When I was in grad school, we had a researcher join the lab after retirement from industry. He worked at a company with unionized labor- at least in part. For example, facilities was union, though lab employees were not. One day, the light bulb burned out in his fume hood, taking it off line. Being a good employee, he filed the ticket for the light bulb to be replaced. Months later, the light bulb is still not replaced. He replaced it and immediately had a grievance filed against him for taking a union job.
Fuck the union.
My uncle was a member of the union when he was employed at Alcoa. Fuck, it seems like he was on strike more than he was working. Either the Alcoa plant was striking, or the Reynolds plant was- I think the Union flipped a coin every week to decide which plants were not running. Anyway, based on the stories he told, I’m surprised that any of us had enough foil to make a hat. But, he retired with a fat pension.
Fuck the union.
California and Connecticut both have teachers‘ unions. You don’t have to be a member, but you still have to pay the dues.
Fuck the union.
Before he retired, my dad had to visit the site we a new office building was being built.
”It’s 9 in the morning, and your months behind schedule. Why are you all sitting around having coffee?”
”Oh, they’re the dry wallers. They can’t start until the electricians pull the wires to the boxes.“
”Where are the electricians?”
”???”
<Looks at wall> “The wires are, literally, hanging at the boxes. Stuff them in there and get to work.”
”Can’t. That’s a union job...”
Fuck the union.
Unions- Avioding work-place accidents by avoiding work since 1866...
Haha! I walked off my first job at a food distribution facility around '05 because of union bullshit.
We had about 50 bays where trucks would pull in with deliveries. The lumpers would unload the trucks, we'd check to make sure everything was there and the union guys would then take the pallets and stock them throughout the warehouse.
One day we're horrendously backed up. The union guys are out smoking cigarettes and dicking around as the unloading floor is packed to capacity. The lumpers can't unload anymore because there's nowhere to put it, so the whole operation grinds to a screeching halt.
After about a half hour of doing nothing I said "fuck it." I hopped on a pallet jack and started moving the pallets over to the pallet wrapping machine to get them off the floor. The shop steward, or whatever the fuck he called himself starts losing his shit and marches upstairs to chew out management.
When the warehouse manager and the union dickwad started to chew me out about operating the equipment (which I was certified on, btw) I told them to hold on a second, walked over to a propane forklift and did a lap around the warehouse on idle while flipping the bird to every union guy in the warehouse including the shop steward
Coming from NY, I'm passionate about my hatred for unions. Everybody wonders why electricity was three or four times the national average, why property taxes are 5x the national average, why sales tax is among the highest in the country and why pretty much EVERY FUCKING THING YOU BUY is more expensive than in the rest of the country. It's the unions. It's the NYPD, FDNY, teamsters, brick layers, electricians, plumbers, LIPA workers, govt workers etc. When someone's getting paid more than they're worth, it's coming from somewhere, and it's eventually getting passed on to the end consumer.
Every once in a while a union bashing thread pops up and I know it ruffles some feathers so I generally avoid it. I'm with you though... fuck the unions. Nobody cuts the union a check so nobody thinks about the damage they do, but it can be devastating. Just look at NY.
