White Line Fever wrote:Sturtman wrote:White Line Fever wrote:Would you strike if told by your union?
Would they also sacrifice pay while you did?
Would you want a loud-mouth illiterate unionist represent you and have a say with your life & career?
Do you notice people not in the union say they personally don't want to but whatever the individual wants to do is up to them.
But unionists say you should join, we are all in it etc etc trying to peer pressure and use a mob rule mentality.
I dislike the way they approach it and i'm yet to meet a union delegate that can hold a proper conversation without becoming argumentative or aggressive.
My experiences are purely based on construction industry and are therefore extremer than other industries.
Sturtman why should a Phillipino who can't speak english earn the same coin as an english speaking gyppy?
You need to communicate in construction and by creating equals it only bring the 'lesser' workers up to the level guys have been working hard for years.Although they may be a good worker any employer would rather english speaking employees unless they only want pure labour so no they shouldn't get paid as much as others.
The union doesn't represent the individual and usually have alterior motives for their actions.
There are other organisations that don't charge $500 a year to represent the employees WorkCover, Workplace services etc and sometimes you just need to speak to your employer instead of going direct to the union.
I was getting at the fact that it is hard for businesses to compete when tendering jobs against a company paying pretty much half the wages of another company.
True.
But you get what you pay for.
There are plenty of smart contractors out there who refuse to use the cheap subbies as they do not perform and it ends up costing more.
That is what employees miss.
For every dollar more they want it risks the company not winning work.
Then when they get laid off they go to the union but it was the union that forced up the costs in the beginning.
So you don't like pay rises then ?
The unions fight tooth and nail with with employers to get us a yearly pay rise, which is still usually pale in comparison to the constant rise of essential living expenses ( rent/mortgage,food,education,health care,child care, petrol, rego,utilities and so on ) and optional living expenses ( food,booze,tobacco,sport,recreation) You might be able to negotiate a better increase for yourself, but for the majority, the rank and file for a union term, rely on a union for such rewards, otherwise we would be working without yearly pay rises, working longer hours on the same rate, taking on more workload, inturn possibly creating an unsafe workplace. There's is no limitations at what employers will do and try to do to save a buck.
What do we want ? When do we want it ?
