Hrmmmmm.....
Here's what the union did for me:
Put me in a situation where I was on a "bench" being new with no way of anyone knowing my potential.....other than that I was a licensed journeyman plumber in two states.
In new construction, first jobs were 34 miles away. Like going to prison camps. Getting into the mix I find out how quick the whole thing is a "good ole boys" club to the hilt.
If you're a brown-noser and do more than you're expected, you gotta job. You're hungry. You want a cookie. All because you got bills and you know the alternative is sitting on the bench because 240 other plumbers with your credentials want your job, and YOU are not special to anyone.
IF you choose to follow the rule of 20 degrees or below to refuse work on any job because it's inscribed in the rules of the union for the reasons of hazardous extreme climate? You'll find that the bench will be a part of your *** because just because it's in the rules, doesn't mean you can use it to your advantage. Too many ignore the clause and continue to work, because they know they'll lose their job.
Got a health problem and you need to take off more than a couple days? Plan on getting removed and put back on the bench. Short of your family dying in a horrible accident or contracting cancer, they don't care, literally. You are just number to a name.
If you're willing to put your time in to be vested, now they got you hook and sinker and "Well I can't quit now because the union owns me" attitude.
Think of how much money goes into that local union fund, then the national one. Remember that they, not you dictate when you pull that money out, expecting you to be waiting for that money when you reach that predetermined age. Trust me; lawyers discussed with the top brass when a good age would be for the majority to either take an early withdrawal and lose a substantial percentage of YOUR money due to hardship or medical reasons........or simply die of old age.
Why, on earth do I need someone to take my money weekly, then give it back to me later in life? Can't I do that on my own?
Next,
Carrot on the string offering that substantially higher wage earning bracket than the non-union worker to give emphasis to a larger base salary. In 1998 @ $24.50 for new construction, 40 and out the door and no overtime, Take home pay for me was $500-$550 a week. Effing pathetic in my opinion. You cannot have any kind of life on 2 grand take home pay. Marginal at best and that hourly wage is a send off that sounds good, just doesn't equate. Purposely a vacation fund of $80 a week was pulled from my checks, couldn't take out that exact money unless it was matured at 60 days............??? It's my money! Why do you need my money for 60 days when I earned it???
To go on,
Wanna know what happens when an employer puts an employee in a bad situation to get hurt, and you know that OSHA would be interested in getting involved?
NOTHING, the union won't hold still for a good ***-reaming just because you got one, can't have that.......wouldn't be prudent. Talk about the largest ferris wheel with you on top and thinking the ride stops whenever you want to get off....it doesn't.
I started off in the union following that sheep following the flock attitude that "I'm in the top of my career being a union plumber, can't go no higher" Yeah right, let me drink the kool-aid and enjoy the sleeping pill agent they slipped in it.
I was doing good till I got hurt, my employer put me in a bad situation and left me holding the bag of my future without ANY ability to work for any plumber in a 3 state area due to a bad back......one that keeps me from even flipping burgers at McDonald's because I cannot consistently stand on the concrete floors for long periods of time.
The disrespectful ending to my career with the union refusing to employ me, the local plumbers not wanting to invest in me forced me to not lay down but to stand up for what I believe was an injury to my body, not my brain and gave me the intiative to do for myself when others can't.
An inspirational story of having nothing to having something. Security found by my own doings. A successful NON-UNION PLUMBING COMPANY that stands in the ranks of being well known as reputable and reliable, trustworthy.
It's worth the sometimes gut-sickening pain every day to come home and provide what a so called "body" of employment had no interest in providing for me. Even without that career changing injury I had, there's no way I could of went the distance with the union. It's a politics game that if you don't acknowledge it's there, you'll be the one called a "traveller" or "bench-warmer" because you can't stand up for yourself in the union and not take a few hits for doing so.
It's their game and not yours so don't ever get comfortable where you're at in that scenario. Somebody or bad luck health will show how a good thing can turn upside down and change it all in a matter of a day.
I've been in 3 different unions in my working life, all 3 sucked to no end. Two of the three had a strike over pennies and fund cutting. What a joke.
I for one am above it all and I hope anyone who reads my slanted wit that someday when you realize what I typed above is entirely true, you'll grow some between your legs and do what I did............make it all disappear and do for yourself.
The rewards in doing so is phenomenal.