My experiences with the Union

Post #72,638 by bluke 1/5/03 8:14:24 AM Reply	My experiences with the Union I worked for NYNEX (now Verizon) as a consultant and did application development for them. We had to deal with the union, what an unpleasant experience. I had to move my PC three feet to a different desk, I had to wait 2 days to do it, because only the union was allowed to move a PC. The same thing to add memory. Don't ask about getting a phone installed on my desk. Unions IMHO are a productivity killer, there is no incentive to work hard etc., promotions are based on seniority, people can't be fired, new ideas can't be tried. I would never want to join a union.
Post #72,639 by jbrabeck 1/5/03 9:19:04 AM 1/5/03 9:20:24 AM Reply	Duplicate post. @#$@#&% computer! [link\|mailto:jbrabeck@attbi.com\|Joe] Edited by jbrabeck Jan. 5, 2003, 09:20:24 AM EST Expand All History
Post #72,640 by jbrabeck 1/5/03 9:19:40 AM Reply	Similiar I was a Y2K consultant. Scanned thousands of lines of code (COBOL and others). Since the group I was with was considered "Management" (Business System Analysts and above are management), we were not allowed to make any code modifications. Not even the simple ones, such as changing the year from PIC x(2) to PIC x(4). We found many other code problems in addition to the Y2K potential problems. We could only highlight Y2K potential problems and return the code to the programmers for correction (we would then receive the program for reevaluation). We were not allowed to identify nor mention the other problems. Union regulations.... [link\|mailto:jbrabeck@attbi.com\|Joe]
Post #72,641 by bbronson 1/5/03 9:31:10 AM Reply	Was it at least all the same union? I spent a college summer (in the mid-1980s) working at a piston ring company. It was a multi-union shop, but as a temp, I wasn't required to join (thankfully!) The machines, as machines do, would often need fixing and adjustment. The most common fix would have taken me about 3 minutes to perform. However, union rules prevented me from fixing it. First, I turned it off (surprisingly, I WAS allowed to do that). Then, the power cord had to be unplugged from the outlet. That required an electrical union person. Then, the hydraulics needed to be disconnected. That required another union person. And the water supply needed to be disconnected, requiring yet a third union person. Finally, the adjustments required a wrench and a fourth union person to turn it. Then, put it all back together required finding all the right union people again. And god forbid one of the unions was on break. What I could have easily done by myself in 3 minutes required 4 people and anywhere from 30-90 minutes. Not because of real training or safety needs, just because of union rules formulated to keep otherwise unneeded people employed. Now multiply this by a half-dozen machines requiring this type of work 1-2 times per week (possibly per shift, too). Brian Bronson
Post #72,667 by boxley 1/5/03 12:24:52 PM Reply	reminds me of the storey between the Raj and the Majharreta. The brit leftenant looking down his nose at the lady ruler saying a single clerk was doing the work that her former staff of 20 babus could do. She said, yes and now they are beggars and theives in the market place instead of respected scholars. So effieciency is only a small part of the picture. thanx, bill will work for cash and other incentives [link\|http://home.tampabay.rr.com/boxley/resume/Resume.html\|skill set] You think that you can trust the government to look after your rights? ask an Indian
Post #73,270 by tuberculosis 1/7/03 6:22:37 PM Reply	Henry Ford also learned that paying his employees enough to be able to afford to buy cars was good business. Same principal. Send all the work and money overseas and you'll be a wealthy despot living in a slum. Quality for all begins at home. I am out of the country for the duration of the Bush administration. Please leave a message and I'll get back to you when democracy returns.
Post #73,291 by deSitter 1/7/03 7:45:56 PM Reply	Fucking OF COURSE! Why is that message so hard to understand??? -drl
Post #73,344 by tuberculosis 1/8/03 3:44:00 AM Reply	Prisoners dilema Thats the driving management principle today. Operating according to the Nash theory of equilibrium would produce a nicer world - but this (and I blame the idiot business press for this shit) is not a popularly received concept. Example: Every single issue of Infoworld during the 90's until we left it en masse featured a headline using the formula "Product A vs Product B Can Product B survive?" Where Product A is usually a MS product. This is of course, idiotic. But its been drummed into the popular psyche at large by the ink-stained know-nothing pundits. It will required a vast sea-change in thinking to undo this bit of propaganda. I am out of the country for the duration of the Bush administration. Please leave a message and I'll get back to you when democracy returns.
