Quote:
Originally Posted by Outcast569
Love the high level of ignorance and stupidity in this thread. Way to generalize horribly and think you know everything. Not every one but a good chunk of the folks here.
Personally I am against MOST unions. I however am part of one and help modify its policies. My wife is also dealing with unions as she is a CP employee and union rep, now to the people who say they are all lazy as hell.
Screw you.
Never mind the tactful response. Just screw you. Ive watched her come home blisters and gashes all over her hands and arms after a days work. I know alot of them aren't that dedicated to the job. Will also admit I get pissed at alot of them to with my packages. How ever the fact so many people say ALL union employees and CP employees are lazy and useless pisses me off.
Both her (CP)and I(Airline Security) work unionized jobs and I can guarantee you that we work our hands to the bone. Maybe its just our personal work ethic. Who knows. But no matter the reason what alot of you are saying is just plain untrue, rude and ignorant.
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I don't think many people here have an issue with the actual boots-on-the-ground employees that happen to be members of union. My local CP branch is just horrible but my previous branch was good. I've never been treated badly on a flight. A lot of the 50 somethings I know work in para-public jobs and I generally appreciate nurses. I do feel however, that if left to free market forces these jobs would probably be compensated a bit less. There is simply more offer than demand on these jobs and unions are keeping the compensation levels artificially high.
I think most of the ire against unionised jobs come from the difficulty of firing a less desirable employee. Having been on both sides of the table, I've seen stuff coming back that really shouldn't. It always involved problematic employees. Back when I was working security, there were at any given time I had probably 40 or 50 out of 6000 employees on full pay, even if they weren't working, simply because no one wanted of them and since they only pissed off the clients enough to bar them but not lodge a formal complaint, we had nothing to terminate them. That meant we had something around two whole frickin' million dollars of payroll returning sweet fuck all, and of course we passed that right on to the customer. Yes, I see why it's bad to be at the constant risk of getting fired on a whim, but unions often block legitimate terminations just because they had to.
Anyway, the fact that the employees at CP currently make comparatively better money and benefits for a comparable job in the private sector. This does not help the image the public so often has of unionised employees crying for more with their stomach full. I'm not saying a lot of CP employees don't work very hard for their pay checks, only that they would be lower private sector. Not even that they should be lower, the private sector might be behind for some reason.
All this with the whole rolling strike business. Nothing good happens when an essential service goes out. When the nurses here in Quebec started to hold back on services in the 90s, the government did the only thing they could, hold up public opinion and smack the fuck down the union. 20 years later the compensation levels and work load are catching up to near-sane levels. When the armed bank transport guards tried to strike not too long ago, the essential services card was played again and they sacked the whole lot of them, hired anyone with a class 3 license and now most trucks are operated by two guards instead of three. The hell was the CP union thinking, that the federal government was going to just lay down before their hissy fit?
Nope, they all got to watch the slander like media campaign against CUPW unfold from home. This is the exact example of a union taking a stupid stance on a relatively trivial issue (pension security and retirement parameters are way more important to deal with with the impending baby-boomer mass retiring), just because some idealist in a union general meeting decided to decry some perceived injustice.
A two-tiered compensation plan was a fair proposition, current employees are entitled to what was agreed on when they got on board, but to remain competitive some rationalisations must be made. Because the real reason the public opinion will always be against union demands for government entities, if more money is spent and it incurs a loss, we all have to pay for it.
But I'm still open to the opinion of the union.