HBC Machinist Vote to Strike

[7hottamales]

This is why I pretty much hate unions. They served a real purpose once; now they're just abused to and over used to try and take as much as possible. These workers have some of the better pay and insurance in Wichita. I wish I had the deal that they have.

It makes me sick.

They are a necessary part of business.

Please help me out with this. How are they necessary?

I have ethics ,and I was raised with a sense of morality. I no longer work in the corporate world. I now am a small business owner and oh so glad!.
When I attended WSU they had a class called business and society. At the time i thought what a waste. After the years, I now know that it may well have been one of the most important classes I ever took.

I also took business and society. Excellent class, but I'm guessing that you missed your macro and micro classes?

[rrshock]

In our litigious society, it's amazing what you have to do to get rid of an employee. Employees who provide value never have to worry about a "rule book". It's only the ones who are easily replaced that are worried about finding ways to "save" their job.

I'll make sure to send you a copy and see if you think you can understand it. When management doesn't understand it, yet punish employees who didn't do anything wrong, there is a serious problem. It is made to "fire" you by, not protect you. It has been written in blood in many cases, yet they don't care.

Disdain for those who have been successful is never the road to your own success. Don't hate, imitate.

Ruining large companies to get a job with another large company is successful? You're telling me that a CEO is worth $25million?

So let me get this straight; without the union, mgmt would let safety issues slide because the financial loss and bad PR would be worth it?

Yes, Everyday. They just now added a rule called a good faith challenge. Which is we can question whether we think what we are being instructed to do is safe. Before now, if we questioned it, it was insubordination, even if we felt it would get someone killed.

We work 15 hour days, get 10 hours off and then go at it again. Mgmt wants this so they don't have to hire more employees. Constantly working shorthanded to save a buck. Fatigue has lead to many horrific accidents in my industry that have killed lots of innocent persons. Yet they refuse to acknowledge what the government and unions are saying. They feel that there is nothing wrong with it.

I think we can all agree that unions have led to needed change in the workplace and that they still have a useful function. But you must realize that the practices and attitudes of union leadership, and many of their members, have turned of many in this town over the years. If you are paid well for a job that doesn't require a lot of education, have a little humility.

I agree that some of the union leadership in the aircraft industry has given it a bad name. But you can't just think that all unions are like those at the aircraft plants. Because they aren't.

[7hottamales]

I'll make sure to send you a copy and see if you think you can understand it. When management doesn't understand it, yet punish employees who didn't do anything wrong, there is a serious problem. It is made to "fire" you by, not protect you. It has been written in blood in many cases, yet they don't care.

I believe that employees should have the right to seek other employment if they aren't happy with the job/compensation they currently have. I believe that employers should have the right to seek other employees if they aren't happy (for ANY reason other than protected class) with the ones currently doing the job for the price they are paying.

I truly don't get how anyone can think that isn't fair...

[McShocker]

The only thing worse than the unions is the management. Or vice versa. It doesn't really matter. When you are dealing with huge corporations, it is pretty safe to say that 90% of upper management are true POS as well as 90% of union leadership. I absolutely hated being a union member in the past. It protected a whole lot of lousy employees that made my job that much harder because I had to pick up the slack. On the other hand, the union saved a handful of really good employees from getting a major shafting. I think when a company reaches a certain size, the unions are a necessary evil. Even so, a lot of people show their true, and very ugly, colors when contract time comes around.

[7hottamales]

You're telling me that a CEO is worth $25million?

How can that even be in question? Of course there are plenty of CEOs worth $25 million and much more.


An easy example....if through Steve Ballmer's vision, decision-making, leadership, etc Microsoft's stock increases an extra 25 cents each year, the shareholders are making an extra 2,250,000,000 annually in return. I'd say that paying the CEO roughly 1 percent of that is a hell of a deal.

[BostonWu]

My job has a rule book. It is the size of the phone book. Those rules are there to fire you by, not to help protect you. Many rules are outdated and have no bearing on what happens day-to-day, but the company will still use them to fire or punish you. The union helps protect the employees from management, who don't know the rules, from applying them in their own interpretation and punishing employees. Yes there are guys who are worthless and should be terminated, but there are alot more honest people that make honest mistakes that are punished severely.

Guess what that rule book applies to everyone - both union and non-union members. If you don't like it go find another employer.

The union also wants fair and equal pay. Yes $80K+ is alot, but considering the CEO (a figurehead at best, but does nothing else), makes $25 million between pay, bonuses, and incentives, but the company doesn't want to give the employees a 1% higher raise and wants to raise health insurance premiums and co pays and everything else, I think the unions have a fair gripe.

Yeah and that CEO also makes about $24,965,000 more than some white collar non-union employees. I too agree that the vast majority of CEOs are not worth these ridiculous contracts but it ABSOLUTELY has nothing to do with unions.

[7hottamales]

It protected a whole lot of lousy employees that made my job that much harder because I had to pick up the slack.

Both in workload and in subsidizing their compensation/benefits. I think this is the point that most miss.

On the other hand, the union saved a handful of really good employees from getting a major shafting.

If they are truly really good employees, wouldn't it be the company's loss and Cessna's (or someone else preferable) gain? That would create incentive for "management" to get better at identifying and rewarding the really good employees or suffer the negative results.

You have hit upon the biggest issue on the micro level that members need to grasp. Unfortunately Unions hurt the really good employees by forcing them to subsidize the mediocre and really bad ones. They also prevent "management" from being able to "manage" which should be to the benefit of the good workers.

