Unions used to be a good thing

looks like the union got it to proven different.

Not quite. He was out the dues he paid to the union.

I'm not familiar with all the circumstances of his union affiliation, however, I think that the union negotiated his contract, got him the benefits that he had before the company closed, so he paid some money and got some services and benefits.

Different unions have different arrangements.

One thing that is for sure.

Nothing lasts forever.

Not like the"old days" when a person went to work for a company and lived in a company town and you were guaranteed a job for life.

the company under. Some are left holding the bag. It's called the end game. He was holding the bag.

a massive legal pyramid scheme........you pay into it, and if you retire early or quit or get fired or get laid off, only a portion of the benefits go to you, if anything, because you only receive your VESTED amount based on years of payment into it. If you haven't fulfilled the contract requirement of a certain number of years VESTED, the balance gets divided up among the rest of the employees who are left under that same contract....and that includes any employERS who are also in it; however, most employERS have their own system in place that probably got shut down once the unions put theirs in instead. One by one only the top few remaining are the ones to collect the entire VESTED amount based upon years of service and amount paid into it.

Anything less than five years' service, you can pretty well count on being screwed out of. Supposedly there have been a few 'laws' enacted that allow you to transfer your pension/healthcare benefits from one union to another, but most times, you end up with a COBRA letter telling you that you can switch your healthcare to another account for FAR more money as an individual with less coverage than you had before (no prescriptions, no dental, no eyecare, and less total medical/hospital/doctor care than you were used to having).

I had a great Blue Cross/Blue Shield group policy with a company I worked for.....when I left their employ, I was pregnant (no maternity leave at that time and no promise of getting the same job back when I was able to go back to work...company policy indicated I had to quit at six-months pregnant and not return for reconsideration for the job until after a six-week checkup). I actually was forced into taking a job with a temp agency, wear an extremely tight girdle and baggy clothes to hide it, and never let on to anywhere they sent me because of possible lawsuits. This was just to be able to keep surviving for the four months it would take to give birth and try to get my old job back....which I didn't get.

I had to transfer my hospitalization to an individual family account so I lost the group rate and jumped from $120 per month for 100% coverage to $400 per month premiums for 80% coverage......lost the dental, prescriptions, eyecare, and most of the normal benefits for Derek when he was born. I had to pay separately for his circumcision (not covered) and had to pay for the three days he was in the hospital with me before I was released. Their explanation was that HE had checked out fine and could have gone home after the first day, but he was waiting for ME to be released......therefore, I was charged the RENT for the room and staff for him.

This was all in a UNION secretarial pool at Joseph & Feiss/Cricketeer in Cleveland......they made men's suits with a Sears label.

I worked for an office that had a union shop.....I was covered under their pension plan/hospitalization program. I was there for nine years......when I left, I got a notice from the company that because I had left before I had a total VESTED pension, there was $86 available to me upon my retirement at age 62. I'm a few years away from getting that.....wonder if any interest has accumulated over the last 35 years to make it worth the effort of filing for the money?

TONI

opinion

the bosses really had you kin's best interest at heart and wanted to stay, but the union made them close the doors. Buying non-unionized Toyotas from Japan had nothing to do with it. Ya, you sure understand. Go to Detroit and se what happened there when the people got imports up to 30% of the marketplace.

Just like profits from Volvo's and Land Cruisers and Jags, etc. come to USA's own Ford Motor Company.

Get real. Wal-Mart is also a USA company, which Chinese providence are they making the richest? You don't seem to understand anything about International companies, and the screwing this country is getting.

When Nissan (Datsun) sent trucks into this country, they were slapped with duties. When they shipped them in two pieces and put the bed on in Smyrna, TN, the duty was dropped. Interesting huh? There are millions of these goodies we never get told.

You can also add BMW in Greenville, SC. Volkswagen in Westmoreland, PA. Honda in Marysville, OH. and on and on. Where do you think the profit goes? Hire in at Mazda in Detroit, Michigan and ask if they have the Union or send profits to Japan. Hahahahahahaha

PS Mazda is a Japanese company. Controlling interest in Japan is owning over 33 1/3 percent, and Ford owns 40% I believe. I really hate to break your bubble because you seem to be right on with some other issues.

you talk about proffits the union steals you blind you support them ill hope see them disbanded.
since the person who wants to work dosnt need there help .

with shutting the place down. They restrict the employer's flexibility to make the best possible use of his employees, and they boost the wages so high that the products can no longer compete in the market.

