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I have a couple "union labor sucks" stories..
For a short time I actually worked in union paint shop.
We were working in building that was being remodeled.
During one week, we had two snow storms which made commuting a chore. Not a lot of work got done that week. Finally we were able to get things going again.
Anyway, we wanted to catch up. So my foreman went to the electrical foreman and asked if we could stay past 3:30..Yeah, can ya believe that. The work day ended at 3 freakin thrity..The electrician's foreman first said no. Then he said he would ask one of his guys to stay and turn off the lights when we were through. Imagine that! You needed an electrician to flip a couple switches...Our company would have to pay 4 hours at time and a half so the "switch flipper" could sit on his ass and read the comics, just so he could flip a fuckin switch. Our foreman said forget it.
I worked at a data communications company. we did it all. We ran cable set up computer networks, etc. We got a contract to work at the Asbury Park( NJ) Press building. Now as many people know, newspaper people in the northeast are represented by a number of unions. so this is a "union" building. We were non union.
The rules we had to follow were frightening.
We could pull cable to the doorway of the 'telephone room'. Because we were non union, we could not enter the room. We had to drop the cabling out side the room. And on the other end, we could bring all the cables to the location of the main frame and the terminals, but could not do the terminations. We could set the terminals but, now get this, we were not allowed to remove the terminals from their respective cartons. The dock workers had to do that. And if they were not around, oh don't dare go get one. They would flip out. "I'll get there when I get there"...These jagoffs were always out to lunch or on their union mandated coffee break.
UGH....Yep..Unions SUCK ....Sideways.
Well, you know what, I've seen the OTHER extreme, where people were penalized for refusing to do work they were not qualified to do.
I've saw a guy who was not given a decent raise because he didn't want to drive a truck when he was hired to be a warehouseman. He wasn't qualified to drive a truck and should never have been asked to do it.
I've seen a co-worker fired because she brought her life-partner to the Company holiday party. Oh, yeah, her life partner happened to be a woman who wore a suit.
I personally got put into a position set to eliminate itself because I ran up too many medical bills.
Now, would you get an argument from me that some unions abuse the union privilage? Nope. I've seen that, too.
But frankly, I'd take the side of working folks over management in most cases.