Unions. Yes or NO?

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Master Plumber 101

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I fully agree that workers should be paid a fair wage...no problem with that...how do we determine what that wage is...if a worker at Wally World is making $8.00/hr. as a cashier and it is not a fair wage would $9.00 or $10.00 or $11.00 make it a fair wage or would $13.00 or $15.00 or $18.00 or $20.00?

How do we figure the fair wage amount for the job they are doing?

Simple, Form a union and negotiate a fair wage. Will some one at Wally world make as much as a tradesman? No. But at least give them a voice as a group vs stand alone. People should not have to go alone and individually beg for there wage.

That's not Christian!!!
 

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Herk

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In the days of the small, hometown stores, kids spent their summer vacations working toward college or picking up a few bucks bagging in a grocery. But Wally World is not like that: they're the largest corporation in the U.S. and they work their employees hard and I'd guess that most employees are not young kids but adults who need a decent wage in an economy that is providing fewer well-paying jobs.

And the reality is that they could pay substantially more without much affect on their bottom line.

So what's a fair wage? We might examine what the minimum amount of money is in a given area to provide sufficient food, clothing, housing and medical care to an individual or a person with a family. No welfare queens with Cadillacs. (No one ever could find a good example of the imaginary person Reagan presented as a welfare queen.)

When I first started with the union at 17, they told me to slow down, I was making them look bad.

So I did. I learned to not carry pipe longer than 10' alone because it could endanger others on the job. I learned to not run from place to place. I finally learned to not jump from roofs to save the time it took to climb down the ladder. (That was a particularly bad habit.)

But in the five years I spent in the plumbers/pipefitters' union, I met a lot of people who produced a goodly amount of well-crafted work per day and were proud of their abilities and training. I never saw the slackers. I did see them in other unions, like the custodian who would show up for work about two hours late, nap on a bench, and then go home sick - every day.

There are often two or more sides to an argument and innumerable bits of fact to consider. It's true, as I see it, that the unions have sometimes overstepped their purpose - some of that may be because of politics of crime or because of a position of strength. But the fact remains that unions have made life better for a lot of people. I don't want to belong to a union now, but I still benefit from my union time.
 

Terry

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I learned to not run from place to place. Herk

I kind of miss that at my age. I used to like the bounce I could get on the plank between floor that they put up until the stairs were built on a split level.

One year I tore ligaments in my ankle while running down a mountain with fifty pounds on my back. I had a cast on for six weeks, and I would forget and try to run up the steps at work. When I pulled the cast off, I immediately stated playing D-Back in a flag football league.

Last week I was installing a Neorest 500 in a home, a typical four hour job working with a $3200 toilet if it were sold at retail.
Homeowner was wondering why it took so long to install it, and I'm just thinking that it was going to take as long as it needs so I don't have to replace it. The carpet and carpet tacks on the floor weren't helping.
After a while I had all these scratches on my left hand, with red stuff leaking out.
And those little wires that connect up the fans, motors and remotes need some careful attention too.

Getting young guys to not break tub and shower enclosures in their hustle to install is a trick. They could break them in seconds, It would take me a long time to inventory the units that needed repair, and to track the repairs and make sure I could turn over the project to the owners with all repairs done.
I loved to run, but the learning to do it within limits was nice too.

hurricane_01.jpg
 
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Peanut9199

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each employer must pay "the highest wage...the industry could afford," and that pay scales should reflect "the most equitable division" of the industry’s revenue.[/LEFT]

Could you imagine a bank teller would be paid 2 million a year.
 

Cass

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OK I read it so how much is a fair wage for a cashier at Walley World, I am not smart enough to know how to figure it out.
 
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Dunbar Plumbing

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Ebbery body loves to pick on Walmart. Best deals in town. Why don't we pay burger king employees $40 an hour? Hell they're worth it! Just the taste of that cold grease in my throat after eating a double whopper with cheese gives me heart palpitations and murmurs......but I like it! Certainly someone deserves a raise for that experience. DAMN!

I've never seen an employee of Walmart forced to work for them, ever.

Finding good competent answers about product is almost impossible because they are not formally trained on the product to know it, just the whole "other" side of the equation which means


take it off the truck
put it on the shelf
organize it when people like me disorganize it


The level of knowledge to complete those tasks are simplistic, require next to no education level. It's retail in the form of low-level entry work.

