One reason Unions might be a good thing?

[Dre L]

BTW did you ever try and get a teacher dismissed. No offense, but I think that you are in La-La land on that issue

Actually we have. When parents organize and are able to file valid claims against a teacher, you'd be amazed what can happen.



Ashaman, excellent point on the personal responsibility. Also, since you're ramp, what's your take on the outsourced airport services? So far we've seen the TSA take back security from outsourced private security companies. What do you think should be done about anyone who even gets near a plane or the runway?



I know a couple of people that have worked ramp and from what I see and have heard, someone should need to work their way up to ramp. Kind of like burning in employees for a while to see how they behave and such. Probationary period if you will.

when the manager at Speries reset the breaker, the union secretarial staff refused to work (they were union then) and made the manager trip the breaker and call a union electrician who showed up 2 hours later.

So the manager should have taken disciplinary action on the secretary(s). That was an unreasonable request. I don't need the UAW to come in and change my oil, or rebuild the whole damn car if I wanted to. All you're citing are unreasonable, idiotic people with an apparant lack of common sense. If the manager typed on his computer, would the secretary have striked? Dear god, he's either the biggest idiot ever, or the king of pus***s. I could understand if he pulled some cable and re-wired the whole damn panel, but tripping a breaker? What a sucker, if I were the electrician, I'd charge him for the hour's labor (he did drag him there for nothing), and my transportation to and from the place.



You don't think the electrician had better things and or jobs to do than to hump in there to throw a switch? Did you ever think the manager was a di*k and the secretaries were fu**ing with him? I would have given the whole lot written and verbal warnings to make it easier to fire them on their next offense.



Or maybe there was a recurring issue that kept tripping the breaker, like a short, and they wanted an electrician to check it out, but your manager didn't want to lose any time, and risked an electrical fire. Come on now, tell us the whole story.

 

[Benjamin Feinstein]

Unfortunatly the ramp is considered "entry level."



I dont have a problem with outsourced airport services as I know a few people that work for those companies. In alot of places where an airline has limited flights into an airport it does not make since for them to have a full staff. Here at Dulles there are at least three companies that provide services to the aircraft and airlines.



Where I work there is a 90day probationary period where if things dont look like they are going to work out the employee can be terminated without reason. After the 90 days employees are alowed to join the Union if they wish. (I have stated before that Virginia is a right to work state and employees are not required to join the Union) Employees that chose not to join the Union are covered by and held to the Union Agreement and all its rules and regulations.



When most people get on an aircraft they dont think about what is going on around them. Next time you are flying take a look outside and see what you think. Watch how the baggage handlers load the aircraft. See if on pushback if the airline requires wing walkers. I have seen many aircraft pushed in to trucks because the driver could not see it from his position and no wing walker was used. Watch and see if the person dumping the Lav is using the correct safety equipment to keep liquid from hitting him in case of a spill. Is the emloyee fueling the aircraft properly by bonding the truck to the aircraft to avoid a spark. Ramp work can be very dangerous if not performed in a safe maner. Again it comes down to personal responsibility not if the employees are Union or not.

 

[Bart Adkins]

maybe if the union members didn't require $45 an hr and 8 weeks vacation a year they'd still have jobs. Look at what the wonderful union has done for Delphi Packard here in Ohio. If my shop got a union, I'd quit.

 

[Michael Cacioppo]

Nobleman, dismissing a teacher on incompetence is nearly impossible unless she is totally illiterate. Having sex with a student is a different story. Was the teacher dismissed because of incompentency or some other cause?



If the secretaries don't want to type to support the electrical union, there is not a hell of a lot you can do about it. Maybe on paper, but not in the real world.

 

[Dale Carter]

Let me start by saying that I am not totally anit-union, they do serve a purpose.



