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Why don’t you contribute to the conversation by talking about your own experience with unions?

notkaiho 7y ago
Because my experience with unions is along the lines of the other far-downvoted comments in this thread, i.e. positive ;)
jdkee 7y ago
I’ll bite. My colleagues and I ran a IBEW union shop for about a dozen years up through the dot-com bust. We had over 150 union electricians building out data centers, running fiber optics along railroad tracks, installing low-voltage datacom, etc. We had a few electricians from the local pool who: 1. Would not show up on time. 2. Did sloppy work. 3. Lied about their work hours on timesheets. 4. Refused to stay updated on building codes, technology changes, fire protection codes. 5. Were rude to customers. And we would fire them for cause and they would show up in our shop a year later as it was their turn to be rotated through again. That said, the union gave us flexibility to scale up or down our workforce as needed to meet project deadlines. And provided us with trained, skilled and motivated workers. YMMV.
- Frondo 7y ago
  I can't get too worked up that there are some bad electricians (and I'm imagining that this is true for any field) who are also union members. My brother in law's a solo residential electrician who occasionally does a little commercial work. Been doing this for 20+ years. He works hard to keep up with codes, always spends the time on the job to do the work to good standards, etc. His observation is probably 80% of the homes he's come into, whether done by the homeowner or by a previous electrician, the work is shoddy to the point of being dangerous. I'm honestly not at all surprised if there are bad union electricians, it seems like there are a LOT of bad electricians out there. Sucks that they're rotating through the union hiring pool, though. I'm sure that was super frustrating.
wanderingjew 7y ago
While not the grandparent post, I can add some of my own experiences with unions: Once, when workers in Chicago supported a general strike in support of an eight-hour workday, police shot and killed a number of workers. [1]. Someone threw dynamite into a crowd. A lot of people died, but we got that eight hour workday. Another time, workers protested for higher wages, but the company owners hired private security and killed a hundred workers. The army was called in, and private planes hired by the company dropped bombs on the workers [2]. And who can forget the time the richest man on Earth hired private security as strikebreakers after a collective bargaining agreement failed? [3]? Interestingly, these workers were already part of a union, but the owner unilaterally withdrew recognition of the union. A few people died (private security...), and the collective bargaining agreement ultimately failed. I suggest you make yourself aware of the trials unions have been through over the past two hundred years. Capital will always repress labor by any means necessary, and parroting the lines given to you by capital is implicit support. This makes you a de facto class traitor. United Bootlickers isn't a union, and even if they were, the benefits wouldn't be that great. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haymarket_affair https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haymarket_affair [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_strike https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_strike
- lawnchair_larry 7y ago
  Great, what does that have to do with the tech industry And please take inflammatory terms like “bootlicker” to your antifa meetup. We are adults.
- rukittenme 7y ago
  I mean this as politely as it can be meant. And, I'm not contributing this point to make a jab at you or your political ideology. I think you need to seek professional medical help. You're contributing "personal experiences" from 150 years ago. You're hand-waving domestic terrorism because it achieved a political end you agree with. You're accusing people of being "traitors" (a capital offense) for acknowledging the negative aspects of the union they were a member of. At some point, you have spiraled out of control. You need to seek help. This is not a normal way to communicate with people.
ilikehurdles 7y ago
OK. My wife's medical workers union won her 5 weeks of vacation, free health insurance, someone advocating for reasonable hours who she could report abuses to without fear of repercussion, healthy food in the cafeteria, oh and she got a stipend to buy whatever computing devices she wanted. No one locked away her monitor cable or prevented her from working for a week so they could plug in a power strip. No armed union rep came to her door to force her to sign the paperwork or hand over the fees. Her union fees were like a couple hundred bucks a year or something, but her pay in that position was also higher than it would have been at any other hospital in the region.

Because my experience with unions is along the lines of the other far-downvoted comments in this thread, i.e. positive ;)

jdkee 7y ago

I’ll bite. My colleagues and I ran a IBEW union shop for about a dozen years up through the dot-com bust. We had over 150 union electricians building out data centers, running fiber optics along railroad tracks, installing low-voltage datacom, etc. We had a few electricians from the local pool who: 1. Would not show up on time. 2. Did sloppy work. 3. Lied about their work hours on timesheets. 4. Refused to stay updated on building codes, technology changes, fire protection codes. 5. Were rude to customers. And we would fire them for cause and they would show up in our shop a year later as it was their turn to be rotated through again. That said, the union gave us flexibility to scale up or down our workforce as needed to meet project deadlines. And provided us with trained, skilled and motivated workers. YMMV.

Frondo 7y ago
I can't get too worked up that there are some bad electricians (and I'm imagining that this is true for any field) who are also union members. My brother in law's a solo residential electrician who occasionally does a little commercial work. Been doing this for 20+ years. He works hard to keep up with codes, always spends the time on the job to do the work to good standards, etc. His observation is probably 80% of the homes he's come into, whether done by the homeowner or by a previous electrician, the work is shoddy to the point of being dangerous. I'm honestly not at all surprised if there are bad union electricians, it seems like there are a LOT of bad electricians out there. Sucks that they're rotating through the union hiring pool, though. I'm sure that was super frustrating.

wanderingjew 7y ago

While not the grandparent post, I can add some of my own experiences with unions: Once, when workers in Chicago supported a general strike in support of an eight-hour workday, police shot and killed a number of workers. [1]. Someone threw dynamite into a crowd. A lot of people died, but we got that eight hour workday. Another time, workers protested for higher wages, but the company owners hired private security and killed a hundred workers. The army was called in, and private planes hired by the company dropped bombs on the workers [2]. And who can forget the time the richest man on Earth hired private security as strikebreakers after a collective bargaining agreement failed? [3]? Interestingly, these workers were already part of a union, but the owner unilaterally withdrew recognition of the union. A few people died (private security...), and the collective bargaining agreement ultimately failed. I suggest you make yourself aware of the trials unions have been through over the past two hundred years. Capital will always repress labor by any means necessary, and parroting the lines given to you by capital is implicit support. This makes you a de facto class traitor. United Bootlickers isn't a union, and even if they were, the benefits wouldn't be that great. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haymarket_affair https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haymarket_affair [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_strike https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_strike

lawnchair_larry 7y ago
Great, what does that have to do with the tech industry And please take inflammatory terms like “bootlicker” to your antifa meetup. We are adults.
rukittenme 7y ago
I mean this as politely as it can be meant. And, I'm not contributing this point to make a jab at you or your political ideology. I think you need to seek professional medical help. You're contributing "personal experiences" from 150 years ago. You're hand-waving domestic terrorism because it achieved a political end you agree with. You're accusing people of being "traitors" (a capital offense) for acknowledging the negative aspects of the union they were a member of. At some point, you have spiraled out of control. You need to seek help. This is not a normal way to communicate with people.

ilikehurdles 7y ago

OK. My wife's medical workers union won her 5 weeks of vacation, free health insurance, someone advocating for reasonable hours who she could report abuses to without fear of repercussion, healthy food in the cafeteria, oh and she got a stipend to buy whatever computing devices she wanted. No one locked away her monitor cable or prevented her from working for a week so they could plug in a power strip. No armed union rep came to her door to force her to sign the paperwork or hand over the fees. Her union fees were like a couple hundred bucks a year or something, but her pay in that position was also higher than it would have been at any other hospital in the region.