b wrote:

On Feb 1, 2:29 pm, "Michael A. Terrell"
wrote:

Bull****. If electronic repair was a union job, no one on earth
could afford to repair anything.

....says who? Open your eyes


Okay, I'll admit it! I'm sick and tired of trying to deprogram
union stooges.


- the REAL reason nobody can afford to
repair anything is because the electronics industry is allowed to do
what it likes, building ever cheaper consumer items for which spares
are at best hideously expensive or at worst not even available.


It is the consumer's fault that so much throw away crap is built,
because they are too stupid and too cheap to buy quality, repairable
equipment. At my last job we built telemetry receivers that sold for
$20,000 to $80,000 each. Our customers didn't question the price, they
wanted reliable, supportable equipment. if the electronics industry
was 100% union a desktop computer wouldn't even exist, because more
union workers would be needed to build mechanical adding machines ant
typewriters. I had the IBEW try to unionize the cable TV company I
worked for. They GUARANTEED me $2.50 an hour less than I was making, a
week's less vacation, no unwanted overtime and several other useless
things that would have cost me about $8,000 a year in lower income and
dues to join. They told the field techs they wouldn't have to work on
the cold wet Cincinnati nights when we had major temperature related
outages, or those really hot, muggy afternoons during the summer. Or
that they had to be good at their jobs, because they would strike the
company if anyone was fired. We would have been out of business in a
month.


The thing you have absolutely no clue about is that repair is nothing
like manufacturing. VERY little repair work is EVER done on a
production line. Each repair is a different brand, a different model,
with different problems. If you think a union shop could make money and
keep customers happy, you're brain dead.


Result: the company directors and a few shareholders make more, whilst
the consumer suffers and has to foot the bill for the environmental
costs of this stupidity.


This will continue as long as people are happy forking over their
cash for trash, knowing full well that 95% or more isn't worth taking
home, for free. It started with the cheap stereos, TVs and CB radios
back in the late '60 and early '70s and has got ever worse as people no
longer expected anything to last, or even work very well. It was CHEAP,
and that was all that mattered.


Unions are not always perfect i admit, but
at least in their presence abusive treatment of workers like the OP
described would be less common. Don't know about you, but I believe
that profit is not more important than people.


Don't try to put words in my mouth, stooge. You don't even have the
guts to use your name online, yet you are trying to preach your ignorant
unionism crap. My first job was in a TV shop when I was 13. I worked
full time at another shop (That also did industrial electronics) for two
years after I graduated. Then I was called up for the draft. I was
given five separate 4F ratings for health problems, but they drafted me
anyway, because of my electronics background. While in basic training,
I tested out of the three year course US Army electronics school at Ft.
Monmoth and was awarded the M.O.S. of broadcast engineer. I worked with
CATV headends, CARS, and weather equipment, RADAR, the world's first
emergency alert system that took control of 13 CATV systems around Ft.
Rucker and delivered emergency information on all 12 channels on all the
systems. I have built a TV station from an empty building, moved radio
stations, and built studios.

I worked as a broadcast engineer in both radio & TV, owned and
operated an industrial electronics repair business for years, repaired
computers to the component level, sold and serviced business radio
systems, did Quality Assurance in an electronics defense plant, and at
the end of my career, I worked as a production and engineering test tech
for the world leader in modular telemetry equipment. Have you ever done
anything but push unions? Do you know why it was so hard to remove car
radios for repair? The union fought the change to a through the dash
design that could be done by a single employee, rather than the six
people the current system used. That drove up the price of US built
cars, along with other stupid union labor intensive steps that slowed
production, lowered quality and allowed the imports to take over the
market.


BTW, that union went on strike in the late '60s, demanding a double
digit pay increase. The company went to Mexico and built a 'module'
plant to build subassemblies. By the time they finished their ****ing
match, the people who still had a job went back at exactly half of what
they were making before that strike, and over half the jobs stayed in
Mexico.

the only thing that this proves is you had a weak government who
allowed this shameful corporate behaviour to go on at the expense of
the citizens who elected it and whose interests it was supposed to be
representing. Funny how , in the neoliberal ideology, capital can
cross borders freely but people can't....


Allow it? They were all for it. They needed the radios and
shipboard RADAR equipment for the US military, and the idiot union was
determined to stay out for years. The idiots in the union told them
they couldn't be replaced, because all their jobs required VERY high
skill levels. Two weeks after the plant in Mexico opened, former farm
workers were doing quite well at their jobs. You truly are a
brainwashed union stooge.


BTW, you should be out there kissing Obama's union loving ass instead
of wasting our time on a repair newsgroup.


--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida