On Fri, 08 Feb 2008 21:44:48 -0800, Jon Anderson
wrote:
Millwright Ron wrote:

In the United States today, a worker is fired or discriminated against
for trying to form a union every 23 minutes.

Every place I've worked at where someone started talking
about trying to go union, my response was that I would quit
if they succeeded.

Every place I've ever worked that was union, the usual reason was
that the Management is (or was at one time, or is perceived to be)
abusive to the employees and DESERVED to be saddled with a Union to
get proper treatment.

Or it is a job with significant workplace hazards, and the employer
paid lip-service to safety and treated all employees as 'disposable
assets' till the Union got in and forced reforms.

Problem with that is, now that the Union is firmly entrenched in the
abusive workplace the cure turns out to be as bad as the disease, if
not worse. The Shop Stewards and Union Local Officials usually turn
out to be the biggest Fsck-ups in the whole place, because they know
they can almost literally get away with murder.

One Shop Steward left his empty little 1/2 Ounce brown glass
screw-top bottle (that had his daily Nose Candy in it) on the
dashboard of a communal parked truck at a Shiftwork manhole cable
splicing job, and damn near got everyone working at the site (three
shifts round the clock) hauled in to pee in a bottle. Luckily, the
Supervisor realized what was really going on and pragmatically
developed a case of temporary amnesia...

Another Steward got busted, arrested and fired for drugs - but they
kept him on the payroll 100% at the Local doing office work until all
the appeals were exhausted, and even past that until the complaints
got too loud...

Apparently, between the Co. pay and the Union pay, they were being
paid too much, and had to spread around the largesse to support their
local drug dealer.

The pendulum swings... Then it swings back... Forward... Back...

-- Bruce --