"Tom Gardner" wrote in message .com...
I'm just late in the trend but I have had to eliminate 7 jobs in the past
year.

And never bothered to think that you also eliminated seven possible
customers.

You're blaming the union for your own inability to keep up, five
million sounds like an awful lot, or is it just your lack of keeping
up as you should have been?

Best chances are that you went to the "bargaining table" with no
intention of bargaining anything, but demanding cuts in wages and
benefits, which seems to be the current fad among those that don't
care. A stable workforce is something you will never have, and you do
not deserve one either.

A hard fact for you to ruminate over, the shop I last worked in, and
most of the others I have talked to are having a hard time finding
people that can do the work, the old skills have been lost. Well,
guess what? This means I can demand any wage I want, and unless they
want to fall further and further behind, they have no choice but to
pay it, which is all to my liking. I am supposed to be retired, not
having to put up with calls almost daily from shops that can't figure
out how to do something that the apprentice would have been expected
to know thirty years ago. To stop that, and I finally found the magic
number, $30 per hour. I don't mind going to look at a job and giving
advice where I can, but I'll be damned if I'm going to do the job
anymore.

Whose fault is it that the people aren't there anymore? Who decided
that it cost too much to train an apprentice? Who decided that
automated machines that can eliminate anything but a mindless drone
was the way to go? Who decided that people are only an expendable
commodity? High turnover keeps wages low, it also fails to keep
quality standards as they once were when the value of an experienced
employee was recognized. In todays world, not only are the employees
expendable, so is the employer. That is how it should be, justice has
to be blind, and applicable to both sides equally.

Loyalty? Thing of the past, by your own hand.