Nobleman said "such stories are usually rhetoric". I was there and saw it happen, first hand account, not rhetoric. I was also there when our company was fined $ 275 for doing something very similar five weeks before on a Jessica Simpson date. That would explain why I didn't just plug the damn thing in. If I were alone, I would have plugged it in and said I didn't know how that happened when Mr. Union Hard On showed up. I work with a lot of union guys and like them, but a hard ass can swing his power and make life hard on you.



I have watched touring shows load in their production gear while the Master Electrician sat in a folding chair on the stage wing at about $ 35/hour. Do you know why he was there? Because it was a union house and we were required to have him there. Do you think the Production Manager let him anywhere near his multi-million dollar sound and light rig? Any idiot can tell where and how to tie in their power distribution. The Gaither Tour brought their OWN power and HVAC, but that Master Electrician still got paid to do nothing.



A few years ago two enterprising stagehands decidided they were going to unionize. During a three day music festival it was not uncommon for a stage hand to log 45 - 55 hours at $ 10/hour. At a festival, a stagehand works hard for a few hours at morning load in and then is on a break until the bands start in the afternoon. They work for about 45 mins between each band (20 min set change and 25 packing their trucks) moving the instruments around. They then break for about 40 mins. We feed them three hots a day, provide snacks throughout the day and pay for their hotel rooms. These two geniuses convinced them all that they would make a lot more money if they were unionized because of overtime, enforced breaks, etc. etc.



Guess what happens now? We NEVER work them more than forty hours. Why would we work against our own self interests? We aren't dumb enough to jack our stagehand bill through the roof with overtime. So we just hire more guys and the pot is diluted among more people, so the hands actually make LESS than before and it increases my headache with scheduling all those hands. Brilliant! The gig is worse or everyone involved now becasue of unionization.



BTW, Ronald Regan was a lifetime member of SAG (where he led their first strike) and AFL-CIO.

 

[Dre L]

1 biology teacher that did little more than read out of the book or have the students read in class. Could not control a classroom. Could not even engage the students. When enough legitimate complaints are lodged by students and entire classrooms walk out, someone will listen.



1 history teacher for uncontrollable rage, and common practice of berating students.



And at a private school, a religion teacher forced into retirement for questionable treatment of minorities. I consider many things to render a teacher incompetant. Proving anyone is incompetant in the full sense of the word is nearly impossible.

 

[Michael Cacioppo]

Q You've got my vote. Do you want to be the shop steward?

 

[Dale Carter]

Q, I have to disagree with you because of the sweeping nature of your statement. Bad service goes across all parts of our economy, as does good service. I am not anti-union, but I am not pro-union either. Ii see the good and I see the bad, I just love to stir the pudding whenever I see these "all union, all good, all the time" type messages.



No one has less incentive to deliver good customer service than local government workers, yet I consistently receive excellent service from my city, county and state government offices. I also have branches within my company, which excels in our industry fro our service levels, which are famous for bad service and we are a bunch of non-union capitalists. It is all about the leadership in charge, the fish rots from the head. My company received new executive leadership about four years ago and it drastically changed the org for the better.



Regardless of union status, show me bad service and I will show you ineffective or incompetent managers. Show me good service and I will show you good leadership. I don't necessarily mean only the top ranking person, but also the team under them. I also am talking about long term consistency, not a place where the leadership hasn't overcome (or ruined) the previous leaders work. Think of a new college football coach, it takes several seasons to get "his" program in place. A new coach is playing with the old coaches problems and postitives for two seasons, at least. Be careful of the wisdom of the changes. Alabama won a national championhip in 1992 with players recruited by a coach who "can't recruit". Gene Stallings whipped Miami with Bill Curry's players.



It's all about leadership.

 

[Dre L]

And yes, it starts at the management level as well, who are also union and unfortunately, you know what happens to bad managers in a union. Promotion!

:huh: I thought managers were non-union. See that's the problem, bad union managers if they were promoted, would be directors, eventually running the company and leaving the union in control, in which case we wouldn't have these issues. (sarcasm)



Here's to that non-union quick stopping of bad service.