Time to cut wages

[Tyr]

I see you are American, In Canada the numbers are about 1/3rd. Seems odd to discuss legal issues about America on a Canadian Forum.

Lets dig deeper though, do you deal directly with the producing factory of each individual parts, or the Union of smaller companies under a larger corporate label?

You seem to keep artificially distinguishing between Labour and other component parts. When you buy "Widgets group A" you usually buy from a company that has some legal right to be only supplier of that type of Widget, artificially increasing the price of that widget than if you made the design public domain and everyones workshop could make knock off qualities.

But then no one invests in making new widget designs. Do you think educated workers roll off the assembly line? Unions are on the rise in any nation with an increasingly educated workforce. If people are going to invest in something for your benefit as an employer, they want some for of Guarantee. No different than any other provider of any other component.

I'm from Ontario and now in Vancouver

It seems odd that you think the 1/3 of the workforce is unionized. It has never been over 28% in Canada and has been shrinking since 1973 to less than 10% today

Lets dig deeper though, do you deal directly with the producing factory of each individual parts, or the Union of smaller companies under a larger corporate label?

You seem to keep artificially distinguishing between Labour and other component parts. When you buy "Widgets group A" you usually buy from a company that has some legal right to be only supplier of that type of Widget, artificially increasing the price of that widget than if you made the design public domain and everyones workshop could make knock off qualities.

It's obvious you don't run or have never been responsible for a business. Your model is not even close to how it works

 

[Liberalman]

Machjo

I have had bad employers too, and as I mentioned before, I nailed them without a union. That's what the law is for. if you know your rights, your employer will leave you alone.

You say you had bad employers which means more than one and you say you took them to court then you say your employer leaves you alone.

How much was your total legal costs to fight these employers and if those employers left you alone then why did you have to leave those employers that left you alone?

 

[darkbeaver]

I've quit jobs when they tried to unionize.

they are a dying breed (and rightly so) to the extent that they have fallen to less than 10% of the workforce.

Unions artifically inflate wages, driving inflation

ps. I've never hired a unionized supplier or subcontractor due primarily to the poor quality of their work

So how do you intend to maintain your wages?

 

[Tyr]

There are a couple of problems with that.

Congrats on your wins, BTW......

First of all, it requires that you know the law. The guys I worked with didn't have a clue......to be even allowed to refuse dangerous work, there is a very specific procedure you must go through.......which we only discovered when I did the research.

So, you've got a bunch of macho guys with little education, they simply are not apt to jump through the hoops to even discover their own rights.......

Much less so to drag anyone to court in a suit..........that requires even more knowledge, and access to lawyers, etc.........

The only way these guys got the necessary support was through the union.

We had one guy that sued the company.....he was a certifiable nutbar.....and he lost. He tried to sue everyone, the company, the union, his co-workers........he was ostracized by the boys, and finally quit.

The other problem with this was these guys were a bunch of misfits......that loved the job (as did I) and were out on the road away from management 90% of the time.........

Oh yeah......regular pay for risking your life every day, carrying guns and millions upon millions in cash?

Between 12 and 14 dollars an hour. It took me ten years to get the top job, only 5 in NB and PEI combined, that paid 18 dollars an hour.

Every negotiation goes to the edge of strike.....they threaten to close branches, which in our case, they finally did......getting rid of myself and a couple of other "unco-operatives"..........

You don't have to be a sociopath to be management in the industry.....but it seems to help.

Please, if you ever see armoured car guys on strike picketing your bank.....complain loudly to the bank.......

First of all, it requires that you know the law. The guys I worked with didn't have a clue.

So, you've got a bunch of macho guys with little education, they simply are not apt to jump through the hoops to even discover their own rights.......

So, that is somehow the employers responsiblity?

The only way these guys got the necessary support was through the union.

so, really they needed a babysitter, not a union

Oh yeah......regular pay for risking your life every day, carrying guns and millions upon millions in cash?

You don't have to be a sociopath to be management in the industry.....but it seems to help.

But It would appear that you do have to be a sociopath to be paid $12/hr to put your life on the line. Maybe it was the fascination of carrying a weapon...

Your choice. You could have quit.

