2 ms·

I knew a friend: pretty smart guy who was working on his masters, hated his field and decided to go to trucking. He's been in a union for decades. He talked abo

I knew a friend: pretty smart guy who was working on his masters, hated his field and decided to go to trucking. He's been in a union for decades. He talked about union vs non-union drivers. A lot of companies will tell you all this crap about how union shops pay less, lay off tons of people, etc. etc. He told me union trucking agencies do tend to lay a lot of people off after the busy seasons, but their contracts allow them to take other loads during those times, and many of them get hired right back on in a month or two. If you really compared union and non-union shops and factor in benefits and healthcare, you come out way ahead in union shops. He talked about FexEx and all the videos they put out showing they're a better company to work for and how you can go from truck driver to pilot. He told me UPS is a union shop and they spend less money on that bullshit advertising and more giving their workers benefits, better wages and hours. (FedEx is non-union and UPS is union right? I might have this backwards ..was a long time ago.. anyway...). I watched him debate with a hard core, franchise owning (he owned like 8 Jimmy John's), libertarian, anti-union guy at brunch once and they had a really good rational argument about unions.

sjg007 9y ago
I agree. People need to talk to their friends in a union and ask if they regret it. My union friends have great benefits and love it.
- peoplewindow 9y ago
  Depends if your friends are managers I guess. My father worked his way up into management in a union shop in the 70s and 80s. The union was completely insane and basically declared war on the company. It was hacking computers, stealing mail, working with the cleaners to rummage through wastebaskets looking for corporate info they could blackmail management with. And of course they kept interrupting service to the customers via strikes. The solution was simple enough in the end. The company replaced the striking workers with machines. But lots of people's lives were harried and disrupted in the intervening years.
  - gaius 9y ago
    The union was completely insane and basically declared war on the company This happens when people become full-time employees of the union, rather than doing union stuff while being employees of the company. The only paid staff an honest union needs are maybe some people to do admin. Union bosses always seem to be paid as much as managers or more too, they don’t have anything in common with the Workers anymore, if they even ever did

sjg007 9y ago

I agree. People need to talk to their friends in a union and ask if they regret it. My union friends have great benefits and love it.

peoplewindow 9y ago
Depends if your friends are managers I guess. My father worked his way up into management in a union shop in the 70s and 80s. The union was completely insane and basically declared war on the company. It was hacking computers, stealing mail, working with the cleaners to rummage through wastebaskets looking for corporate info they could blackmail management with. And of course they kept interrupting service to the customers via strikes. The solution was simple enough in the end. The company replaced the striking workers with machines. But lots of people's lives were harried and disrupted in the intervening years.
- gaius 9y ago
  The union was completely insane and basically declared war on the company This happens when people become full-time employees of the union, rather than doing union stuff while being employees of the company. The only paid staff an honest union needs are maybe some people to do admin. Union bosses always seem to be paid as much as managers or more too, they don’t have anything in common with the Workers anymore, if they even ever did