Posts
8917
Joined
4/1/2018
Location
Carson, CA, USA
I’ve been on the fence about going Union for about three months now. I’m a journeyman, commercial plumber. I also have a medical gas endorsement for installing cryogenic systems, liquid nitrogen and, oxygen at hospitals.
After 24 years in this field as a non Union worker, I’m meeting with a Union organizer tomorrow. Chances are, I’m jumping ship. I’m burned out on doing manual labor. Digging ditches, jackhammering, etc. On the Union side of things they have helpers and, apprentices to do those tasks. I’ll be able to save my knees along with my back
(I do everything myself now). I’ll be able to focus exclusively on my installs. The money is way better, I’ll be able to start planning for retirement. Do I sound like my mind is made up?
My apprehension is, coming from non Union background and, jumping ship, going back to all the negative I remember hearing. You’ll be the first to get laid off. They hire non Union then lay you off to get rid of the competition. Etc, etc.
When I lived I Portland, it was bad. They would picket at our gate. I can’t even remember how many fights I got into after getting shoved and, called scab.
So, has anyone here jumped ship or, have opinions?
Thanks fellas.
Edit: I’ve been tossing and, turning over this each night.
After 24 years in this field as a non Union worker, I’m meeting with a Union organizer tomorrow. Chances are, I’m jumping ship. I’m burned out on doing manual labor. Digging ditches, jackhammering, etc. On the Union side of things they have helpers and, apprentices to do those tasks. I’ll be able to save my knees along with my back
(I do everything myself now). I’ll be able to focus exclusively on my installs. The money is way better, I’ll be able to start planning for retirement. Do I sound like my mind is made up?
My apprehension is, coming from non Union background and, jumping ship, going back to all the negative I remember hearing. You’ll be the first to get laid off. They hire non Union then lay you off to get rid of the competition. Etc, etc.
When I lived I Portland, it was bad. They would picket at our gate. I can’t even remember how many fights I got into after getting shoved and, called scab.
So, has anyone here jumped ship or, have opinions?
Thanks fellas.
Edit: I’ve been tossing and, turning over this each night.
In our local there are plenty of permit hands. The only difference in treatment that I see is dependent on work ethic. That goes for permit hands or members that went through the apprenticeship. Remember, scale pay is what they have to pay you. Its a base line. Theres plenty of guys that are happy with scale pay and dont strive for anything more. You need those guys to be workers. Theres tons of opportunity to move up and make more money. All in what you're after.
I went through a five year non Union program myself.
Thanks for your previous response.
And my opinion is stuck right in the middle. I’d be a fool to deny that the pay/benefits are great. I appreciate the union negotiating for what I have and thankful to FoMoCo for agreeing to it. I’ve utilized the educational benefits to pay for all of my fire department training outside of work and they paid for my apprenticeship program as well. Earned a college degree and it didn’t cost me a dime. I’ve made some killer money and the health care benefits are world class that have saved us a fortune. We’ve had medical issues that would have wiped out some people financially. Very appreciative for that.
On the down side, I’ve always felt that a person should earn the wage they make. I’ve worked with some extremely lazy people that are more concerned about screwing the company than they are in just doing the job that they are being paid very well to do. We are taught/conditioned to hate management from day one. It’s not fair in my opinion because to be honest they don’t ask for much. Just show up on time and do your job. It’s pretty much impossible to get rid of the lazy, poor workers and it’s a shame because they literally screw over the entire line and/or their fellow journeyman. The union should not be about protecting them. And they are extremely blatant and in your face in regards to pushing a certain political party. That irritates the Hell out of me.
So…..do I love my union? No, not at all. Do I hate my union? No, certainly not. Definitely would say that the pros out weigh the cons.
The Shop
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Fast forward to today- I hired one of the decent guys on my service team and several of the skilled/hard working union guys were hired back for a different scope of work (no longer union). These guys are all making more than when they were in the union, plus are now bonus eligible.
Worst part are the union dues which often fund a political party you may not support..
“You just have to prove yourself.”
Well after driving 2-3 hours each day for a 4-6 carpet call or day and a half gig, watching the lazy worker’s kids get the hours, watching my working dwindle less and less as I worked towards journeyman, having generals get a grudge with me that I’m not available a day before a major show because I took a gig with an I&D booth.
I got tired of scraping together while get shoved in my face “how well I’m taken care of”. Our safety standards and practices were very professional, everything else on the benefit and career side was a fucking joke and probably a tier below a military recruiter in terms of big career talk.
Well after 3 years of “proving myself” and not breaking $50k a year living in San Diego, I took the pandemic as a blessing and got tf out.
