Unions used to be a good thing

The working man would be getting paid just enough so he and his family could just manage to live as was the case before unions while the employers became filty rich.Even people getting a good wage that are not in a union still have the unions to thank fot it.It was the unions that made employers pay a decent wage to raise the standard of living for the working man.Would you rather live in a country where they pay enough so a person can just manage to eat and sometimes not that?

in the past now they screw all the members and the companys.

unions arent needed now people are to smart, to work unsafely, and they have protection.

only thing a union is good for is screwing the people

gained power, been corrupted, and their time is past. This is one more example of that. They now do more harm than good.

I worked in a union shop as a contractor. The union people were making more than me and I was asked to review them. These senior people were working at an intermediate or even junior level. Most stole from the company and couldn't understand when I bought my own. They were fire-proof (their words) and had no sense of urgency to get the job done.

Unions were a good thing just like the ACLU used to be a good thing. Unions now keep the wages too high and keep deadbeats in their jobs. Keeping the deadbeats is what I resented the most, not the wages.

Saying that, a friend's husband worked at a trucking company. The teamsters wanted it to become union. they had thirty employees and none wanted to be unionized (there was a vote). The teamsters bullied the places the company delivered to so they finally had to unionize. They just barely made the first raise but closed their doors because they couldn't make the second. Thirty people were unemployed union men.

Some IT people working for one of the railroads voted against becoming unionized and the union went to court and forced them to unionize. They formed their own union and voted it in - no dues, no meetings, no nothing.

No I don't have links, just 35 years in the workforce.

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My brother is a employee of the Federal Government, and at one time was the shop steward for his office. He told me that in all the time he was the steward, he never had a single case where he felt the worker involved was in the right. Yet, due to the union's involvement, the workers retained their job with the exception of a few extreme incidents. The management simply did not want to go through the long and exhausting process to fire these individuals.
I'll become a teacher within a year, and look forward to my mandatory dues being used to fund a political organization who I largely disagree with. I'll have no choice in how my dues are spent or what platform they support. Yay.

have a union.

I was a member of a strong union back in the 60's and 70's It was a union for Rubber Workers, I worked for Dayton Tire and Rubber which was owned by Firestone. In the late 70's, Firestone decided to get rid of most of the union plants, and closed 7 plants. The plant I worked in employed over 1200 people, don't know about the other plants, but quite a few lost their jobs. Firestone gave us a year of health insurance, A severance package, and brought in people to help us find jobs, at the time I was makeing close to $15.00 an hour.

To make a long story short, Unions once had Power but not anymore. Needless to say I have not bought a Firestone Tire or Dayton Tire since then. I'm now a Retired Senior and doing fine, and feel badly about all the younger people loosing their jobs, especially the ones with children. I worked all my life, took care of my famly, and now I can rest.
Larry

At least in recent years. Too bad about those left holding the bag.

all they do is steal from the workers

support my Brothers in their time of need? Send a couple of hundred every month?

My thought is, NO ONE PAYS FOR ANYTHING that doesn't come from the back of the working class. If the jobs my Brothers had didn't have a decent benefit package, they woulsd have run up more bills and taxpayers would have paid for it.


Pleas try and qualify your 'just steal' from the workers statement. We are not all falling at your feet, give us facts or don't bother. Have you ever heard of a Union trying to give you a job? You have to apply for work at a Union place on your own.

why do i need them in this day?
im not gonna work in an unsafe condition, way and if i cant find a job on my own i need to pay the reps?

and when the union goes belly up where my retirement fund?

and if i dont want to belong to a union i cant work there? this is the usa land of the free
the dinasaur is dead.

let your bros. get a job work any where there able to.
but if they screw up and the management wants to fire them, and the union says oh no well then screw it, if he can not work and get paid ill do same.

in the 40s,50,s unions were needed now not.

Employers do.

Without unions the rich get richer the poor get poorer.I remember the days of no unions where I live many years ago.The employer was your god and you had to take whatever you could get and no unemployment insurance back then
Women were paid very low and men by what the boss decided you needed, single men very little,get married and get a small increase,have kids get a little more.Like I said he was your god and could make you work thenever it suited him.You had a choise put up with it,stave or go on welfare.Back then things didnt come easy welfare was last resort,people got enough to barely stay alive.
It was a hard fight but the unions changed all that for the working man.

experienced in this matter than many. I'm just dumbfounded to hear women badmouth the Unions like this. Women were sucked into the workplace in W.W.II, because they were needed while men did the fighting. They in effect dropped the wages all over the United States when the men came home and they wanted to keep the supporters jobs. To this very day, a man can't get a job in Lowes, Handy City, Home Depot or Wal-Mart and thousands of other places because a woman will work for 1/2 of what a man would, and take carp off a 28 year old kid boss, and then she whines about less wages then men I will admit Wal-Mart hires one strong young man to put the bicycles on the ceiling, and one temp to assemble them at Christmas.

If stabbing the local workers in the back for 10K on a contract was the right thing to do, picture the country with all un-unioned workers stabbing each other in the back to undercut the other guy, while CEO's make OVER fifty Million Dollars per year. They often do people.

Wake up, there are millions of Chinese just waiting for the chance to take your job for 1/10 of what you could take.

"Forgive them Father for they know not what they do."

There are three main groups that don't appreciate a labor bargaining union. 1) The silver spoon group that was given a college education, a nice job and all the benefits, and those that worked their way through college or up through the ranks to bennys. This also includes the families that are handed the bennys from a family member. 2) The people that suck bennys from great companies to work for. Companies that are not unionized but have great bennys. The Post office, military shipyards, etc. 3) Those that don't know what they are talking about.

comment about women in the workforce the way you have with this post.

Women were NOT allowed to join the military and FIGHT or most of them probably WOULD have enlisted because the pay was a hell of a lot better than what any shop offered, even back then. The fact that women were "willing" to work for less than men is a joke to the max....women have NEVER been paid anywhere near what men were paid to do the same job.....UNION or otherwise. It actually has taken the FEDERAL government to make changes to that, and it's STILL not equal...UNION or otherwise.

If women take a job for less pay, it's because we are realists....we have families to support and ANY pay is better than none at all. I guess that means that men will sit on their asses and let their pride starve their families before taking a lesser-paid job? Is that why men aren't in the housekeeping/maid/cleaning/childcare business....because they aren't unionized or because it is demeaning to them?

Companies found out that women will work just as hard as men for less money.....why in hell should they give you strong whiny wimps your jobs back at more money when they've already found a better job force out there, hon? If we've taken over your market, you have nobody but yourselves to blame for thumping your chests and dragging your knuckles on the ground for far too many years with your superior attitudes. Keep your unions........we women will keep the jobs.

TONI

with a lot of women during my lifetime, and I can honestly say that most women that I have worked with could outwork a lot of the men. They really earned my respect!
Larry

Those that worked and belonged to a union, and saw the dues go up time after time while the union lost us wages, raises, and benefits time after time.

Why would I pay someone to lose me money?

--Cindi
Speakeasy Moderator
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Harvester until they shut down and he got zippo. No health insurance, no pension, nothing. What was it that unions do for you again?

If he worked for Harvester, and there was no union, and Harvester shut down, would he be guaranteed health insurance and a pension?

the unions pockets

How do you know what the arrangements were at the plant that closed?

OR

Is your response a general statement?

You do realize that sometimes companies shut down, and employees lose pension money, and the employees are not in the union.

And the company takes the money. Not the union.

You don't know if it was a company pension plan or a union pension plan.

Maybe you do, but I don't.