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#1 Dec 15 2009 at 6:30 PM Rating: Decent
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Why Unions suck, is I have grown up with my only image of a Unions being responsible for BS like this

Quote:
British Airways is to take legal action to try to prevent a cabin crew strike set to begin on 22 December.

BA said it hoped the legal action would "protect customers from the massive stress and disruption" threatened by the 12-day stoppage.

It has highlighted "irregularities" in the strike ballot which it believes makes the outcome of the vote invalid.

The Unite union responded by saying BA's "macho management" preferred confrontation to negotiation.


No sympathy here. I hope they enjoy the death of an airlines brand and reputation, lowering of airline bookings and the resultation drop in profits and resultant redundancies. The freaks, they deservve all they get, which looks like a dole queue ... Smiley: madSmiley: mad

I am done with people blackmailing customers.
#2 Dec 15 2009 at 6:35 PM Rating: Good
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What's the BS again? Them striking around Christmas?
#3 Dec 15 2009 at 6:37 PM Rating: Good
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Teamsters recently lost the battle over a metal working company here. I think it officially ended last month, after going on for a year.

I think many people will look at these crew members and think "At least you have a job, now why are you making it impossible for me to see my family this Christmas/Holiday Season?"
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#4 Dec 15 2009 at 6:40 PM Rating: Good
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baelnic wrote:
What's the BS again? Them striking around Christmas?


Exactly, and for 12 days. Above the needs of the Union, or the management are the customer needs. If the needs of the customer are not fulfilled, there is no business at all, seems someone forgot that ....

A 12 day strike at Christmas is not something people forget. It does damage a reputation. This strike is only ensuring the loss of the Unions members jobs.

I was planning to use BA next year, not now ...
#5 Dec 15 2009 at 6:47 PM Rating: Excellent
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You really are waaay out of your depth here Gwyn
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#6 Dec 15 2009 at 6:54 PM Rating: Excellent
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I like how they're striking while the economy is still in the *******. British Airways should just be allowed to hire new, non-unionized staff.
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#7 Dec 15 2009 at 7:03 PM Rating: Good
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GwynapNud of the Emerald Dream wrote:
I was planning to use BA next year, not now ...

So you're punishing the company for the workers' strike? That'll learn them unions!
#8 Dec 15 2009 at 7:07 PM Rating: Good
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Allegory wrote:
GwynapNud of the Emerald Dream wrote:
I was planning to use BA next year, not now ...

So you're punishing the company for the workers' strike? That'll learn them unions!


Those salary increases have to come from somewhere (or not).
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#9 Dec 15 2009 at 7:09 PM Rating: Excellent
Idunno. My local Kroger is unionized and they have the friendliest, most helpful staff, they're the cleanest, most well stocked store, and even if I move to the other side of town I'll STILL go out of my way to shop there, because all the managers recognize me by now and say hi and ask if there's anything I need that they can special order and stuff.
#10 Dec 15 2009 at 7:15 PM Rating: Good
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Quote:
I was planning to use BA next year, not now ...


Yeah hey, welcome to the point.

Quote:
No sympathy here.


Which is why no one invested in whatever policy at stake there will, or should, care about what you think.

If it doesn't inspire you to anger, it wouldn't be an effective strike. In becoming angry and refusing to give business, you give a union exactly what it wants. You couldn't be more suckered into helping them than if you'd waltzed up to HQ and gave them a sack of cash.

Edited, Dec 15th 2009 8:24pm by Pensive
#11 Dec 15 2009 at 7:24 PM Rating: Excellent
On the first day of Christmas the Union striked to see, an increase in their salary.

12 days.. really?

Edited, Dec 15th 2009 8:29pm by AlexanderrOfAsura
#12 Dec 15 2009 at 7:46 PM Rating: Decent
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Up here(Ontario) the people who give the driver's licenses and administer the driving tests went on strike in August(or September, I forget which).

I'm pissed because I do more work than they do, make less, and I can't upgrade my license for a lower insurance rate until they stop ******** about not being paid enough to hand out paperwork and type on a computer. The only ones there who could possibly even deserve higher pay would be those doing the in-car tests as they could be in danger if someone happens to be just an absolutely terrible driver.
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#13 Dec 15 2009 at 8:05 PM Rating: Decent
A bit less than three years ago, Germany's public transport staff started striking.

For about a year, it was alright. If the company running the local buses, ferries, trams and undergrounds striked, I could still get everywhere by train, and vice versa, with less than two miles of walking involved either way.
Then in late 2007, both went on strike simultaneously. At the time, I lived nearly 15 miles from my school and didn't have a bicycle. I spent a lot of time at friends' places and about as much time walking from and to college. Sometimes, there was one train going the right way in the morning, but getting onto the thing with that many other people would probably have inspired me to go on a killing spree, so I walked.

