jj@rabbit.UUCP (04/06/84)
>-- >>> At one time, labor unions were a necessity. The laws enacted at >>> that time, and since then, by unions, have made unions into a costly >>> luxury. > >I thought Congress passed the laws, but what is it about working >conditions now that obviates unions? Well, congress, a lot of whom was elected by labor, with labor money, and labor lobbying knows WHO elected it. Some of the laws about labor unions remove what I see as constitutional guarantees, both for individuals and for corporations, for the purpose of the "common welfare". >There are still lots of unsafe >plants with hungry workers with no benefits. If unions were once a >necessity (and I agree that they were), what would keep conditions >from reverting to those pre-union times if you took them away? I don't want to ELIMINATE unions, I want unions and management to be able to work on an equal basis, rather than the entirely one-sided union basis that is now US law. >If you say "But this is the 1980's" you've not witnessed the plight >of farm workers. How can you believe that only the unions are greedy? I didn't say that. There are a lot of shortsighted people. Those who run labor unions stand out. So do a lot of other people. <Especially when the farm workers are mentioned.> Rince Philib a Choiel -- TEDDY BEARS ARE NICER THAN PEOPLE--HUG YOURS TODAY! (If you go out in the woods today ... ) (allegra,harpo,ulysses)!rabbit!jj
ignatz@ihuxx.UUCP (Dave Ihnat, Chicago, IL) (04/07/84)
Oh, boy,oh boy, oh boy. Have you ever hit MY flame button!!! Reactor subcritical. Withdraw rods...watch the pressure...Z approaching 1...CRITICALITY ACHIEVED!!! Ok, guys. Let's talk union. I live in Chicago, a town renowned for the strength of its unions. And I've become sufficiently interested to read of the early years, and what caused the unions to become necessary. They were, then, primarily concerned with social change and responsibility--it was neither fair, nor socially proper, for scalpers to sell $500 certificates to allow lumberjacks to travel to the logging camps, just so they had the right to BID their services to the hiring companies. (That's right, bid. Those willing to accept the lowest pay, got the job.) It wasn't fair or right to have workers use radioactive radium, or get black lung and not have any benefits, or choke their lives out in the lint of the cotton mills. And the only way to force the businesses to listen was the union. The labelling of 'management' and 'labor' was necessary, if for nothing more than to point out who was responsible; and so the mgmt./labor split. But times change, and so do situations. Workers today, by and large, are doing some job which requires some sort of specialized skill. You cannot, no matter how cheaply, replace a skilled electrician with an immigrant off the boat. (Unless he or she was an electrician wherever he/she came from...and is conversant with the rules in this country...and so on. This person has a reasonable bargaining position with 'management'; and the situation is far more exaggerated in the high-tech industries. (Any card-carrying computer scientists out there?) BUT...what, then, does a union do to justify its existence? Well, keeping in mind that change is inevitable--look at buggy whips at the turn of the century--they could drive through reasonable labor reform programs, targeted at retraining employees whose jobs fall prey to the tide of progress. And for those who cannot/will not retrain, how about a placement service? And helping management PLAN upgrades and modernization plans to allow those who are left to fade away through retirement or attrition?? How about union-sponsored training sessions for new technologies? And so on. BUT NO...people are lazy. If I made frannistans by hand for 10 years, I ain't gonna let no damn machine come in and take MY job. (My counter? Learn how to take care of the frannistan machine.) And NO--this could lead to reasonable management--rank&file discussions. Or, you can hold the company against the wall for ever-increasing salaries and benefits. And unreasonable fees. And stifling supression of non-union work. (Sounds like the guilds of the middle ages, and for a reason.) In Chicago, a busdriver could make better than $22,000/year. FOR DRIVING A BUS?? In a Chicago hotel, a convention--small and underfunded, being a Science Fiction volunteer-run affair--wants to put out a plate of bread and coffee. Cost? The Hotel & Restaurant Workers Union insists you must have a member in attendance, so it came out to about $2 per slice of bread, and something on the order of $30 for a gallon of coffee. You have to be Equity to be in this show...and now you can't act in a non-Equity show. And so on... Everywhere you see it--because of organizations without the guts and courage to temporarily refrain from demanding