Author Topic: Unions and HK  (Read 358 times)

Offline dodj

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Unions and HK
« on: April 19, 2012 - 10:09:51 PM »
Hey HK
A while ago you laid out what had disillusioned you about unions. I had responded something along the lines of 'that kind of behavior must not be common place'.
Well.....over the last two weeks, the facility I work in has been through a maintenance shutdown. During that two weeks I was always going by this one construction trailer. For the full two weeks, there was a guy at that trailer, flying a toy remote control helicopter - all day long. I couldn't believe it. I thought about you HK, and why some people have a problem with unions.

A few bad apples make it harder on the rest of us... :sly: :sly:
Scott
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2007.5 3500 6.7 Cummins Diesel, Anarchy tuned.
Good friends don't let friends do stupid things. ........alone.




Offline ChallengerHK

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Re: Unions and HK
« Reply #1 on: April 19, 2012 - 11:54:34 PM »
Thanks for the post. This might be the first time someone has ever titled a post to aim it at me. I'm somebody now  :bigsmile:

I don't know how many I think are the bad apples. I certainly did encounter some UAW and IBEW who were hard-working, and they seemed embarrassed by the others. Just based on my experience with those two unions, though, I'd put it at at least 50% lazy scum, and very likely a lot more. If I thought it was a guy here and there, I wouldn't have nearly the problem with it that I do.

One way or another, though, the situation will come to a head in the next few years. They're going to keep making badly built cars (partially, but not completely because of the UAW), and the prices will still be far too high (partially, but not completely because of the UAW) and fewer and fewer people will buy them. At some point, the government might put tariffs on imports or do something like offer government kickbacks to "buy American," but even those will only be stopgap measures. About a century ago, there were unions for buggywhip makers. When cars started getting popular the people who owned buggywhip manufacturing companies tried to get their unions to switch to making some other product that had a future. The unions resisted, saying "We're skilled at making buggywhips; that's what we do." And those companies failed and died.

Right now we're at a place when the Big 3 (a phrase that has become ironic) needs to start making quality cars for a reasonable price, or they too will fail and die. If the UAW doesn't see the light, there will be a lot of unemployed folks saying "But my union contract guaranteed me..."

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