[wu_shizzle]

rr, are you still working in this environment?

If you are, why don't you leave?

There are many great companies that don't operate like that.

[SpanglerFan316]

This part of your reply was "on-topic."

I have no idea what Wal-Mart workers get paid and don't care. If you don't like your job, or pay, or benefits find something better. Better yourself so you can get a better situation.

This part of your reply was "off-topic."

The HBC workers are much better off than most and they always seem to be complaining.

And complaining that they don't make what Cessna does is ridiculous. There's a reason Cessna turns the profit they do and have such high customer service ratings. They also have the largest portion of the business jet market in the world. You can't say all those things for HBC.

Personally, if I were required to join a union I'd find another job. I had the option to join the union when I worked for the Postal Service and declined. And it's probably why I was laid off over some others considering my numbers were better than a lot of others.

Basically I was asking if you believe unions should ever exist. If you could, would you make unions illegal?

Do you remember the 1920s? High productivity, low wages, limited buying power by the "middle class." The economy sure did great in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Right? Farmers going under in the 1920s and everyone going under in the 1930s. Perhaps strong unions might have helped after WW1?

[rrshock]

rr, are you still working in this environment?

If you are, why don't you leave?

There are many great companies that don't operate like that.

I am working on leaving, but for other reasons. There was something I always wanted to do instead, but went this route for benefits and pay.

I agree that there are employees that don't do their work, but other employees have a tendency to "run them off". They make sure they are no longer welcome there and had better change their habits or find another place to work. I've seen that happen many times and the union won't help them out in those cases either, because it isn't the company, but fellow employees leading the drive to get rid of them.

I work for a company that has nearly 35,000 employees. Railroads are a very evil conglomerate that look to hurt the employees and help their figure heads and share holders. I get paid for an inconvenience of working at night, or day, or staying away from home. I get some time off every once in a while that is nice, but those checks pay the bills very nicely, and once you get used to them, it's hard to find a job to pay anywhere near that.

Railroads aren't like the aircraft industry one bit. Bragging of record profits for the past 3 or 4 years every year. Giving employees only 38% of their profit sharing, then turning around and 2 hours later releasing a statement saying that they had record profits, again.

Railroads only use safety to fire people with. When it comes down to it, they truly don't care. Management just wants their bonuses, and could care less what happens to the people doing the work. One large railroad pretty much has a policy of "if you get hurt, you get fired". Unions have to be there to protect employees from that junk. You're telling me that a safety appliance on a car or engine could break, you never knew there was anything wrong with it, and you still get fired because you were "obviously breaking a rule" when it happened.

Fatigue has been an issue that the unions have been addressing, but to no avail. The NTSB says there is a fatigue problem, the Federal Railroad Administration agrees. But the railroads say that we are getting the federally mandated time off of 8 hours if you work less than 12 and 10 hours if you work 12 or more hours. Graniteville, SC had a large Chlorine release from a train derailment caused by fatigue. Most of the larger rail accidents in this country the past 3 years or so have been directly related to fatigue. But the corporations don't care. They just want their money and profits and would frankly rather have employees die in the field than see them retire. You can question that all you want, but until the railroads actually address safety issues, the unions are all we have to protect us when we get fired for insubordination because we felt it was unsafe.

[DoubleJayAlum]

Spangler, the biggest difference between then and now is that there have been a lot of laws enacted to protect workers since that time. While unions were at least partially responsible for such legislation, the legislation itself makes their existence less necessary going forward.

I've always seen unions as helping the least productive employees and somewhat holding back the best by basing compensation primarily upon seniority rather than productivity.

[rrshock]

Can anyone tell me if the union people negotiating the contract at HBC are actually employees of HBC or are they strictly union people? I think that will probably make a bit of a difference as to why they always look like jackasses on tv.

[SubGod22]

Spangler, the biggest difference between then and now is that there have been a lot of laws enacted to protect workers since that time. While unions were at least partially responsible for such legislation, the legislation itself makes their existence less necessary going forward.

I've always seen unions as helping the least productive employees and somewhat holding back the best by basing compensation primarily upon seniority rather than productivity.

That pretty much says what I think.

I wouldn't make them illegal but they carry more weight, or think they do, then they should. Things aren't like they were back in the 20's. I've always said that they had a time and place where they were needed and served a good and valuable purpose. That time has pretty much passed.

[NCAABound]

Blaming management is idiotic. My guess is that the leadership of most companies has worked just as hard (if not harder) than most of these union employees. They've probably sacrificed family time, some have paid their own way to college or graduate school to better themselves and add value to the company.

The job at any publicly traded company is to increase the value of the stock & company for the shareholders. They aren't non-profits. Each position has a value, and unfortunately the value of the CEO far exceeds that of a hourly union employee.

[SpanglerFan316]

Blaming management is idiotic. My guess is that the leadership of most companies has worked just as hard (if not harder) than most of these union employees. They've probably sacrificed family time, some have paid their own way to college or graduate school to better themselves and add value to the company.

The job at any publicly traded company is to increase the value of the stock & company for the shareholders. They aren't non-profits. Each position has a value, and unfortunately the value of the CEO far exceeds that of a hourly union employee.

This is a questionable assumption. I agree that the CEO of a company has much greater impact than most ordinary workers in the company. The impact of any worker, including the CEO, can be harmful rather than helpful. Just as the value (number) -800 is smaller than the number -1, the value of a bad CEO can be much lower than that of a bad normal employee. (BTW: Do any of you need a lesson about the number line? :D )