bread and circuses long enough to plan for the future, outrageous and ridiculous rules and charges are passed on to the paying public. Something that could be done, safely and easily, by one person in 10 minutes has to wait two days to a week for a TEAM of union workers to get around to it. I can't move a 50 pound desk down the hall to my new office. Why? The PORTERS union (I'm not sure--teamsters?) says so. What special skill does that take? I'm so damned sick of unions that it would take hell and high water for me to even TALK civilly to a union steward. Yes, there may be some industries that still need unions because of exceptionally low pay, or hazardous conditions; but by and large, the union organizations are bloated creatures that provide sinecures for 'senior' people with no skills while screwing someone who is skilled and trained, but happens to be new on the job...that artificially inflates rewards (pay and bennies) for trivial jobs, like bus and (subway) train drivers, to levels that far exceed the worth of the service being performed...that retards modernization and resists elimination of true 'deadwood'. Unions are like a powerful drug...valuable when used properly, they've become a scourge on American society. ARRGH!! I *hate* those bloodsuckers!!!! Insert rods...Z dropping...subcritical...shut down ECCS. You know what? That didn't even feel good. I'm so PO'd that I'm still frying...I'm gonna go make a pot of coffee, if the Hotel and Restaurant Worker's union rep doesn't catch me doing it in the office... Whatever happened to social change and solidarity, instead of benefits and security? Dave Ihnat ihuxx!ignatz
ken@ihuxq.UUCP (ken perlow) (04/07/84)
-- I hope Dave Ihnat realizes that most labor in the US is NOT organized. Curiously, non-union plants tend to have lower wages and poorer working conditions than union ones. Wonder why that could be. AT&T employees get a nice bit of free long-distance telephone service. We all get it because the CWA won it for its members. Not even any grudging gratitude, Dave? Well, Dave has clearly never worked in a factory where some dumb foreman ordered him to do something unsafe. Sometimes you need a union steward to stay not fired and not dead. Bless em! Of course, I'm a yuppie now--make good bucks--great environment. And I don't do it for the money anyway. No, I can't say as a union would do anything for me here. But haven't any of you union-baiters ever worked for a living? I mean *WORKED*. Look at this: >> In Chicago, a busdriver could make better >> than $22,000/year. FOR DRIVING A BUS?? Driving a bus is a hell of a lot harder than hacking. Hacking is fun, ferchrissake. And if you fall asleep at the terminal, the most you'll lose is a file! Bus drivers hold hundreds (in Chicago, thousands) of lives in their hands every day. Their service is vital. And unlike computer jocks, they have hell to pay when they're late. Now, we computer scientists have a lot more training than bus drivers. Anyone can be a bus driver, right? Well, if length of training is the key, all good musicians should be millionaires. But that's life. It ain't fair, and it can be real degrading. AND THAT'S WHY THERE'S UNIONS--for one thing above all else--DIGNITY. -- *** *** JE MAINTIENDRAI ***** ***** ****** ****** 06 Apr 84 [17 Germinal An CXCII] ken perlow ***** ***** (312)979-7261 ** ** ** ** ..ihnp4!ihuxq!ken *** ***
brower@fortune.UUCP (Richard Brower) (04/11/84)
Well, obviously, some folks have been taken in by management's efforts to denigrate unions. The obvious answer is to let management move all the jobs that are "labor intensive" to forign countries where they can get away with paying people salaries of $0.30 a day. Of course, when management moves your job to India because even programers make a lot less money over there and will probabally accept a far lower level of benifits also, not to mention substandard working conditions (according to what we are used to anyway).... But those folks have no laws to establish the rights of workers, and any management loves to take advantage of a situation like that. I think that we may need a couple more laws, to prohibit management from moving jobs out of the country to escape unions. The fact is that factory management has resisted modernization and even equipment maintainance, which has led to the dropping of American productivity, which results are quoted by management as being caused by "inflated demands by union labor". And now that the great union buster is president.... Richard Brower Fortune Systems amd70!fortune!brower
ignatz@ihuxx.UUCP (Dave Ihnat, Chicago, IL) (04/13/84)
Re: Ken Perlow's response to MY response to the Union thing
Hi, Ken and all.
Ah, well, I apologize, but I have indeed worked in a non-union
factory...and at a union job. There's no problem naming names,
either.
