way people liked it , it worked and so great , more power to them . It's not union workers or non-union workers that is causing a problem right now . The fact is , is that we're in this turbulent transitional period right now . It used to be America was made up of a few large corporations and tons of small enterprises and they were pretty much interested mainly in the American market . Today all corporations are multi-national , not only in the US but globally . Everybody has got their fingers into each others pie . Corporations are huge global conglomerates . But , like any empire throughout history , a country or a corporation can only get so big . It then becomes to complicated and costly to manage . I think in the not to distant future we'll see these huge conglomerates start to fail , it will snowball , there'll be a period of hard times , and then we'll see a return of localized business and smaller corporations tending to smaller markets .

 

[asaratis]

Damn! When I read the thread title, I thought I was going to get to vote.

Unions (in my humble opinion) have weakened and continue to weaken US business. Unions drive up costs and contribute heavily to the inefficiency of the American workforce.

I have been around construction for most of my six decades. About the only good thing unions have done is to get rid of sweat shops, child labor abuse and virtual slavery in factories. Their original purpose has been achieved.

While building a huge natural gas pumping station, I overheard two union pipe fitters talking to a gung ho new hire that was apparently accomplishing too much work in one day. "Son, we've got to milk this job. You're puttin' up too much tubin' for one man." (They were installing 1/4 inch copper instrument tubing on the side of a huge gas pumping engine block and I was standing on the other side of a 60" gas pipe.)

On another site (home of the Chicago Electrical Code--where the code book is filled with contractor advertisements) a pre-wired kiosk was received on a flat and set on a prepared slab in the middle of nowhere. The unions had a hissy fit...made the contractor unwire (remove the heater, the lights and the receptacle) the kiosk and let their union boys reinstall the work.

On yet another site, the unions delayed the opening of a project so that union workers could move some equipment back to where it had been and then move it elsewhere after learning that non-union workers had moved the equipment originally.

Tales like this are countless. Unions are driving our economy...backwards.

 

[noose4]

Damn! When I read the thread title, I thought I was going to get to vote.

Unions (in my humble opinion) have weakened and continue to weaken US business. Unions drive up costs and contribute heavily to the inefficiency of the American workforce.

I have been around construction for most of my six decades. About the only good thing unions have done is to get rid of sweat shops, child labor abuse and virtual slavery in factories. Their original purpose has been achieved.

While building a huge natural gas pumping station, I overheard two union pipe fitters talking to a gung ho new hire that was apparently accomplishing too much work in one day. "Son, we've got to milk this job. You're puttin' up too much tubin' for one man." (They were installing 1/4 inch copper instrument tubing on the side of a huge gas pumping engine block and I was standing on the other side of a 60" gas pipe.)

On another site (home of the Chicago Electrical Code--where the code book is filled with contractor advertisements) a pre-wired kiosk was received on a flat and set on a prepared slab in the middle of nowhere. The unions had a hissy fit...made the contractor unwire (remove the heater, the lights and the receptacle) the kiosk and let their union boys reinstall the work.

On yet another site, the unions delayed the opening of a project so that union workers could move some equipment back to where it had been and then move it elsewhere after learning that non-union workers had moved the equipment originally.

Tales like this are countless. Unions are driving our economy...backwards.

contracts signed regarding work conditions should not be honored?

 

[asaratis]

Damn! When I read the thread title, I thought I was going to get to vote.

Unions (in my humble opinion) have weakened and continue to weaken US business. Unions drive up costs and contribute heavily to the inefficiency of the American workforce.

I have been around construction for most of my six decades. About the only good thing unions have done is to get rid of sweat shops, child labor abuse and virtual slavery in factories. Their original purpose has been achieved.

While building a huge natural gas pumping station, I overheard two union pipe fitters talking to a gung ho new hire that was apparently accomplishing too much work in one day. "Son, we've got to milk this job. You're puttin' up too much tubin' for one man." (They were installing 1/4 inch copper instrument tubing on the side of a huge gas pumping engine block and I was standing on the other side of a 60" gas pipe.)

On another site (home of the Chicago Electrical Code--where the code book is filled with contractor advertisements) a pre-wired kiosk was received on a flat and set on a prepared slab in the middle of nowhere. The unions had a hissy fit...made the contractor unwire (remove the heater, the lights and the receptacle) the kiosk and let their union boys reinstall the work.

On yet another site, the unions delayed the opening of a project so that union workers could move some equipment back to where it had been and then move it elsewhere after learning that non-union workers had moved the equipment originally.

Tales like this are countless. Unions are driving our economy...backwards.

contracts signed regarding work conditions should not be honored?

Contracts that impose ridiculous constraints on simple acts of labor should not be penned. Unions however, insist on such shit as this.

 

[noose4]

Damn! When I read the thread title, I thought I was going to get to vote.

Unions (in my humble opinion) have weakened and continue to weaken US business. Unions drive up costs and contribute heavily to the inefficiency of the American workforce.

I have been around construction for most of my six decades. About the only good thing unions have done is to get rid of sweat shops, child labor abuse and virtual slavery in factories. Their original purpose has been achieved.