Post #73,375 by deSitter 1/8/03 11:21:35 AM Reply	Nice Exposition of PD [link\|http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/prisoner-dilemma/\|http://plato.stanfor...prisoner-dilemma/] -drl
Post #72,645 by imric 1/5/03 10:34:35 AM Reply	Good examples of where unions have (naturally) abused thier power over whether work gets done at all to the detriment of productivity. I believe that regulated competition (like we are supposed to have in other markets) could help this. Some serious Union 'trust-busting' needs to be done... That doesn't mean that Unions are, in themselves, bad. Eliminating them would just be leaping back to the other extreme where workers are abused instead of business. Imric's Tips for Living Paranoia Is a Survival Trait Pessimists are never disappointed - but sometimes, if they are very lucky, they can be pleasantly surprised... Even though everyone is out to get you, it doesn't matter unless you let them win.
Post #72,657 by deSitter 1/5/03 11:42:55 AM Reply	Sanity at last - but.. .."unions abusing power" is empty rhetoric from the right. Unions provide working people with the security necessary to raise families. No one seems to remember this. It's all computer geek, unreal abstraction from most of the peanut gallery. We will be whores until we wise up - that is, forever; because so many of us are utterly clueless and suffer from a misplaced sense of being "better" somehow than poor blighted working stiffs. I'm proud to be a working stiff myself. -drl
Post #72,675 by imric 1/5/03 1:02:50 PM Reply	Empty? No - I think Unions abuse thier power in many ways - and the post I responded to showed some of those ways. Another is Union opposition to technological progress. Yes, they protect thier workers - but I also believe that some sort of scheme to allow competition between unions might be able to alleviate the problems that exist. Consider: Unions should have to compete by providing both value to workers AND value to employers. Possible Worker benefits: Wages Training Health & Insurance benefits Job Availability Possible Employer Benefits: Lower Wages/Costs Wages Training Insurance (if these things are provided by the Union) Employee availability Employee Quality/suitability If Unions were forced to compete, balancing (1) and (2) - then there might be less abuse, and more Unions that actually benefit employees (Believe me, I've heard nightmare stories about ineffective Unions and reps). Somehow, shops need to be able to change Unions easily - but how to do that without destroying the protection to workers provided by Unions... I dunno. Maybe if Management can propose a Union change but workers can veto, and vice versa (with those that don't want to change unions moving on to a different placement through thier Union, perhaps). If I thought I had all the answers, I'd try to be in charge of the problem. Imric's Tips for Living Paranoia Is a Survival Trait Pessimists are never disappointed - but sometimes, if they are very lucky, they can be pleasantly surprised... Even though everyone is out to get you, it doesn't matter unless you let them win.
Post #72,688 by deSitter 1/5/03 2:19:27 PM Reply	Re: Empty? Unions are not employers, and should not have their focus blurred. The purpose of a Union is to force management to place a definite value on employees by not exploiting them. If management would recognize that business is a social institution like a church or a school, and not simply a pointless profit center, then harsh measures from the Unions would not be necessary. Extremes beget extremes. The thing you haven't mentioned that is actually troublesome is how Union leadership is so easily perverted - surprise. -drl
Post #72,728 by broomberg 1/5/03 5:33:05 PM Reply	Here Have 10,000 pages [link\|http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=union+corruption\|http://www.google.co...=union+corruption]
Post #72,732 by deSitter 1/5/03 5:58:27 PM Reply	BAHAHAHA That really was funny. I'm amused that workers count for so little. What do you people regard as valuable? Obviously you don't give a damn if people slave their lives away in a hopeless situation, not knowing from month to month if they will be able to feed their families. Let's bring back coal dust and sharecropping. -drl
Post #72,818 by Ashton 1/5/03 9:44:09 PM Reply	Frog in the pot; works repeatedly via ego blindness IMnsHO, most folk under (50?), unless they grew up in a working household; history a frequent topic at a real dinner table - augmented by the lore of such a parental one (or pair) of real workers: Are blowing smoke and, as you suggest - imagine selves to be 1337, more Boolean than thou. Hah.. In saner though reactionary times, when I busted ass over a loong summer at the world's largest white pine mill (Lewiston ID) and other jobs varying from primer mfg to jr. chemist yada, over several years -- I saw little in the way of the absurd make-work examples in this thread. We two (myself and an older rilly wiry guy) who loaded the "green end" of the dryer, on one gig - had a 5 minute break for water.. Water.. WATER! at the 2-hour mark, watched second-by-second towards