 

[Tyr]

And yet some sports figure can "earn" $87 million in one year by swatting a ball around golf courses and grinning at a tv camera. People's priorities are really twisted. And my ridiculously high wage as a firefighter gave me a moderate pension and 50 acres with a house that I am constantly fixing up. lol I should have gone into playing a game like golf instead of risking my skin to save someone's house or life.

You just don't get the whole concept of economics do you

 

[darkbeaver]

Having never been the member of a union, how do you know they are useless???

We need unions once again......if you want to look at inflated wages, check out CEOs before you start whinning about unions!!!!

Union wages are not artificially inflated, at least not in the private sector. I've been a member of a couple of unions in my time......and believe me, they are very necessary in the areas in which I worked.....for example, armoured car guards are consistently pressured and threatened to do dangerous work, as in drive cross-country in blizzards, drive 14, 15 hour shifts, work 24+ hours straight........all of which are illegal. Yey the company will insist it must be done.... the ice storm in the late 90s? we put our regular 3 cross-country runs out on the road......two of the trucks wound up in the woods.

This only stopped, or at least the pressure lessened, because of the union........labour laws are useless. For instance, you have the right to refuse to do dangerous work. You think that is to protect the labourer, right?

Wrong.

It puts the onus of refusal on the worker. If I drive in a blizzard, or more than 13 hours, or do anything else dangerous or illegal, it doesn't matter that the employer threatened to fire me (as has happened to me)...........it doesn't matter that the manager calls me a coward, a liar, repeatedly calls me to berate me......the second I give in and do as I am ordered......any consequences, legal or otherwise, are deemed to be my fault.

My "right to refuse dangerous work" protects the employer.....the fact I have a right to refuse means that it was my choice to do what I did, doesn't it? The employer is blameless.

Oh yes, unions are necessary.

With the widening class gap, and the disappearing middle class, they are more necessary now than they have been in decades.

Goddamnit Colpy you can be so bloody right sometimes I forget your hideous flaws.:lol:

 

[Machjo]

I should point out that some posters here are demonizing unions excessively.

I'd rather work for a non-unionized organization, and I'm sure some unions are the pits. But I have heard of good unions too, to be fair.

But good or bad, whether the employer deserves it or not, it doesn't change the fact either way that it makes for a ever-confrontational environment, and that makes it tough for labour and management to work together constructively, both sides always at the ready against an attack from the other. I'm sure unions have their place with bad employers, but if that is the case, I'd rather shift employer.

I'm just saying though that unions are not necessarily as bad as some are portraying them here.

 

[Machjo]

One thing we might need though is improved laws.

 

[darkbeaver]

MBAs are acctually the dying breed there buddy, do some homework. MBAs are got by the dozen these days all nicely packed in crates. When you break one you just open the box and pull out a new one install the batteries and it will make a complete ass of itself just like the others. There is at present a glut of MBAs ready to work for next to nothing to prove how efficient they are.

 

[Machjo]

First of all, it requires that you know the law. The guys I worked with didn't have a clue.

So, you've got a bunch of macho guys with little education, they simply are not apt to jump through the hoops to even discover their own rights.......

So, that is somehow the employers responsiblity?

The only way these guys got the necessary support was through the union.

so, really they needed a babysitter, not a union

Oh yeah......regular pay for risking your life every day, carrying guns and millions upon millions in cash?

You don't have to be a sociopath to be management in the industry.....but it seems to help.

But It would appear that you do have to be a sociopath to be paid $12/hr to put your life on the line. Maybe it was the fascination of carrying a weapon...

Your choice. You could have quit.

That's why we need to improve education, even if it means a tax hike in the process. If people don't know their own rights, that's a failure of society to educate them. in other words, it's our fault that they can't defend themselves. And that being the case, we still owe them an education no matter how old they might be.

 

[Tyr]

So how do you intend to maintain your wages?

It's very simple. I'm a acontractor. A specialist in what I do. I bid on work and if the mix of quality and wage are acceptable to the hiring corportaion, I get the contract

Companies (or gov't) hires me for an set period of time (3-6-9-12 months). They pay me a wage (say $70). For that amount, I would either have to save them $175/hr of their total costs for a project or bring in $350/hr worth of revenue for the corporation. If I don't, I'm let go. Simple.

