|
Mid Michigan | I've come to the conclusion after working for a non union shop for 35 years is that there are two types of people. The ones that have worked at a union shop and the ones that wished they had. We have a huge population of individuals around here that have all retired from union auto factories, state, government, county, power companies, railroads, milk plant etc. They retired with dignity with big pensions and health care and are the pillars of the communities all around. I surely can't find anybody in this group that I would consider lazy. Most of them found the ambition to be farmers or any other myriad of other occupations along with their 6 and 7 day a week factory jobs 52 weeks a year 10 hours a day from 30-50 years. These guys and gals have work ethic. To answer the original question the union usually takes two hours pay a month for dues. So if a guy is paying $100 a month I guess that's good for him because he's making good money. If you give 100 people the choice to work for GM for $70,000 a year or to work for one of GM's suppliers for $35,000 a year which one are they going to chose? It has nada to do with laziness and being a union bum. Far from it. It has to do with economics and prosperity for basically doing the same thing. The problem is that not all those 100 people can go and work for a union company that pays big wages and benefits because there's not enough of these positions available. Some of the comments on here are unreal. If the guys that worked for unions 30 years ago and quit after two years would have kept on the job and not quit they would probabably be home retired with a good pension and health insurance right now. The reality is not everybody can HANDLE working in a union shop for 30 or 40 years and they QUIT and then turn around and bad mouth unions becase they realize what they gave up. And with the subsidies this group gets for nothing with the crop insurance and direct payments I would be embarrassed to bad mouth any other occupation that works 52 weeks a year and gets paid well for it. Like I said, I didn't work for a union and we work our butts off every day running production so I can see the other side of the coin around here. I've done ok at my job but just working in a different buiding at a union job could have been more lucrative. We had a union drive 20 years ago and we voted against it. Things were good. Company got sold, no more pensions, sorry, no more retirement health insurance, perfect attendance bonuses gone, two tier pay scale for new hires, $8000 dollar deductable on health insurance, lump sum vacation payments gone for new hires, much overtime pay eliminated, production standards greatly increased, and a turnover rate that will turn your stomach. Nobody stays. Lot of people around here that did have good union jobs are living the good life and I'm very happy for them. They earned it. That said, the union jobs are dying and the next generation are making less than their parents do sitting home retired. | |
|
Do Union Dues make economic sense?