its approach. There always are.. the Welfare Queen slogans, such as led to Clinton out-brutalizing even Gingrich, in the sellout of 'welfare' as even a concept. Really pissed those Repos, to be out-scrimped on the lowest 20% of non-donors-to campaigns. And my experience was the expected "condition", where the Union was the obvious and essential counterbalance of the endless war for personal greed -VS- inevitably, the suits - then not so obscenely voracious as in the Age of Billy. I can't recall the provision (part-time?) via which I needn't join that Union: but I saw employees giving bloody excellent value/time. IT, 5? x? years ago may have seemed to be 'hi-tech' to employers - bizness droids who can't do Ohm's Law, so they picked basketweaving. They sorta had to accede to that which they didn't understand and couldn't. Then. Now they have learned little more, except via pure SHIT like IW, pandering to and lauding their ignorance and determination not ever to rectify it. But MBAs recognize the concept, "commodification; see 'workers' now solely as YAN 'expense' to be reduced in size", and they recognize supply/demand -- as if that formula were Life. (Which IMO is where we really Are Fucked as a kultur. As thou sayest.) So the Class Struggle remains, however much one prefers the comfortable euphemism. The IT 'workers' who imagine elite status are the lawful prey of (esp. the younger) MBA ladder droids. This as the little cubicles get moved closer together and the Hamster-bottle no longer is filled with free Dew; and as IT becomes Int'l. Commodity, along with all the other office interchangeable worker-machines. More and more people are working As or as-if Temps, with 0 sense of permanence or of being valued in any way. Do I exaggerate? Yeah, no doubt many denizens here have a different relationship. So far. In early '03. Before Depression replaces 'Recession' on the nightly talking-head show. As the gap between Top 20% and Bottom grows daily. Shit.. I wonder how many IT folk have ever really WATCHED Modern Times, the utter Genius that was Charles Chaplin -- then sat in silence for many minutes, with no e- distractions and -- pondered [?] I wish you all extreme Good Luck - but hope also that you are investigating the concept, '*diversify your abilities', before the rush. (Unless Dad owns the Co.) * wider than 'IT' ?? Ashton PS - Union? It's just a word. Create. Call it a Guild, Professional Management Consortium, Coop Legislative PAC, Self-Defense Lobby, CIEIO-Defense Coalition. LifeSupport - whatever.. (Ladies and) Gentlemen, we must all hang together or, assuredly we shall all hang. Separately. Some Brit seadog
Post #72,901 by deSitter 1/6/03 10:40:02 AM Reply	Exactly I know a number of working and retired pipe fitters through my best buddy here. Not a one of them is a shirker. They are "solid citizens". -drl
Post #72,914 by imric 1/6/03 11:13:11 AM 1/6/03 11:15:56 AM Reply	'Shirking' not my point It's the Union, doing it's job (securing jobs and benefits for workers) without real regard for the business itself that's the problem. And there ARE problems. Imric's Tips for Living Paranoia Is a Survival Trait Pessimists are never disappointed - but sometimes, if they are very lucky, they can be pleasantly surprised... Even though everyone is out to get you, it doesn't matter unless you let them win. Edited by imric Jan. 6, 2003, 11:15:56 AM EST Expand All History
Post #72,809 by imric 1/5/03 8:54:15 PM Reply	The problem is imagining that Unions have some kind of (moral?) restraint that prevents them from draining companies dry of profit. That they won't stand in the way of technical innovation. That they won't ossify job descriptions to the point of impairing flexibility. Unions stand for only one side of the problem, the workers - thier actions will necessarily tend toward that extreme REGARDLESS of how well the employees may be treated by mgt. After all, don't people always want more, over time? They need balance; I think competition could provide that balance. Imric's Tips for Living Paranoia Is a Survival Trait Pessimists are never disappointed - but sometimes, if they are very lucky, they can be pleasantly surprised... Even though everyone is out to get you, it doesn't matter unless you let them win.
Post #72,857 by bluke 1/6/03 3:28:01 AM Reply	At what cost??? There needs to be some balance. If the union rules don't allow me to move a PC 3 feet things are way out of whack. The unions are always opposed to any technological improvement because people may be laid off. Look at the dock workers strike on the West Coast, it was all about technology [link\|http://www.examiner.com/headlines/default.jsp?story=n.porttoday.0710w\|Dock strike about leverage] "Major sticking points include benefits and the introduction of new technology that the association says will make ports more efficient and secure but longshoremen worry is a way to outsource jobs." I don't have a good answer about what these people should do if they get laid off, but I know for sure that the answer is not to try to hold back technology, it won't work.

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