If you want to make a career through walmart, go for it; you'll earn your stripes and expect slave labor wages along the way.

It's another way for public scrutiny to hold just one company accountable for the industry and the wages it bears.


IF you started paying higher wages to walmart workers, you'd have to start bringing in EDUCATED, TRAINED, KNOWLEDGEABLE clientell that either know the inner workings of the retail industry, held a # of years in the retail business so that when they enter the workplace at Walmart, they hit the ground running.

You don't find that with new hires at walmart. It's the "default" place to get a job when you've ran out of options. Since they are a large company they are the push button catch all for all the problems of poor people.



When I became a business owner, I watched how the leeches came out of the muck ponds asking for money for this, money for that, "Please, Do this for the children".

All geared at the heart strings. Of course there are "those" that need help.....but it doesn't always have to be in a form of a monetary payment.

I got solicited by the CFO for somebody locally that had cystic fibrosis. I'm pretty sure that as a kid, I was around this girl as we played on the same street.


Well, she was given a short time to live and I gave money to the good cause.


I've had to block 6 email addresses and have pitched more publications, publications I'm sure I paid for to send to me as now I'm a willing participant to provide a draw of income to. And that's just one....

Oh *$&! my throat and tongue is swelling up! Damn $4 prescriptions from Walmart! :D
 

Master Plumber 101

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This is why union's are important!




Wal-Mart to Pay $250K Settlement for Firing Worker Disabled in Shooting
By Debra Cassens Weiss

Wal-Mart will pay $250,000 to settle a claim that it violated federal disability law when it fired a drug store technician who was injured in a shooting.

The employee, Glenda Allen, was working at Wal-Mart in Maryland in 1994 when she was shot in a robbery attempt at a different job, according to a press release issued by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. After the shooting she had to walk with a cane.

Allen continued working as a Wal-Mart drug store technician until she got a new manager who refused to accommodate her injuries, the Baltimore Sun reports. The company told Allen in 2003 that she was being demoted to a door greeter, said Allen’s lawyer, Maria Salacuse. Allen refused the demotion and was fired.

Wal-Mart settled the suit filed by the EEOC after a Baltimore federal judge refused the company’s motion to dismiss the case. The settlement is the second time that Wal-Mart has settled an EEOC case this year based on violations of the Americans With Disabilities Act.
 
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Gary Slusser

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Wal-Mart to Pay $250K Settlement for Firing Worker Disabled in Shooting
By Debra Cassens Weiss

Wal-Mart will pay $250,000 to settle a claim that it violated federal disability law when it fired a drug store technician who was injured in a shooting.

The employee, Glenda Allen, was working at Wal-Mart in Maryland in 1994 when she was shot in a robbery attempt at a different job, according to a press release issued by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. After the shooting she had to walk with a cane.

Allen continued working as a Wal-Mart drug store technician until she got a new manager who refused to accommodate her injuries, the Baltimore Sun reports. The company told Allen in 2003 that she was being demoted to a door greeter, said Allen’s lawyer, Maria Salacuse. Allen refused the demotion and was fired.

Wal-Mart settled the suit filed by the EEOC after a Baltimore federal judge refused the company’s motion to dismiss the case. The settlement is the second time that Wal-Mart has settled an EEOC case this year based on violations of the Americans With Disabilities Act.
What would the union have done for her that would have given her $250K lump sum plus, whatever she has earned since 2003?
 
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Master Plumber 101

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What would the union have done for her that would have given her $250K lump sum plus, whatever she has earned since 2003?

Well... she would have been demoted to a door greeter which is probably far less pay than what she was doing. A union could have prevented this from happing in the first place. Also seeing she went back to work show's her determenation to continue to work,but the arogance of one of the largest corperations in the world would rather pay money than accomodate her. This is exactly why I boycott walmart, never shopped there, never will, unless they form a union. I take that back I did enter walmart once and politely tried talking to some of the workers on forming a union, I was escourted out by the manager and security.:D I think my picture is still up on the front entrance of walmart. Democracy at it's best!:
 

Master Plumber Mark

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we all gonnaa get welfare checks...