BTW, if you think Japanese labor is low cost, you better check your statistics again.

that you'd physically halt an individual from trying to work at a job they were legitimately hired to perform? Sounds like a felony to me.
The concept of unions as collective bargaining tools is a good one. It standardizes pay, establishes clear pay increases and benefits, formalizes grievance procedures against employees, ultimately allowing employees to meet with the employer on more equal ground.
But the concepts of unions harrassing non-union workers, blackmailing businesses, using funds for personal gain, enlisting workers who do not wish to be unionized, and promoting a political platform which does not represent the party as a whole, this is the unfortunate situation of unions today. Like the companies they once bravely stood against, they are now controlled by corrupt leaders who take advantage of the workers to satisfy their own greed or ideology.

no corrupt employers who take advantage of the workers to satisfy their own greed or ideology? Let me tell you, filthyrich, the little guy deserves basic healthcare for himself and his family. The employers didn't give poop in bennys until they were made to do it. I'm still waiting for an employer to step up and show us a better non-unionized way, how about you doing it? I've been waiting since 1945, let me know when your ready. Hundreds of Millions of workers have no healthcare, no pension, no dental, no prescription coverage, no grievance procedure, no respect and so on, are they too greedy and need to be taken down a peg or two by a multi-millionaire plant owner?

Sorry about your kin. Where does he work now?

You're little jibe at my nickname is rather silly, the rich comes from Richard, not being wealthy, but I'll forgive it since it seems this class warfare concept has boggled your mind.
As for employers giving benefits... whiile I'm going for my master's, I'm getting health insurance through a part time job. I'm eligible for health care since I averaged 17.5 (yes, 17.5) hours a week last year. My premium is 23 bucks a week. Its a major health provider in NYS, MVP, and my coverage does just about everything. And the funny part, the business I've worked at has never, ever, had a union.
An important detail that should be considered in this discussion is the job market, which despite its recent history is still quite good. Overall, unemployment is still low, and skilled workers are in demand. That places A LOT of power in the workers' hands.

of wealth, but not the rest. Wasn't it K-Mart or Wal-Mart that got caught firing all the managers before they could retire? Was that nice? Ask about my healthcare premiums at age 62 with no medical problems. I got your profiling for you.

Our welfare/work situation is worse now than before we started spending 4 trillion dollars on overweight people that stay home and watch Oprah every day.

Unions and Americans trying to work and feed themselves didn't cause these problems. The nice new bridge they are building in Charleston, SC (a right to work state, we hate unions here) brought in an outside crew and wouldn't hire certain local workers. The INS had to send some of them home. (to their country) This isn't fair, this is non-union workers. Maybe we should try a roll-reversal because I don't think either of us is seeing the other side as clearly as possible, I've been on both sides many times. Maybe a Masters will blur your vision to uneducated laborers, who knows. Nothing is simply Black & White except Zebras.

but I've never been completely against unions...its just that I feel many of the large ones nowadays have slowly become corrupt, as does any organization with limited leadership that survives a long time. I don't think unions as a whole should be gotten rid of, I just think that many of them should be remade or broken down into smaller pieces.
I personally disagree with, though, the "active" pursuit of employment by union workers... it denies the employer the basic right of employing who they want, which I feel is a right of the employer, no matter the consequence.
I also disagreed with the general sense of RAH RAH SIS BOOM BAH! for the unions that appeared in this thread. It just seemed to me rather black-and-white, but from your side :-P

unions are as bad as employers in many ways. The worker, unfortunately, is stuck inbetween.

click here to email semods4@yahoo.com

was a Teamster driver for nearly 30 years.....got laid off from one job and got hired by another driving Coca-Cola products. Both companies were Teamster Unionized......when he got his brain tumor, he got a couple of cases a week of free Coke products, continued healthcare, and had to sign off on the house to me so he could collect SSI benefits and transfer his life insurance policies to irrevocable trusts to Derek in order to qualify for SSI as being indigent with no assets he could cash in. The Union gave him NOTHING.....and when he died, the supposed life insurance policy he had with the union we discovered was never transferrable from the first union to this one, and Derek received less than $5000 from the Union when the policy should have been closer to $40K (there wasn't enough VESTED in the second company union). The same thing happened with his pension trust........it was empty with nothing to collect because it also was never transferred to the second company union. Both Teamster Unions....including the SAME local.....but the good union beat him out of anything he should have been entitled to.

When my first husband died, he was also a Teamster, driving a vending truck. He had been with them for over five years, after coming home from the Navy....there were NO vested interests for his account and the union again was let off the hook. The ONLY benefits the kids got were from Social Security and the NAVY.

