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Back when I was a drafter for a company that designed and made vending machines...
(If you've ever seen a "LIVE BAIT" machine outside a Wal Mart, that's one of mine)
Our production plants were UAW.
When contract time would roll around they'd start making strike noises and demanding "their share" of the profits.
It was always them and management they referred to.
I always found that odd.
I was not a UAW worker.
I was not management.
But if the company needed to lay someone off because they couldn't lay-off the union workers... Guess who got shown the door!
They were constantly fucking the people who worked in design, engineering, testing, and sales.
The contracts never account for bad years; so everyone but them have to tighten their belts.
Their raises are astronomical, and I suspect, the reason that everybody else's wages have been so stagnant is the drag that union shops put on the economy. I strongly suspect that they are the only ones whom are getting raises that keep up with their favorite party's effect on inflation.
But they got theirs, fuck the rest of us.
Except I can't afford a new car. Where will you be when the labor costs of a new car drive it up so far that only UAW workers can buy one? You're simply not a large enough market to support the manufacturing rate.
Don't expect sympathy when it happens to you.
You've done it to me more than once.
The first place I worked as a drafter had a drafters' union, the Syracuse Draftsmens' Association. We paid a dollar a week dues for "representation" and "salary negotiation". Naturally, they didn't do anything for us; only the top tier designers got any benefit. There's a reason that it was called the Seldom Does Anything.
ReplyDeleteIn about ten years(late 1983 to early 1994), my pay went from $8.62/hour to $11.35/hr, despite my numerous letters of recognition from the people that my employer was doing work for.