I'm Barack Obama, and


I approve this nonsense thread.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwJduPtCvSM&feature=related

it all sounds great ,

and i am sure that the world would be a better place if everyone was willing to reach deep into their pockets and pay every peice of--- lazy --no good---drunken dirt---
out their a "fair wage" for basically just showing up
in the morning.....

and then we must look the other way
when they spend this money on drugs, booze and
cigaretts.... and perhaps starting another litter of
kids for the next generation to support.......



how about a giant group hug????

warm fuzzies for everybody......


love and peace..


Obama in 08...

I cant wait for my stimulus check....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwJduPtCvSM&feature=related


"
 
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Cookie

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Like I tell my kids they sometimes, need an attitude adjustment.
I don't know where you live Mark, but you must run into the worst of people to have an attitude like that. I must be very lucky, I don't think I ever thought about anyone like that in my life, not once.
 

Master Plumber Mark

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Business owners never get a sick day...

I am sorry if I have offended you..Cookie....

you got to remember that you are discussing things
here with ---down to earth ---- "true grit" plumbers..

not people "bakeing cookies" in their kitchen to save the world.....

I live in the real --real--real--world and anyone else
out there that deals with employees every day
knows what that "real world " is like..

or can be like ....if you let them walk all over you...

Running a business and having employees that
feel "entitled" to everything
has a tendencey to harden your atitude......

Its a lot different world when you are the guy left doing
all the scheduled work that day cause half of
your $25 per hour plus benefits ......boys.... called in sick that day..
(cause they got their stimilous package and can kick back)


all this work still has to get done by someone....

I suppose that is why they are letting all the Mexicans
across the border... because everyone here has .....JOINED THE UNION..
and wont work for less than a kings ransom...plus benefits...


It sort of makes you see things from the other side
of the fence.. at the end of the week you have basically
broken even and had to work hard to do it..

and you still have to pay benefits SS tax , withholding ect
to fellows that showed up for three days that week...

note... they still show up on Fridays for their checks.....

Perhaps its not very Christian of me to feel this way....


Ok..I can accept that

...that is why I fired them all

and I guess that was not Christian at all because ...
some of those fellows had kids to support. too...


.............OBAMA 08........................




did you like the video??


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwJdu...eature=related
.
 
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Master Plumber Mark

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send me some cookies

I know the kind of cookies you are bakeing
that give you such a good atitude....

I ate a batch of brownies myself one time at a college
party....not knowing only one per person....

I downed about a dozen.........

That was a night to remember....

what an atitude adjustment.. the colors, the sounds.......




OBAMA 08............cookies for everyone......
 
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Master Plumber 101

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Merry Christmas HO! HO! HO!




Target (along with Wal-Mart) was recently found using a supplier who had little kids in China slaving in sweatshop conditions to make its store brand Christmas ornaments "Huh, I don't recall that story on the tube or in the papers", seems to be getting it's workers at it's warehouses a bit annoyed with it's unfair firing practices, anti-union actions, and the total neglect of it's workforce.

According to Red McKilldozer, who claims to be a Target warehouse worker, at Socialist Alternative website has made some claims, and judging by all the bullshit that we know happens daily at Wal-Mart and experiences I personally had working in a warehouse where injuries where "alleged" and the "workers fault", I don't see any reason to believe that Mr.McKilldozer is lying, even if he failed to use his real name to protect his job:

Employees are routinely disciplined and fired for injuries. "Failure to be aware of surroundings" is a particularly favorite reason to discipline an injured worker. Target uses this practice to get rid of workers, especially those who receive top pay and benefits.
A typical workday at a Target warehouse involves lifting 30,000 lbs. of freight over a ten-hour period. Yet management at the distribution center where I work refuses to acknowledge most hernias as job-related injuries.
Any worker who attempts to use his or her right to organize is targeted by management for termination.the worker who attempts to organize is watched very closely for any infraction of the rules. Any violation, real or imagined, is blown out of proportion so the worker can be fired.
Target will also fire the middle management of any distribution center that attempts to organize (this happened in New York recently). Thus, supervisors show great zeal in rooting out and eliminating union sympathizers.
Every few weeks, “team members†and their bosses get together and talk. This gives the appearance of management and labor being in a partnership. In reality, this is a steam valve, a way to allow angry workers to blow off steam without actually addressing any real concerns
 
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