Pay Respect to the Working Men That Suffered to Give Us Workers Rights This Weekend

[ddmoit]

I don't expect to win any popularity points with this one:

http://www.mises.org/story/1685

Just about everything that people think they know about labor unions and wage rates is wrong.

The standard tale that practically every student hears over the course of his education is that before the emergence of labor unions, American workers were terribly exploited and their wages were consistently falling. The improvement in labor's condition was due entirely or at least in large part to labor unionism and favorable federal legislation. In the absence of these, it is widely assumed, people would still be working 80-hour weeks and children would still be working in mines.

This oft-heard tale is, however, almost entirely false, and those parts of it that are true (the low standard of living that people enjoyed in the nineteenth century, for example) are true for reasons other than those alleged by pro-union historians, who see in them only confirmation of their prejudices against the market economy

[Brian in San Diego]

Dan,

Just 'cuz someone wrote it doesn't make it true. There are many who would disagree with the points made in the article. And I really don't care about what some scholar thinks about what happened at the turn of the 19th century. I know that had I stayed working for a non-union contractor I'd still be working with little to show for it. Had I been willing to take a bigger risk and start my own business I may well be better off than I am now. Like I said earlier, if a person wants to learn a trade (and learn it correctly), make a respectable wage, have decent health and retirement benefits then union employment is the way to go.

Brian

Our own opinions are all a product of our experiences, and my thoughts on unions are tempered greatly by the nonsense that I was part of during my years as a public school teacher. In spite of all the bravo sierra that the teacher's union put out there about the sacred mission of educating children, I rarely saw anything from them that had to do with kids and usually saw the union's activities going toward raising money and protecting the jobs of teachers that shouldn't allowed within a mile of a school. I don't think there is enough bandwidth here for me to start detailing those stories.

As far as the skilled trades, some of the biggest clowns I have ever worked with were union tradesmen (mostly plumbers and electricians, a few carpenters) who were doing side work.

This is not to say that there aren't some real buffoons out there working non-union, but for me my experiences have busted the myth of the highly trained union tradesman that has to come through a rigorous training program to qualify as a journeyman.

[Brian in San Diego]

Not every person that gets a high school diploma is an "A" student. In my 25 years in the union I don't remember doing any side work. Didn't have to, there was always plenty of work at my regular job...sometimes more than I wanted. I don't think many of the peole I knew were out hustling side jobs...maybe only the guys who can't get enough regular work have to do that. Kind of tells me something about the guy. The good people generally have all the work they can handle. Rob, don't know if the guys you ran into were the "D" students in the class or what. I am not trying to paint the picture that ALL union trained people are the cat's meow. The point I'm trying to make is that the schooling is there and it's mandatory. The apprentices here have to go through five years of training. Two nights a week for the first 3 years and one night a week for the final 2 years. I think they are only allowed one absence per semester. If a person is of the mind set that they want to become a top notch journeyman, our union provides a way for that to happen.

Don't know what the process is in other places, but I was very vocal about people coming to work for our company that couldn't do the job. No posers lasted very long in our shop. You come to work, do your job correctly and efficiently and as a reward you could come back and do it again the next day. We all worked hard and took pride in our work.

[dl]

> The good people generally have all the work they can handle

Brian, I'm sure it varies from industry to industry and union to union, but this was one of my major gripes about working union - how much work you got had nothing to do with how good you were but only with how much seniority you had, and it was very difficult if not impossible for the company to layoff or fire under performers or workers who didn't give a darn. OTOH at the non-union shops the best workers were rewarded with more hours, better/newer trucks etc. because the employer wanted to hang on to them. Competition for good drivers was fierce - I was once offered a brand new Kenworth tractor built to my specifications if I would switch employers. At the union jobs you typically drove old Freightliner junkers and rarely drove the same truck two days in a row while the gypo's took pride in their equipment and operated nothing but KW's and Peterbilt's and drivers had their own truck and could trick them out with stereo systems etc.

Pay isn't everything when you're spending 10 to 15 hours a day in that truck. Even so, even though union truckers and gypos sometimes convoyed together there wasn't much chit-chat (CB) between the two groups but now and then at 3 am when just two of us were traveling together I'd strike up a conversation. One night I had a conversation with a Time DC driver and his job sucked. We couldn't directly compare salaries because union drivers were paid per-mile while gypos were paid 25% of their truck's gross, but our weekly incomes were about the same. Yeah I drove more miles but that's not the whole story. The difference was that he drove relay mode - the same 200 mile stretch over and over and over, back and forth - swapping trucks with a driver in the opposite direction at "lunch", eating at the same coffee shop over and over and over, staying in the same motel over and over and over, getting home only every couple weeks. Talk about groundhog day!

OTOH I drove my own truck end to end (N. Ca. to S Ca., lumber south, whatever we could find north) and since I lived in the middle I was usually able to stop home every day and sleep a few hours in my own bed and I spent every weekend at home. My routes were varied and it never got boring. In addition during the summer/fall harvest season my boss would divert us from freight and put us on highly lucrative local produce hauls where we still made 25% and easily made 2x to 3x union scale and were home every night for dinner.

- DL

Hi Brian,

Some of these guys I remember were bragging how they had called in sick for the days that they were doing the rough-in work on this one house we were working in. Another couple of guys were telling me how clever they were because they paid a bribe to some guy at the union job to make it appear they were on their job, meanwhile they were 30 miles away working on the job I was on, getting paid cash by the homeowner (I think he was a guy they had gone to HS with). I mde some crack about how great the Brotherhood of the Union was, and how the guys on their job no doubt can do the extra work for them. Their response: oh, someone will be called in to cover.