I now work for one of those evil corporations that don’t care or pay their workers properly and living far more comfortable with a sizable raise than I ever did in CA.
Went from 8-12+ Hour shifts with 4-5 hour round trip drives around the worst drivers to working at a desk 12ft from my bed for $20k more a year.
I’m only saying this from MY experience, but unions are a fucking joke for skilled labor that are unhireable elsewhere or have the inside homie hookup to hit their hours.
I constantly hear endlessly how corporations hurt employees and our country. But imo, every union and family owned business I’ve ever dealt with has been beyond words greedy about their dollar and career advancement.
My evil corporate job has been more compassionate about worker life than ANY job I’ve ever had.
Again, just my individual experience.
As it was mentioned, it comes down to work ethic. I’ve never been a foreman who didn’t work alongside my crew. Yes, I’d stop a half hour before everyone else to handle my computer work, dailies, material lists, RFIs etc. I always thought, working alongside my crew, I’d gain their respect. If your crew respects you, they’ll push when that time comes knowing you’ll be right there with them. I’m just looking at it as starting at another company. I’ll just prove my worth by my installs and, keep my head down.
I’m putting in my notice tomorrow. I’m sure my boss is going to be pissed. I just looked at a med gas job Friday. I was supposed to run it. I feel slightly bad as I’m the only one with that endorsement. End of the day, a company won’t hesitate to let a person go without notice and, it’s just a job.
Can,t attack and work your ass off you got fired. nepotism was really bad also. I quit in 98 I figured I would work threw the operators union that’s another nepotism deal. I found out Michels didn’t pay much into my operators pension but into none or some into the laborers. I tried to work excavating because I could survey and I would operate the equipment when the spoiled daddy,s boy didn’t show up. Concrete work sucks and it’s boring. Jackhammering is ok. I got vest it’s only 888.00 a month . That’s nothing I wasted a lot of years. The union says the pension Fund will b depleted soon so I won’t get it. Traveling 260 to work I don’t miss. You can’t claim motels now either. Having to carry the crew - be the only one that works sucks. I saw non union co.s doing most of the work and I got out in 2002. I call the operators union every yr they only hire military that’s ok because construction really sucks now
With additional wacky stuff. I always said I would never drive truck for a living. You can make alot more than any construction job as a ic with no truck payment but you hv to get % pay . Having your own co is the best way be it construction or anything. IMO 4-5 yrs to get the top union pay is a joke. If a man can master a trade after 18 months pay him not some 24-28 an hr crap.
Great benefits and retirement are the only things keeping me going anymore. By the time I retire I will have a good 45 years in the bank. I am already fully vested with lifetime healthcare and a really good retirement. Plus I really do love my job.
Non-Union workers in this industry get absolutely fucked.
Pit Row
I’m a 3rd generation union worker and it provides a comfortable living for my family. Excellent pay, benefits, pension, and vacations.
I’ll give you a example of the benefits. I’ve got top of the line insurance, that I do not pay a dime for, with only a $100 a year deductible. Had my first kid and was only out $300-$400 total, only had to pay office co pays.
Yes there is some bullshit that comes with unions, but the positives out way the negatives by a long shot.
There’s a $17 hourly difference between union scale and, my rate. Plus $ 5.50 an hour that goes into a 401B and, many other benefits included with the package. I showed him the breakdowns of wages for each. Journeyman, foreman, lead foreman and, general foreman.
His last response was interesting. He said, we try to be competitive with the union. If we’re not competitive, what’s the point of having a shop as we’ll continually lose guys to the union. Tomorrow should be interesting.
This has nothing really to do specifically with union/non-union, but my kid started his first job fresh out of university (business) this past June. He had been waiting on hearing on a Fed job (Canadian equivalent of IRS) for over a year but they drag their ass on this stuff like you wouldn't believe and he got tired of waiting. Got an offer at a large local private non-union business and took it. A month later things started happening with the Feds and he got an offer there. At like 1.5 times what he was making. On a Friday morning. He was liking where he was at and was straight up with them when that happened. They immediately basically matched it effective the next Monday and he stayed where he was at. I said kid, good on you - you must be doing something not very wrong.
I was vested when I left. However, there wasn't much there since I only worked for a short time after topping out before moving into the office. My 401K has way outpaced the pension fund...
The biggest concern for me was, continually tearing my body up doing manual labor. Although I’m 44, I’ve put 24 years into this trade already. I started from the bottom as a ditch digger and, worked as a plumbing laborer for five years. I wanted to join the union because, they have laborers and, helpers for that stuff. I do not want to reach retirement age and, be broken up so bad, I cannot enjoy it. So, the company is restructuring wages to remain competitive with union wages and, structuring the work force differently. They’ll be hiring laborers.