When I was a young whippersnapper in high school--summer, 1970--they
were building the Zion nuclear power plant in Zion, just north of my
then-hometown of Waukegan, IL. Dad knew the head of the IBEW local,
who arranged for me to interview with the major electrical contractor
at the plant for a summer construction job. Being a clean-cut, enthusiastic,
hard-working type (and them knowing that Don had sent me), I got the
job, as a material handler at the then-unbelievable rate of
$4.00/hr. For those not in the know, this meant that I was lower
on the totem pole than an apprentice--suitable for fetching &
carrying, running & hauling. But I had to join the union, and pay a
respectable portion of my salary as dues. AND...I was introduced to
what has since turned out to be the normal union-fostered attitude.
First, after two days on the job, my partner and I were taken aside by
a few of the journeymen and told to SLOW DOWN--we were working too
fast. This might reflect on their work, and heaven forbid that they
work faster. (Anyone in any union who tries to deny that this is common
is lying. I was there, and I've seen it too often since.) I saw a
wildcat strike when a Commonwealth Edison engineer, who was trying to
explain a connection in a generator to a Union electrician who was
very slow to understand--I was led to believe, from later
conversation in the shack, that it may have been something more
in the way of deliberate misunderstanding to razz the ComEd guy--actually
had the temerity (stupidity, if he knew he was dealing with a Union
man) to TOUCH two cables and LAY THEM WHERE THEY BELONGED!! Immediately
everyone there walked off, some wiggling their hips and yelling
'wobble!' to others who hadn't seen the incident, but nevertheless
immediately walked off, too. ("Wobble" is a reference to the
Wobblies, the old Workers of the World movement.) I didn't know just
what was going on, but I figured after my warning that I'd better
walk, too. This led to two days of picketing, where I learned what it
was like to be on strike. (I also learned not to play craps,
especially with one particular old American Indian fellow.)
The same summer, I also saw the extreme lengths to which the company
had to go to fire a Union employee who was cheating them. One
welder--different union--was brassing in several days a week (you collected a
brass disk with your number on it at starting time, and turned it in
when you left), then leaving for Arlington Park in one of the Company
trucks! He made the races, then got back in time to brass out. They
had to eventually get two union reps and a company rep to shadow him to
and from the park for several days. What happened? He was fired, and
I was told that he spent two weeks going to the union hall before they
got him another job. And so on...I've several other stories, similar
to this one, just from that summer.
In the summers of 1971 (between HS Jr. and Sr. years), and 1972 (after
HS grad, before college), I worked at the local manufacturing plant
for Signode Steel. Totally non-union--the workers themselves threw
union organizers out. I worked in hard, dirty jobs: drill press, band
saws, heat treatment, and finishing--sandblasting, fileing, grinding,
burring, etc. The pay was less than 4.00/hr, but I had incentive
pay. That is, each job had a timestudy rate associated with it, and
if I beat the rate, I got a per-piece bonus. Yes, I worked hard--when
I went home at night, I was dirty, sweaty, and often had splinters in
my hands (my fault--I'd sometimes skip wearing leather gloves because
they were awkward.) But I always was able to almost double my rates,
and earned more money than I had at the union job--and felt less
guilty about it. The company constantly harped on safety, provided
all the safety devices I could imagine--ear plugs, goggles, leather
aprons, gloves, thumbs, etc.; sold steel-toed shoes to those who
needed them at very low rates; etc. They provided two coffee breaks,
a reasonable lunch break in a rather decent cafeteria, and so on. For
full-time employees, there were benefits packages, although I have to
admit that I didn't pay attention to them.
So why don't I still work there? I'll admit it--I didn't like the
work. But reasonable pay was tendered for reasonable work,
considering the unskilled nature of my job. (There were also jobs
requiring skills, such as screw and gear machines) This factory,
however, provided the amenities it did because if they didn't, the
Union would have been in in a minute--and how productivity would
suffer!
As to bus drivers holding lives in their hands, bushwah! The
dishwasher at a restaurant, by that analogy, holds hundreds of lives
cleaner in their water instead of detergent. Likewise, a garbage
collector, since they drive such a big, heavy truck. It's an
unskilled job, requiring at most two months training. (And that's
being conservative.) You have to hire someone with at least the
responsibility to drive carefully, true--but that's a requirement that
anyone should have to meet in any job.
