People who are anti-union are the biggest idiots ever

without unions, i'd be forced to fly potentially unsafe aircraft or face termination. union efforts provide a legal method of recourse for such terminations
 
unions help the middle class by creating artificially high wages, thus forcing companies to look for cheaper labor (mostly overseas these days)?
 
Pretty much agree with this. Greed has always been a part of the human composition but these days it is worse than it's ever been. Say what you will about Moore, but he made a pretty crazy fact more well known: your employer will even try to benefit financially from your death. That's pretty fucking disgusting and just one of many examples of the major disconnect between employee and employer as far as morals are concerned.

Unions have been affected by greed and laziness as well, but the concept can't die because the middle-class worker will become essentially powerless. Sure there are labour laws in place, but there are always loop holes and corporations have the money and lawyers to get themselves out of almost any situation.
 
I hate when OT goes on a political/economic thread spree. I really try to learn as much as possible about the various subjects, but the level of back and forth bickering and bullshit is almost impossible to sift through sometimes. Everyone thinks they know what's right, and even though this is just an internet forum and a very small sample of the US population, it represents the insane split in views among the public which the two-party system plays upon.
 
It sucks that the IAFF is in a position where there's no real reason for them to change their ways. There really isn't any way for them to lose market share.

When you look at building trades, what you're describing used to be the status quo. Now they've been losing market share, and the local branches with intelligent leaders have been pushing for change in their groupthink. They realize that protecting incompetent people doesn't actually help the union. It's amazing it took them this long to figure that out, but at least it's a start.
 
please educate me on how I can still be employed when my employment is based on being a meraber of the union? serious question btw.
I am a non meraber of the union and pay reduced dues due to Beck's law, but all existing and future employees must pay either meraber or non meraber dues, we are a closed shop state.
 
I'm sure he meant that now, today, you'd get the same protections with or without a union, and he's technically correct in that regard. It still doesn't really work out that way, but he is technically correct.
 
THIS. it's impossible for me, the pilot, to fight an entire team of corporate lawyers to prove that my decision to not fly without air conditioning or into a thunderstorm was based in safety. it would be nice if things were black and white, but the legal system is VERY, VERY gray, and it takes union-backed lawyers to keep it from crushing the little guy.

defending a simple wrongful termination at a nonunion company in my industry cost the worker over $200,000. the average middle-class worker can't do that, so the corporation wins by default.
 
Including secretaries and such we are around 130-150 employees. There are plenty of other similar companies in the area though. There are probally a few thousand people with the same job in my area

The structure include the ceo, operations manager, a few analysts and assistant operation managers, then 15 foreman, a few assistant foreman, then my position which has 3 "levels" with me being in the middle one
then I have tons of contract people under me that we hire out at my whim ...... so management is somewhat vertical

We could easily train almost anybody willing to work with common sense how to do my job. It is a VERY sought after job. They could easily fire someone not pulling their weight and replace him the same day.


Its a job that people up North would try to unionize more then likely.
 
I don't see that happening anytime soon. We have only been part of this union for 6 months and of the 5 people that have been fired since then, all were reinstated after filing a grievance with the union.
 
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