Journeymen/ foremen will not be doing anything other then being just that. Laborers, apprentices, journeymen and, foremen will be the new structure instead of, apprentices and journeymen doing everything. It’s a huge relief.
I really didn’t expect this outcome. This is the first shop that’s shown appreciation for my efforts over the years. I was expecting to be fired. I even emptied my van of all my personal tools other than, a few of my own to get by just in case I had to turn in the van.
Anyways, thanks for the opinions and, view points. I appreciate it.
Kind of a catch-22 outcome though. Them doing all that shows how valuable you are to them (or would be to anybody, actually), and that they are recognizing it, and restores the faith. But might make a person wonder why it wasn't recognized and acted on earlier. Could just chalk it up to being easier to just keeping things going along as-is until needing to change something. I do that myself with myself most times - making changes takes time & head space. Easier to just keep rolling along until an obstacle of some kind pops up.
Good luck going forward, anyway.
I hear stories about how many unions will spend union dues to promote a political agenda that may not match every union member's. Politics should be left up to the individual. Enough said on that.
A friend of mine worked at General Dynamics back in the day. He told me about a worker who was caught stealing tools, twice, and still wasn't fired! He couldn't be fired, because the union was too powerful, and wouldn't allow it. There were other workers that did hardly anything all day, every day. They were just waiting out the few years they had left until retirement. They would tell people that straight up. Again, they couldn't be fired because the union didn't allow it.
For a company, that's a problem. How do you run a business when you can't require workers to do their best, or simply put in an honest day's work?
I understand a union negotiating for workers, making sure they're treated fairly, paid fairly, and have good and safe working conditions.. That's great. To me the key thing here is fairness, not simply squeezing as much as they possibly can out of a company.
From the outside it seems that unions have become too powerful, and greedy, and it's counter productive.
If I'm wrong on this, someone please correct me.
In the 70's or 80's, the head of GM said that line workers assembling cars were paid on average $25/hour wages, plus $38/hour in benefits.
$25/hour was quite a lot of money at the time for that type of work, but paying an additional $38/hour in benefits for $63/hour total for that skill set is ridiculous! It's simply not a $63/hour skill!
If the union was as powerful as the one serving General Dynamics, and workers were allowed to screw off without consequences, the union is at least half to blame for GM almost going bankrupt. The other half of the blame of course goes to management.
When Barack Obama came in and made the common shares of GM basically worthless, then forced the company to give a large portion of the company to the union, I thought it was a huge mistake since the union was a big part of the company's demise.
Another example is teacher's unions. We are continuously told that teachers should be paid more. I was told recently that high school P.E. teachers in California get paid around $100k / year salary. What the heck? That's almost as much as an engineer. I hope this isn't true. It's simply not a $100k/year job.
It would be one thing if paying teachers a lot of money resulted in excellent education, but it isn't. The U.S. is ranked something like 27th in the world in education.
There are great teachers that make a big difference in our kid's lives. Let's pay them well, and make sure they continue to teach, but the reason a high school P.E. teacher gets paid almost as much as an engineer is because of the power, and greed of unions.
That's my problem with unions. Workers should be paid based on the value of their work; the value they add to the company paying them for it, not automatic increases based on time on the job or any other criteria.
It seems that unions upset that balance.
That's my problem with prevailing wage. If a skill is worthy of $50/hour, a company or government should not pay $150/hour for it. If it's a $50/hour job, it should pay $50/hour, especially when taxpayers are footing the bill.
I know that at one time, unions were critical. Companies were basically abusing workers with long working hours, and dangerous working conditions, for too little pay.
Today, I believe at least some of them have outlived their usefulness, and negotiate their way to companies going out of business.
Unions need to negotiate for fair outcomes, not outrageous outcomes.
There needs to be some boundaries set, or I believe we'd all be better off if they went away.
As some have pointed out, what I'm describing isn't the case with every union.
It sounds like some are serving their intended purpose, and doing well for both their members, and companies they work with.
its just welfare for white people, just like most gov't jobs.
the corporate elites LOVe them though..gave lots of mfging companies a good reason to outsource jobs to other countries for cheaper labor
there is a documentary about bethlehem steel and they go into great lengths about why the company went bankrupt.
1) inept management (old boy WASP country club types)
2) market changes (micro mills and other global competition)
3) unions that wouldnt budge on salary/benefit
no man who is worth a damn would ever sign up for some socialist BS like a union
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