Don't EVEN talk to me about how the unions are there to protect you. If your family got anything, they were lucky, lucky, lucky.......I personally know too many others who weren't, including steel mill workers and we ALL know what happened to those people.

I don't care if they EVER find Hoffa's body.....if they ever do, I can name at least a couple of thousand workers who would urinate on on the gravesite.

TONI

were run by gangsters like the Teamsters.I,m now retired but spent 44 yrs working and always had a union.In all that time I've heard nothing but good from the many thousands of union members I met in my lifetime.Sure Toni and her son may have got cheated by a bunch of crooks but I bet they would have been worst off without the unuion.Ten years retired now not rich but thanks to union can enjoy the rest of my life.

over nearly a 30-year period of time for pension contributions, union dues, and healthcare, in addition to the initial sign-up fees charged could have been put into a savings account and used by HIM instead of the union itself. The only organization that actually gave back to Jim even part of what he had put into it was Social Security.....the rest lined somebody else's pockets. The same was true for John (the first husband who died at age 29 with three daughters under the age of ....Social Security and the NAVY helped them; not the unions who were supposed to be taking care of the workers.

I've worked in both union and non-union situations, and in nearly every one of them, the employer I worked for had better benefits than the union EVER gave to the workers once they were organized. The employer no longer had to provide those benefits at that point and didn't and in at least one instance I saw an employer make a deal with the union local to let the contract run out with NO coverage for the workers during that contract term without ever letting the workers know that they had nothing anymore. Both sides sat back with their fingers crossed that no worker or family member would need to file a claim for anything during that period of time because they would have found out they had no medical, no death, no pension.....nada. The union effectively walked away from the very people they were supposed to be representing in the MIDDLE of a contract just because the employer and the union cut a deal with the employer giving the union a lump check for somebody's pocket. The contract expired, the union never came back to negotiate a new contract and all employees who had voted for the union in the first place were effectively fired one by one and replaced with others who agreed to not unionize the shop again.......and the benefits that were brought back by the employer were now nothing compared to what the workers had prior to the union.

I quit that job over this whole thing when I saw how corrupt that union was (another Teamster and Bakery union)....and how bitter the employer got after being screwed royally by all concerned to the point that he stopped caring about the employers like he had before. They originally had a great health care and pension program......and threw it in the trash for a lousy $.50 hike in pay that the unions got them when they first got in the door.

I'll take a non-union job every time......I now live in Virginia (considered to be the south by most Yankees when they talk about unions), but spent all of my adult working time in Cleveland, Ohio, which was/is heavily union oriented and you all know by now how bad things are employment-wise in that state. Where was/is all that union protection over the last twenty years? The jobs are GONE because the unions overpriced the market right out of the freaking country or out of business completely.

TONI

could ever survive the benefits extorted from the steel companies? Something like 3 months of vacation as I recall. Those workers get a LOT of vacation now.

and wheres the money tonis husband had comeing in a fat cats pocket.

glad i was never a union member i made and kept my job on my own by working like i was hired to. got raises on merrit.

money from robbing the workers .

your post shows an honest union all the same crooks

I know that hate unions are the employers or people living on welfare.the welfare crowd make the excuse they cant get a job because of unions.I see the old girls and boys club have circled the wagons.Cant win against you guys, you have manage to keep the number of people that stay on here very low by banning anyone that dont agree with you.

>>>>Cant win against you guys, you have manage to keep the number of people that stay on here very low by banning anyone that dont agree with you.>>>>>

This is the typical response we get from some members who don't have a leg to stand on when it comes to a real give-and-take discussion. If you can't baffle them with brilliance, dazzle them with bull....

If you can't find it within yourself to continue the discussion in an adult fashion, please don't resort to the little kid tantrum statements.

TONI

the people that disagree with you in your eyes are ganging up on you why is it that way maybe weve seen it in our lives?

im no teen agers im a disabled senior citizen who worked every day till i broke my back and neck.

dont give me that crap about not getting a job because of you didnt have a union.

they are dinasaurs obsolete.

in this day and age the work places have more safety regs in place and job security.
in the old days they were needed now they just rob you.

and as others have said when they go poof wheres your money.
if you took your dues and put it in a bank which has the gov backing your moneys safe.

and welfare is union as if your a member you dont have to do your job as try to fire the lazy bums you your right unions are full of wellfare.

in this day and age the work places have more safety regs in place and job security.
in the old days they were needed now they just rob you.

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Aren't you reading the other posts of Bush not protecting the Inspectors? How can we have it both ways on the same day?

the work places today are safe your back in the 30s

and if the person needs a union rep to hold his hand to be in a safe work place he needs more help than that.