Quote:
Originally Posted by ironeagle2006
Then ask any of the Old timers that were with the Teamsters in the 1970's before Deregulation during the strikes back then. My father was one and had a choice to make cross the line to feed his family and save his house or try to live on 20 bucks a week strike pay. He chose to cross and now the teamsters is refusing to pay him his EARNED pension calling him a SCAB WORKER FOR SOMETHING HE DID IN THE 70'S.
So what you're saying is he had no money saved? Who's fault is that? The union? Is he a "scab"? Yep. The only reason a company wants to break a union is to save money. Money that would pay for better benefits, retirement and salary. So sometimes a worker will need to sacrafice a little in the short term to benefit in the long term. Do you think my brother wanted to strike? No. He has a wife and kids too. He had to make cuts and use money he had saved to get through. But he knew what needed to be done and did it. And now he's set to retire after only 20 years. How many people can do that now? Not many.
I'm not saying every union is perfect. They all have their flaws and one of my biggest complaints is that they keep bad employees around longer. The other complaint is they can ruin an industry if they can't adapt and make concessions, ie the auto makers, airlines. Those guys in the auto workers union got too greedy and lost thier jobs over it. As long as a contract is sensible, like at UPS, then both sides win.
My wife is a teacher here in Texas where public workers are prohibited by law to be unionized. The result is mediocre pay and terrible benefits. Before Texas my wife was a teacher in Nevada where they had representation and the pay and benefits were better. In NV she had myself and our two kids covered under a pretty good PPO health plan for $300 a month. In TX a high deductable HMO is $1000 a month. That's pretty much the standard for the TX school districts and my wife works for one of the most sought after districts.
There's a pretty good reason union jobs are hard to get and that's because nobody leaves. They get good pay, benefits and retirement that they often can't get from non-union employers.