While building a huge natural gas pumping station, I overheard two union pipe fitters talking to a gung ho new hire that was apparently accomplishing too much work in one day. "Son, we've got to milk this job. You're puttin' up too much tubin' for one man." (They were installing 1/4 inch copper instrument tubing on the side of a huge gas pumping engine block and I was standing on the other side of a 60" gas pipe.)

On another site (home of the Chicago Electrical Code--where the code book is filled with contractor advertisements) a pre-wired kiosk was received on a flat and set on a prepared slab in the middle of nowhere. The unions had a hissy fit...made the contractor unwire (remove the heater, the lights and the receptacle) the kiosk and let their union boys reinstall the work.

On yet another site, the unions delayed the opening of a project so that union workers could move some equipment back to where it had been and then move it elsewhere after learning that non-union workers had moved the equipment originally.

Tales like this are countless. Unions are driving our economy...backwards.

contracts signed regarding work conditions should not be honored?

Contracts that impose ridiculous constraints on simple acts of labor should not be penned. Unions however, insist on such shit as this.

i guess the businesses that sign these contracts should get better negotiators.

 

[asaratis]

contracts signed regarding work conditions should not be honored?

Contracts that impose ridiculous constraints on simple acts of labor should not be penned. Unions however, insist on such shit as this.

i guess the businesses that sign these contracts should get better negotiators.

It's hard to negotiate with labor unions. They know they hold a powerful hand. The businesses either compromise or pay the price.

 

[noose4]

Contracts that impose ridiculous constraints on simple acts of labor should not be penned. Unions however, insist on such shit as this.

i guess the businesses that sign these contracts should get better negotiators.

It's hard to negotiate with labor unions. They know they hold a powerful hand. The businesses either compromise or pay the price.

horse poop, i am in a union and when our contract is up its a game of give and take, some people just dont want the working people to have a say in their work.

 

[Sinatra]

Contracts that impose ridiculous constraints on simple acts of labor should not be penned. Unions however, insist on such shit as this.

i guess the businesses that sign these contracts should get better negotiators.

It's hard to negotiate with labor unions. They know they hold a powerful hand. The businesses either compromise or pay the price.

The Big 3 management as a case in point is very applicable - they signed off on ridiculous legacy cost contracts. When these costs were shared with people during the bailout period, Americans were angry over the rampant waste and abuse of these legacy costs - paying people NOT to work, etc. Thus, we now see union support fall to all time lows in this country.

That era, with the rise of public awareness to just how abusive these union contracts had become, hopefully is over...

 

[asaratis]

i guess the businesses that sign these contracts should get better negotiators.

It's hard to negotiate with labor unions. They know they hold a powerful hand. The businesses either compromise or pay the price.

horse poop, i am in a union and when our contract is up its a game of give and take, ...

I guessed that much.

... some people just dont want the working people to have a say in their work.

Having a say in your work doesn't require a union, a union boss, union dues, union rules or any of that union shit. Many a successful open shop exists where workers are treated more than fairly and stand against the formation of unions because their working conditions are quite satisfactory without the intervention of union fat cats and paid agitators.

 

[noose4]

It's hard to negotiate with labor unions. They know they hold a powerful hand. The businesses either compromise or pay the price.

horse poop, i am in a union and when our contract is up its a game of give and take, ...

I guessed that much.

... some people just dont want the working people to have a say in their work.

Having a say in your work doesn't require a union, a union boss, union dues, union rules or any of that union shit. Many a successful open shop exists where workers are treated more than fairly and stand against the formation of unions because their working conditions are quite satisfactory without the intervention of union fat cats and paid agitators.

yeah okay.

 

[Polk]

Contracts that impose ridiculous constraints on simple acts of labor should not be penned. Unions however, insist on such shit as this.

i guess the businesses that sign these contracts should get better negotiators.

It's hard to negotiate with labor unions. They know they hold a powerful hand. The businesses either compromise or pay the price.

Unions hold the powerful hand? That's laughable.

 

[Polk]

i guess the businesses that sign these contracts should get better negotiators.

It's hard to negotiate with labor unions. They know they hold a powerful hand. The businesses either compromise or pay the price.

The Big 3 management as a case in point is very applicable - they signed off on ridiculous legacy cost contracts. When these costs were shared with people during the bailout period, Americans were angry over the rampant waste and abuse of these legacy costs - paying people NOT to work, etc. Thus, we now see union support fall to all time lows in this country.

That era, with the rise of public awareness to just how abusive these union contracts had become, hopefully is over...

The only thing the Big Three prove is the shortsightedness of management.

 

[Polk]

Having a say in your work doesn't require a union, a union boss, union dues, union rules or any of that union shit. Many a successful open shop exists where workers are treated more than fairly and stand against the formation of unions because their working conditions are quite satisfactory without the intervention of union fat cats and paid agitators.

And by "working conditions are quite satisfactory", you really mean the bosses go "if you start talking about forming a union, you're all fired".