I was greatly amused one time when one of these plumbers couldn't install the pedestal sink that he had roughed in 3 months before. After fighting with it for about 2 hours he gave up. The "master plumber"' told the homeowner that he would have to pay to get the rough-in redone because the spec sheet was wrong when he (the plumber) did the rough-in.

I can remember standing around the corner in the kitchen, tiling the backsplashes, trying to keep my mouth shut.

The point is, they all seem to have had plenty of work at their real job. But who knows?

I have no doubt that there are some highly qualified mechanics and craftsmen in the unions, and I get the feeling that you were/are one of them. I just haven't seen enough of it to convince me that it is so prevalant that the union way is the only way to go.

The BS with the teacher's union was an entirely different situation. And I don't have enough time to detail of that now.

[MudMaker]

I speak of the plant that I worked in for 33 years.. Delco Products div .of G.M. Now Delphi Automotive in the midst of bankruptcy..
I had responsibility for paint systems.. I needed a job setter for an EDP system (Cathodic Epoxy - Electrodeposition)
Ole Carl a truck driver puts in for the position.. (can't remember the correct name) Everyone knew he could not do the work but ole Carl has seniority.. Even Carl knows he can perform the tasks required to run the paint system.. He does know that they will "Buy" him out... Ole Carl puts in for many positions because of his seniority.. Ole Carl is paid $1500 to step down so someone else can apply for the position.. and guess what? Ole Carl isn't the only Ole Carl in the plant...
Then there are skilled tradesmen that go to repair a Cincinnati Centerless grinder and say the filmatic bearings need to be replaced.. (Filmatics are muy expensivo) They do this many times, then put in a suggestion to make a modification that will improve bearing life.. Now, unbeknown to all, they are pulling bearings out of stock, showing high useage.. After their suggestion is accepted, they now have a boatload of bearings that they can use up showing little or no parts taken from the crib.. Max award is $20,000... easy money..

Burt and his wife are shop union reps.. Now, union reps are suposed to be there whenever anyone is workin... Sat. Sun. Holidays.. etc.
Burt and his wife a pullin down $250,000 a year..
add janitors makin over 100k, machine repairmen, toolmakers, millwrights, plumbers, electricians all making considerably more than janitors.. Sure, eventually ya go outa business.. Notice I haven't even told you about the production workers.
How did they get the big money? Every contract negotiation where there was a stalemate.. G.M. would come down and say," We have to have the parts - Give them what they want..
This was good for G.M. because they knew their masterplan was to get rid of Delco anyway, so no big loss...
Now we had to find ways to take $$ out of the process..
Now, I am not saying this situation is typical in the US, just the only one that I am intimately familiar with...

[Shaughnn]

"Looks like the thread's dead, Jim?"
I just gotta say that I was working for guys setting tile before I joined the union but I didn't become a "tilesetter" until I was in myself. When I encountered my first tear out of a mud job and my boss at the time said, "That's a 'mud job. Nobody does that kind of work anymore.'" with reverence in his voice I knew I had to find a teacher. The union apprenticeship I went through, combined with the Union mechanics I worked next to, taught me more in three years than I'd learned in the previous eight. But in addition to the mechanics of the trade, I also learned first-hand why labor unions really ARE necessary to balance the motives of large industrial and corporate interests. I worked side-by-side, in some cases, with non-union workers in parallel projects and saw how their employers used blackmail, extortion and deception to break them into accepting a fraction of their true worth, while their employers billed at rates just slightly below my own contracted employer.
Without the labor movement of so many years ago, we would most certainly all be scratching out a living while in constant fear of losing out meager teet at the wage-earner's sow. We would be working six days a week. We would be working 10 or 12 hour days. We would be required to work in unsafe conditions. We would be expected to do all of this silently and without grievance or we wouldn't work AT ALL.
So, I'll take this belated opportunity to thank everyone in the past who got fed up with their "lot in life" and demanded "no more". Everyone who looked at the person standing next to them on a factory line and thought, "This is my brother". That's the real meaning of labor unions. The "fat cat" administrators and the deal makers are just an unfortunate side effect, like gas after Indian food.
Shaughnn

[Rd Tile]

[MudMaker]

Again, speaking about the Automotive Industry.. The Transplant Car Makers that are doing the best have no unions but wages that are similar to those of the Union.. Employes are getting the benefits that Union employees are getting without the cumbersome Union Organization..
Just makes sense... If an organization wants to keep good people, they treat them right...
All Unions, like people, are not created equal (in the truest sense of the word) .. so, I'll have to say there may be some out there that are honest and conscientious, and to those Unions I do say "Thank You for your hard work"

[Scooter]

Sometimes I just post controversial questions without chiming in.

But as you might expect, I was a Union Journeyman in the Carpenter's Union for many years.

The Union has an incredible teaching facility, teaching its members the right way to do things, per Code and per practice.

By seeing that its members know how to do the right thing, it maintains quality.

It also provides its members with a common voice. There is no way that some schlub in a 5,000 employee company has any voice. He either takes his pay and benefits or finds other work. The idea that he can "bargain" with his employer is silly. Therefore, by having a single Union Rep representing 2,500 employees of the company, gives that single employee some weight.

The Unions provide a valuable saftey net for benefits, health insurance, pension and continued education.

Finally, by providing a unified salary, the Union provides a bit of a monopoly for the services. This is anti-competition, but probably is a benefit to the employee. Not unlike a minimum wage.

The Unions had their genesis in the trade guilds in medevil Europe.