While it was annoying as fuCk, it did prepare me for the summer after that and my random 30+ mile hiking trips. Smiley: grin
So in the end, it was cool.

My parents are both union members, as well.
My dad gets a pension through the miner's union and some free meals through the metal factory worker's union and my mum gets seminars and awesome stationary through the education & science union.
They never actually went on strike, though, as far as I can remember.
#14 Dec 15 2009 at 8:28 PM Rating: Decent
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Kalivha, Averter of the Apocalypse wrote:
A bit less than three years ago, Germany's public transport staff started striking.

For about a year, it was alright. If the company running the local buses, ferries, trams and undergrounds striked, I could still get everywhere by train, and vice versa, with less than two miles of walking involved either way.
Then in late 2007, both went on strike simultaneously. At the time, I lived nearly 15 miles from my school and didn't have a bicycle. I spent a lot of time at friends' places and about as much time walking from and to college. Sometimes, there was one train going the right way in the morning, but getting onto the thing with that many other people would probably have inspired me to go on a killing spree, so I walked.


At the risk of creating cross thread shenanigans, this is *exactly* why people prefer private car ownership to public transportation. You're no longer at the whim of the unions. It's a freedom thing...



As to the subject at hand? I think that in some rare cases, unions serve a useful and even occasionally necessary function. By and large though, they exist solely as a monopoly of labor which uses its control to push for yet more control and more money. The combined negative effects of pushing up costs while manipulating the labor market into inefficient usage patters is a double whammy that hurts far more people than it helps.

Edited, Dec 15th 2009 6:33pm by gbaji
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#15 Dec 15 2009 at 8:33 PM Rating: Excellent
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Quote:
At the risk of creating cross thread shenanigans, this is *exactly* why people prefer private car ownership to public transportation. You're no longer at the whim of the unions. It's a freedom thing...


Unless you have my problem with the unions. I can't get my car on the road because the people who give the tests so I can get my G2(we have a stupid graduated licensing thing here) are on strike. Can't insure car without that license.
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Eske wrote:
I've always read Driftwood as the straight man in varus' double act. It helps if you read all of his posts in the voice of Droopy Dog.
#16 Dec 15 2009 at 8:34 PM Rating: Excellent
Edited by bsphil
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My dad lost his pension after 30 years of employment due to a lack of union strength, so they're not ALL bad.
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#17 Dec 15 2009 at 8:40 PM Rating: Decent
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Grandfather Driftwood wrote:
Quote:
At the risk of creating cross thread shenanigans, this is *exactly* why people prefer private car ownership to public transportation. You're no longer at the whim of the unions. It's a freedom thing...


Unless you have my problem with the unions. I can't get my car on the road because the people who give the tests so I can get my G2(we have a stupid graduated licensing thing here) are on strike. Can't insure car without that license.


Where do you live? Insurance isn't normally connected to being a licensed driver. Unless you don't have a license of any type at all, which is another issue. If you own the car, you should be able to insure it, even if you can't drive it legally. What if someone hits it or steals it while it's parked in your driveway? The two should not be connected.


Of course. Your story only highlights the problems with unions. Doubly so when they are employed by a government agency. A private company can at least attempt to hire temp or replacement folks (contract dependent of course). Governments amazingly enough tend to have rules which prohibit them from hiring anyone else, conveniently giving the unions the maximum amount of bargaining power possible. It's kinda obscene really. The kinds of things that unions do would put people in jail if it were a business doing it.


Also, none of this actually physically prevents you from putting the keys in your car, turning it on, and driving it if you really need to. You'll just be subject to a ticket if you are caught. Whereas, if the bus and train folks go on strike and you don't have a car, you're kinda screwed...
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#18 Dec 15 2009 at 8:42 PM Rating: Excellent
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#19 Dec 15 2009 at 8:44 PM Rating: Default
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bsphil wrote:
My dad lost his pension after 30 years of employment due to a lack of union strength, so they're not ALL bad.


Which is what happens when a union negotiates an economically ruinous pension plan with the employer. He lost his pension because the union was too strong at some point in the past, not because it was too weak. You can't get more money out of an industry than the industry can afford. When there aren't sufficient checks on an organizations power, they will tend to do stupid things like "Let's make the employer pay the equivalent of ten times what the labor is worth over time" and then wonder why the whole thing collapses...
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#20 Dec 15 2009 at 8:50 PM Rating: Excellent
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GwynapNud of the Emerald Dream wrote:
Exactly, and for 12 days. Above the needs of the Union, or the management are the customer needs. If the needs of the customer are not fulfilled, there is no business at all, seems someone forgot that ....

