"Harold and Susan Vordos" wrote in message
et...

"RogerN" wrote in message
m...
snop---

So my past 2 week average was over 8hrs /week. It just seemed funny
that I get my needed overtime due to the temperature and wind, an "act of
God" as they call it.


Sigh!

So you're of the opinion that your god sacrificed the well-being of the
owner to insure that you got your overtime pay? How sick is that?

Harold, once again you show you don't know what you're talking about. The
company I work for doesn't treat their employees very well. I took a job
there with a $5 per hour cut while on 6 months probation. I was to gain
better benefits and equal pay but I went from days to 12hour weekend shifts.
I fulfilled my part, worked whenever they wanted, tried real hard, etc. In
turn before I even got off of probation, the plant had a union vote and
voted it down, in turn the company took away many of the very benefits they
told us were reasons to vote no. Almost every year the company took away
benefits and a couple of years ago, they gave all their hourly employees a
10% pay cut and a 13%+ benefits right after Christmas. In the company
meetings I picked up on them claiming that our plant had a 90 million dollar
payroll and at another meeting they told us that they loose 90 million
dollars per year. So if we all worked for free then they would just barely
break even. They told us the department that they loose the most money on,
but for some reason they are expanding that department the most. I guess
they want to loose more money or they lie to us.

When we were told to quit on the project we were working on, there was a
drive guy their getting the 2000HP drive running. He was flown in from
Germany and had been there a few days and only had one more day to go. The
company had him stop, they were told it would cost them more to have him
come back and finish at a later time than it would to have him go ahead and
complete his job. The company didn't care that it would cost more, they
just wanted it on next years project budget.

Most plants pay skilled labor a good percent higher than the unskilled
labor. This plant didn't, when they cut hourly wages 10% across the board,
unskilled labor was still paid a little better than most similar jobs in the
area, but not so for maintenance electricians. We have had several
electricians leave for more than a $10 per hour increase plus better
benefits. By the companies choice, they have replaced 20 year employees
that could fix a problem in 1 hour with new employees that take 5 hours on
the same problem. They choose 5 hours downtime at $21 per hour instead of 1
hour downtime at $23 per hour.

The company decided to have a cleanup day and they threw away $1500
industrial monitor panels just to have to buy new ones a month later when
they needed them.

The company is owned by Germans and they make us use their equipment even
though: their equipment was more expensive, their equipment had longer lead
times for replacment parts, their equipment was less reliable, their
equipment produced more scrap. We have 5 rows of Allen Bradley controlled
curing presses and one row of German controlled curing presses. The one row
of German presses produced 80% of the scrap.

So, if you think I should donate my time to a company that didn't keep their
end of the agreement and has repeatedly taken wages and benefits. Then they
turn around and throw more away in a day then I make in a week. If they are
going to call me in on the weekend, when they have so much product on the
floor that the fork trucks have trouble getting around, the shelves are full
and the floor is filling up. Why should I give them my time for free? It
was their choice to call me in when they were drying out the switch gear. I
worked on other things that needed worked on while the the drying was going
on. They had 2 mixers down and 13 mixers running and they are going to have
a curtailment next weekend. So I'm sorry if you think I should donate my
time for them to waste my weekend but I have a different opinion.

Before I came to this job I was a controls engineer and designed, built, and
programmed machine control for industrial automation. The company I work
for now pays other companies 3X my wage to do what I can do and they may
decide to have me changing light bulbs. I'm not responsible for their
decisions but I'm not donating my time to them so they can waste it. The
waste is their choice, they had approximately 20 - 30 maintenance people on
the shift and if they want me to come in too, they can pay me for my time
just as they do the others.