Meredith considers going union

[This'nThat]

Originally Posted by jeffk

My Dad worked a union shop and the stories he would tell me.

Same here. One small story involving several unions on a job site (steelworkers, carpenters, electricity, etc.) The steelworkers needed to lay iron over concrete that had just cured. Before they could do that, though, the wooden frame around the concrete needed to be knocked away. No skill involved here, and no need to preserve the wooden frame. The only requirement was to simply take a hammer and knock the boards away. All-in-all, a 15-minute job for four people. Simple, eh?

Not so simple after all. This was the Carpenter's Union job (because it involved wood). Steelworkers were not allowed to touch lumber on the job site. Couldn't pick it up; couldn't move it out of the way; total hands-off. Union rules, dontcha know.

Well, the carpenters weren't available -- they were busy elsewhere, even though the construction schedule showed them removing the frame first thing in the morning. Wasn't until about 2:00pm that they became available. So, what did the steelworkers do? Just hung around until they could punch out at the end of the day. A whole day's wages by 8 steelworkers down the drain -- because of union rules.

That type of nonsense doesn't happen on non-union jobs. But it happens all the time on union jobs. Why? Because the union is all about power and self-protection, and they set up obscene rules to protect themselves; and they use intimidation (via threats of violence and via legal actions) to enforce the rules. These rules make no business sense at all, and they cost the nation big-time in terms of money, lost productivity, and innovation.