On Mon, 13 Oct 2003 23:06:20 GMT, "JTMcC"
wrote:


"Carl Byrns" wrote in message
.. .
On Sun, 12 Oct 2003 14:08:22 GMT, "Ed Huntress"
wrote:

"Carl Byrns" wrote in message


Wages have declined because they were too high!
Ed, I worked in an all-union car parts factory for 18 months. The
waste of time and talent was incredible- a janitor makes as much as a
skilled machinist, despite the fact the janitor contributes absolutely
f*cking nothing to the output of the factory.
Only a $50 dollar an hour electrician can screw in a light bulb- if
anyone else does, the union will file a grievance, may stop work in
the plant for a day.

I would be curious as to what year this happened. I started working in car
plants around 1986 or so, as a construction worker for contractors doing
work in the various plants, not as a plant employee. So I've had a chance to
observe the UAW in action quite a bit and in the time since the mid 80's
I've never been in a plant (not only UAW car plants but also tire/rubber,
food, paper, chemical, powerhouses, ect.) where plant employees had to get
an electrician to do a light bulb or plug in a welding machine or that type
of thing.

True story:
I worked in a section of the plant where there are some truly huge
power-lifted garage doors. On one cold (below zero) day, one the door
motors popped a circuit breaker. Of course, the door was open. Being
new, I walked over to the electric panel and was about to reset the
breaker when one of the other guys knocked my hand away. He said that
we had to call an electrician. We did so, and then everyone (about 8
guys) went where it was warm and waited for two hours for a sparky to
show up and flip the breaker.

You probably haven't ever worked in a convention center- the
electricians charge (no pun intended) anywhere from $40 to $100 to
plug in an extension cord or appliance like a computer.
This rule seems to be kind of flexible. My employer spends about 40
grand at one yearly trade show (taking up about quarter of the floor
space) and the sparkies don't say **** about how many outlets we use.
The single booth vendors aren't so lucky.

And I put them many, many steps behind the building trades unions which have
for the most part had big changes in leadership and outlook in the last 5
to 10 years. Long gone is the attitude that it is the worker vs. the
contractor, the building trades hand is constantly hammered with the fact
that he must be better trained and produce more than his lower paid non
union counterpart for the contractors to survive and thrive. A few years ago
this was a minority stance, now it is recognized as the only stance that
will allow them to survive. Some building trade unions came to this before
others, and some are just now realizing it, but it is about universal now.

Smart thinking.

Anyway, what year did you work in the plant, and which one was it?

1989 to 1991 and I won't name the plant because I know some folks who
work there and things haven't changed at all.

In fact, their biggest customer- a US car company- dropped them and
started importing from Europe and Japan. The layoffs started the next
day.

-Carl