BoomerD
No Lifer
- Feb 26, 2006
- 66,262
- 14,690
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You know, when the workers at my organization chose to organize, the company had a choice, they could choose to hire all new workers or to accept the union, they chose to accept the union.
I am very happy at my job and consider the return I get from the modest dues I pay to be well worth it.
With the gap between union pay & benefits and non-union pay & benefits (if any), I always considered the difference to be "non-union dues." Why the hell anyone would consider working non-union if they have the opportunity (and skills) to work for a union contractor and make more money for their labor is beyond me. Aren't you folks afraid your friends will find out you can't add?
Around here, non-union heavy equipment operators make $15-$20 tops. Union scale averages about $32 PLUS a great fringe benefits package that costs nothing out-op-pocket for the workers. That's a HUGE difference in total compensation. In Modesto, there is no "prevailing wage" for city jobs.
Non-union contractors are NOT required to pay union scale...yet the union contractors still get something like 90% of the bids. Why? Because the union workers do the job better, quicker, and with fewer "re-do's" because of shoddy work. The biggest non-union contractor is always having to do "re-work" because the mutts he hires don't know their jobs...He's been banned from bidding on work in a couple of valley cities and counties, as well as from bidding on state jobs because of his shoddy work.
When I was a business agent, I'd audit his certified payroll every week. I loved to catch him trying to pay an equipment operator laborer's wages, or not pay them prevailing wage at all. (jobs with state or federal money) We got him fined numerous times for fraudulent certified payroll.
Folks here seem to believe that unions have out-lived their usefullness.
IMO, not the case. In almost every case, when a state goes "Right to Work" (for less), wages drop dramatically for those in unionized jobs, and as a result, wages in non-related jobs start to decline as well, because those industries are no longer having to compete with union wages.
Union workers built America...and the American middle class. If all unions disappeared on Jan. 1, 2010, it would only be a couple of years before we'd all be working for minimum wage. The companies and corporations ONLY care their bottom line, not their workers.