Dignity? Yes, I'll buy the need for dignity. But I won't buy arrogant
ripoffs. You have to EARN respect and dignity, not strike for it. To
earn it, you have to provide honest, reasonable services for your
wages and benefits. I still maintain--Unions have abused their power,
and encourage their members to provide too little inferior work for
excessive pay and benefits. The day that union representation becomes
widespread in the data processing profession--no, not the consultants,
program developers, or the systems types, but the operators and
data-entry types--you'll feel it, but it'll be too late. There are
some union shops already: I was told by a friend, who works for
a large firm, of the time that he had to waste HIS lunch hour, because
he needed a tape mounted, and the unionized operator wouldn't mount it
while on his lunch break, and threatened a wildcat strike if Marc
mounted his own tape. While I know and trust my friend, and believe
him, you don't, and therefore don't have to. But it's a quite typical
union response...expect it when they get in. No, I haven't changed my
mind about unions. They've blown their credibility.
Dave Ihnat
ihuxx!ignatzsteven@qubix.UUCP (Steven Maurer) (04/13/84)
I am responding to a somewhat old article, so bear with me.... > Well, Dave has > clearly never worked in a factory where some dumb foreman ordered > him to do something unsafe. Sometimes you need a union steward > to stay not fired and not dead. Bless em! There are laws that fully protect workers against this sort of abuse. However, the laws do not force unreasonable demands upon employers, like some unions do (and like some of our democratic socialist allies do). > would do anything for me here. But haven't any of you union-baiters > ever worked for a living? I mean *WORKED*. Look at this: I *WORKED* my way all through summers during college: Bus Boy, odd jobs, gradeschool TA'ing (by no means easy), etc. And I don't think that the job that I currently hold is any easier: it is certainly easier on the mussles, but not on the mind. Have YOU ever heard of Garbage Men getting ulcers from work related stress??? > >> In Chicago, a busdriver could make better > >> than $22,000/year. FOR DRIVING A BUS?? > Driving a bus is a hell of a lot harder than hacking. Hacking is fun, > ferchrissake. And if you fall asleep at the terminal, the most you'll > lose is a file! Bus drivers hold hundreds (in Chicago, thousands) of > lives in their hands every day. Their service is vital. And unlike > computer jocks, they have hell to pay when they're late. > > Now, we computer scientists have a lot more training than bus drivers. > Anyone can be a bus driver, right? Well, if length of training is the > key, all good musicians should be millionaires. But that's life. No, the reason why Bus drivers should not be getting 22K a year, is not because of their lack of training, it is because so many people would take the job if given it for a lower wage. What you don't seem to understand, is that many present day Unions take a whole lot of poor, and make just a few of them wealthy (or at least middle class). This raises unemployment, raises costs, and is entirely inefficient for the society as a whole. Consider BART ({San Francisco} Bay Area Rapid Transit) as an example. At the level of wages that those union workers are getting, when they actually did have 3 new job openings, there were over 500 applicants. (This was during Jimmy Carter's incumbency, and there wasn't much unemployment.) The plain fact of the matter was that BART could have saved the taxpayers (who main body includes people who need that kind of money), quite a bundle. By the way, the right wing makes the same mistake by saying that Defense Jobs are good for the economy. They are wrong, because the money is taken from the taxpayers, and companies, which {although we don't see it at the low levels}. This puts a tremendous drain on the economy. In other words, paying engineers to build fancy equipment, and then dig holes and bury the stuff, is about as productive as paying them to be on a chain gang (considerably less so in fact). -- Steven Maurer
wbpesch@ihuxp.UUCP (Walt Pesch) (04/14/84)
My only question is why is it cheaper for me to get steel for my
hypothetical factory in Chicago from Japan instead of Gary, Indiana?
My only answer is that it is a five-letter word and it is not
"onion".
Still waiting for the bolt from the skies,
Walt Pesch
AT&T Technologies
ihnp4!ihuxp!wbpeschken@ihuxq.UUCP (ken perlow) (04/14/84)
-- >> My only question is why is it cheaper for me to get steel for my >> hypothetical factory in Chicago from Japan instead of Gary, Indiana? >> My only answer is that it is a five-letter word and it is not >> "onion". >> Walt Pesch Let's see. 5 letter word. Must have something to do with the steel industry, obsessed with quarterly reports, abandoning their plants (modernizing is expensive) to diversify into finance and entertainment companies and anything else that'll turn a fast buck. I've got it! "Greed." -- *** *** JE MAINTIENDRAI ***** ***** ****** ****** 13 Apr 84 [24 Germinal An CXCII] ken perlow ***** ***** (312)979-7261 ** ** ** ** ..ihnp4!ihuxq!ken *** ***