Then you know nothing about the men and women who make up unionized work forces. In my union and all of the different trades we hire in special circumstances do NOT put up with anyone who does not do their share of the work.
.
Trade unions, Boiler Makers, Pipe Fitters, Electricians and so on are not the same as labor unions like UAW, Retail Clerks and AFL-CIO.
Trade unions train, apprentice and require ongoing education of their membership and in truth gaurentee the quality and the workmanship of the products and services provided. Trade unions provide a ready pool of trained and qualified individuals for contract hiring to draw on. Trade unions provide the follow ups on the workmanship of their members.
Labor unions try to mandate working conditions and pay rates for their membership in spite of prevailing economic conditions. In many cases this restricts a company's ability to respond to opportunities quickly and nimbly.
There are even negotiated clauses in labor contracts that restrict the amount of increased procuctivity by individuals that the union will tolerate. This type of clause resulted in a unionized work force locally in the Indianapolis area of about 350 being put out of work as the employer transferred those jobs to a Tennessee Facility.
Trade Unions raise the quality and quantity of work and depend on individuals constantly improving their skills to produce results.
Labor unions define the value of a workers output and refuse to allow any increses in that output without increased compensation. If the profits increase, the union views this as a loss.
Think of Trade Unions as a flowing stream and Labor Unions as a stagnent cess pool.
I will beg to differ on trade unions. These unions are every bit as coercive and subversive as their labor union counterparts.
For example. IN the early 80's I worked in a NYC union paint shop. Local 9 of the IUPAT...Painters union. Those guys were the drywall finishers as well.
Anyway. Here are some of the examples of illogical union rules. First, the widest paint brush allowed was 4" and widest roller 9".....Widest drywall mud knife, 6"....I asked of one of my co-workers why this is. He told me these tools would allow the work to get done too quickly....
One jib we worked was running behind schedule. In the union world I have no idea what that is. This job must have been REALLY late.
Anyway, we wanted to work a little later. Since the building was being renovated there were other trades. Well here's the stupid part. In order for us to work past the time the electricians stayed, our employer had to pay one of the electricians 4 hours minimum ( at time and a half) event though we were going to work only one hour more, just to turn off the lights. That's right. The rules said that only a licensed electrician could flip a ******* switch. Why ? Because the God damned union said so. Now how stupid is that?
While I was there I heard the foremen griping out loud how the company was "pushing" the job and how the foremen were going to ask the union shop steward if it was ok to slow down the job.. WHAT?!!!!
I quit like two weeks later. These union people violated every principle I stood for. Do a good job, a professional job. Give a dollar's work for a dollar's pay. Keep you mouth shut and your ears open. Work smart and get ahead.
These people made a lot of money and they were all miserable. They looked at working for a paycheck as a burden. It was always "the union , the union the union"..I thought to myself, "**** the the God damned union. The union is why you hate your job so much. It's like they have told you that you should not have to anything but show up and collect a check".......Unions are unions no matter who they represent.
Trade unions would have us believe that the only good tradesmen and craftsmen are union. That's bullshit. A union card does not a skilled worker make.