As a former teamster member (Budweiser St Louis) I can state as a fact that some unions are disgusting and don't care about anything but themselves and dues they can get. During a strike at the brewery in the mid seventies, a possible bombing of a Switch Engine was rumored but never took place.
As a worker inside the brewery I saw first hand that production was the last thing the union wanted to see increased unless the company hired MORE union workers. As an example of union waste was a job I was given one night where I removed the apiece of the label on a bottle of Michelob. For eight hours not counting breaks, (we got to drink the products made at the brewery on breaks) I peeled off a piece of the label the size of half a quarter and earned approx. $22.00 per hour for something a monkey could do. This was around 1976/77 and it got only worse from there. There were oilers that oiled two machines twice during a eight hour shift and did nothing the rest of the time.
My final weekend there provide a glimpse of unions wanting to have people do NO WORK but have a job. I was called a Blue Tab which meant I was not full time yet but working my way there. One weekend the regular union members were mad about something and all Blue Tabs were called in for the weekend. Saturday night I was to load a box car with pallets of beer. When the regular unions members were working, they had one member getting the beer and another member loading it inside the car. This night I retrieved my own beer and loaded the box car while taking all my breaks and finished about 30 minutes early. Not hard, didn't break a sweat.
Sunday night I worked a Palletizer (machine stacked beer on pallets). Normally there were two union members doing this as one would load pallets in the rear of the machine and the other would take loaded pallets and place in storage. Once again I did both jobs by myself, took all breaks and still finished my shift early. What did I get for myself, FIRED BY THE UNION. I was never called back to work by the union as they controlled which blue tabs were called back each weekend. I needed two more weekends to become full time.
What I learned that weekend was, unions don't want to much productivity as it reduces the number of people employed and their power. They want your dues to spend however they want and that is it. It was sad to learn that to succeed in a union (teamsters) you had to not work.
I was also a member of the Steelworkers and have no complaints about that union as the harder I worked, the more I was paid for that productivity. That is something the Teamster have yet to learn and many companies also.
Greed is usually drive unions not the quality of the product or service. Teachers, how many do not want to be retested to assure they are still qualified to instruct your children. Hell, people who work in the construction industry have to be retested in different field to be sure they are still qualified. What make a teacher exempt from being retested?
As a worker inside the brewery I saw first hand that production was the last thing the union wanted to see increased unless the company hired MORE union workers. As an example of union waste was a job I was given one night where I removed the apiece of the label on a bottle of Michelob. For eight hours not counting breaks, (we got to drink the products made at the brewery on breaks) I peeled off a piece of the label the size of half a quarter and earned approx. $22.00 per hour for something a monkey could do. This was around 1976/77 and it got only worse from there. There were oilers that oiled two machines twice during a eight hour shift and did nothing the rest of the time.
My final weekend there provide a glimpse of unions wanting to have people do NO WORK but have a job. I was called a Blue Tab which meant I was not full time yet but working my way there. One weekend the regular union members were mad about something and all Blue Tabs were called in for the weekend. Saturday night I was to load a box car with pallets of beer. When the regular unions members were working, they had one member getting the beer and another member loading it inside the car. This night I retrieved my own beer and loaded the box car while taking all my breaks and finished about 30 minutes early. Not hard, didn't break a sweat.
Sunday night I worked a Palletizer (machine stacked beer on pallets). Normally there were two union members doing this as one would load pallets in the rear of the machine and the other would take loaded pallets and place in storage. Once again I did both jobs by myself, took all breaks and still finished my shift early. What did I get for myself, FIRED BY THE UNION. I was never called back to work by the union as they controlled which blue tabs were called back each weekend. I needed two more weekends to become full time.
What I learned that weekend was, unions don't want to much productivity as it reduces the number of people employed and their power. They want your dues to spend however they want and that is it. It was sad to learn that to succeed in a union (teamsters) you had to not work.
I was also a member of the Steelworkers and have no complaints about that union as the harder I worked, the more I was paid for that productivity. That is something the Teamster have yet to learn and many companies also.
Greed is usually drive unions not the quality of the product or service. Teachers, how many do not want to be retested to assure they are still qualified to instruct your children. Hell, people who work in the construction industry have to be retested in different field to be sure they are still qualified. What make a teacher exempt from being retested?
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