Why Unions suck Follow

Why Unions suck, is I have grown up with my only image of a Unions being responsible for BS like this



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 ...

I am done with people blackmailing customers.

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?"

You really are waaay out of your depth here Gwyn

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

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.

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

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.
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.

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...

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

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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