Forgot? That's what they're banking on. You know, customers getting upset and BA saying "Oh crap" and making concessions to the union. What sort of threat is it to strike during an off-season when no one will give a rat's *** that they're not at work?

gbaji wrote:
At the risk of creating cross thread shenanigans, this is *exactly* why people prefer private car ownership to public transportation. You're no longer at the whim of the unions.

That's exactly why?

Huh. I always thought it had to do with insufficient networks making it a less convenient option. Or the desire not to sit next to the proletariat on the bus. Or having to leave 15 minutes earlier to make sure you catch the 7:22 train. Or not being able to stay later because then the next train doesn't leave until 5:55 and you won't be home until 7:00. But, yeah, unions. That's exactly why people prefer owning cars to taking public transportation.

Smiley: dubious
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#21 Dec 15 2009 at 8:51 PM Rating: Good
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gbaji wrote:
bsphil wrote:
My dad lost his pension after 30 years of employment due to a lack of union strength, so they're not ALL bad.


Which is what happens when a union negotiates an economically ruinous pension plan with the employer. He lost his pension because the union was too strong at some point in the past, not because it was too weak. You can't get more money out of an industry than the industry can afford. When there aren't sufficient checks on an organizations power, they will tend to do stupid things like "Let's make the employer pay the equivalent of ten times what the labor is worth over time" and then wonder why the whole thing collapses...


Agreeing with gbaji makes nobby cry Smiley: cry
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#22 Dec 15 2009 at 8:53 PM Rating: Good
gbaji wrote:
Kalivha, Averter of the Apocalypse wrote:
A bit less than three years ago, Germany's public transport staff started striking.

For about a year, it was alright. If the company running the local buses, ferries, trams and undergrounds striked, I could still get everywhere by train, and vice versa, with less than two miles of walking involved either way.
Then in late 2007, both went on strike simultaneously. At the time, I lived nearly 15 miles from my school and didn't have a bicycle. I spent a lot of time at friends' places and about as much time walking from and to college. Sometimes, there was one train going the right way in the morning, but getting onto the thing with that many other people would probably have inspired me to go on a killing spree, so I walked.


At the risk of creating cross thread shenanigans, this is *exactly* why people prefer private car ownership to public transportation. You're no longer at the whim of the unions. It's a freedom thing...


I disagree. Having a car means taking mostly unnecessary responsibility as well as the sort of **** that happened to me today: I got a lift to college (theoretically enabling me to leave half an hour late and still be there on time). There was a traffic holdup. I was half an hour late, and missed out on awesome bus shenanigans to boot.
#23 Dec 15 2009 at 8:53 PM Rating: Excellent
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gbaji wrote:
When there aren't sufficient checks on an organizations power, they will tend to do stupid things like "Let's make the employer pay the equivalent of ten times what the labor is worth over time" and then wonder why the whole thing collapses...

It also happens when the union is looking for a raise and the company pushes the unions off for a few decades by saying "We won't give you a raise today but what we will do is give you even more money in... let's say thirty years? I'm sure by then we'll be happy to give you all sorts of money with no problem."
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#24 Dec 15 2009 at 8:54 PM Rating: Excellent
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You'd guys would be so much better in the US without strong unions. I mean, it's awesome how the biggest employer, Walmart, pays their average workers so poorly that many qualify for medicaid and if they have the chance, they'll higher people without legal status in order to pay less than the minimum wage. The end result of our increasingly prominent service industry that is striving to keep up with Walmart's low prices.

Nothing but lower wages and fewer benefits while rich people get wealthier and gain more power in the government than they already have (ha if that was possible).

But hey, our airplanes aren't striking at Christmas. That makes up for all of it.

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#25 Dec 15 2009 at 8:57 PM Rating: Good
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Funniest Poster of the year Jophiel

Best thread of the year Oh wait. . . .
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#26 Dec 15 2009 at 9:03 PM Rating: Excellent
Edited by bsphil
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gbaji wrote:
bsphil wrote:
My dad lost his pension after 30 years of employment due to a lack of union strength, so they're not ALL bad.


Which is what happens when a union negotiates an economically ruinous pension plan with the employer. He lost his pension because the union was too strong at some point in the past, not because it was too weak. You can't get more money out of an industry than the industry can afford. When there aren't sufficient checks on an organizations power, they will tend to do stupid things like "Let's make the employer pay the equivalent of ten times what the labor is worth over time" and then wonder why the whole thing collapses...
Which would be an accurate statement if that was in any way what happened at Tower Automotive.



Edited, Dec 15th 2009 9:08pm by bsphil
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