I don't get sick pay, I don't get paid holidays, I don't get a pension and I buy my own medical/dental. My personal income taxes are 50% less and I get to pick and chose what I do and where.

 

[Tyr]

MBAs are acctually the dying breed there buddy, do some homework. MBAs are got by the dozen these days all nicely packed in crates. When you break one you just open the box and pull out a new one install the batteries and it will make a complete ass of itself just like the others. There is at present a glut of MBAs ready to work for next to nothing to prove how efficient they are.

....and your claim to fame vis-a-vis educational background? There are a couple of dozen people in Canada with the same MBA as I have. Pretty select company

 

[Tyr]

I should point out that some posters here are demonizing unions excessively.

I'd rather work for a non-unionized organization, and I'm sure some unions are the pits. But I have heard of good unions too, to be fair.

But good or bad, whether the employer deserves it or not, it doesn't change the fact either way that it makes for a ever-confrontational environment, and that makes it tough for labour and management to work together constructively, both sides always at the ready against an attack from the other. I'm sure unions have their place with bad employers, but if that is the case, I'd rather shift employer.

I'm just saying though that unions are not necessarily as bad as some are portraying them here.

There is a place for unions. People who perform hazardous work and need the protection of a union from their employers. ie

Roofers,
Commerial Fisherman
Miners,
Loggers
Construction

...and that's about it. A teacher, a gov't clerk, a nurse or a bus driver... not likely. They do not fit the criteria.

I'm sure the gov't clerk can make a case for an infected paper cut and unions no doubt make theat case

 

[Tyr]

That's why we need to improve education, even if it means a tax hike in the process. If people don't know their own rights, that's a failure of society to educate them. in other words, it's our fault that they can't defend themselves. And that being the case, we still owe them an education no matter how old they might be.

If people don't know their own rights, that's a failure of society to educate them. in other words, it's our fault that they can't defend themselves. And that being the case, we still owe them an education

Nice in theory, but impractical. Laws should dictate that people know there rights not that they are "owed" an education for those rights

 

[Machjo]

If people don't know their own rights, that's a failure of society to educate them. in other words, it's our fault that they can't defend themselves. And that being the case, we still owe them an education

Nice in theory, but impractical. Laws should dictate that people know there rights not that they are "owed" an education for those rights

Government has a duty to ensure that people learn their rights, or at least their basic rights and the necessary skills to learn their other rights. That woud include literacy, logical thought, analytical reasoning, knowing govenrment websites, knowing how to surf the internet, recognize a ligitimate website, read their rights, write a formal complaint, and know enough about the governmetn structure to know whom to turn to when their rights are violated.

So yes, in a democracy, we have a duty to ensure that all receive sufficient education to be able to participate in that democracy.

 

[Liberalman]

TYR

$70/hr?
You don't get sick pay and you don't get paid holidays

Tell me if you got a little more than minimum wage would you tell your employer that you don’t want sick pay or paid holidays?

If a lot of workers got $70 dollars an hour then they would have more choice like you do.

 

[Tyr]

TYR

$70/hr?
You don't get sick pay and you don't get paid holidays

Tell me if you got a little more than minimum wage would you tell your employer that you don’t want sick pay or paid holidays?

If a lot of workers got $70 dollars an hour then they would have more choice like you do.

That's why....

I went to school, got a Bsc, worked HARD for 20 yrs, went back to school parttime and am about to gradute with an MBA.

I'm not stuck in that "no choice" category. Very few people are. they have choices and choose not to take them

 

[Risus]

I should point out that some posters here are demonizing unions excessively.

I'd rather work for a non-unionized organization, and I'm sure some unions are the pits. But I have heard of good unions too, to be fair.

But good or bad, whether the employer deserves it or not, it doesn't change the fact either way that it makes for a ever-confrontational environment, and that makes it tough for labour and management to work together constructively, both sides always at the ready against an attack from the other. I'm sure unions have their place with bad employers, but if that is the case, I'd rather shift employer.

I'm just saying though that unions are not necessarily as bad as some are portraying them here.

I have seen several plants close because of unions. Demons they are...

 

[Tyr]

Government has a duty to ensure that people learn their rights, or at least their basic rights and the necessary skills to learn their other rights. That woud include literacy, logical thought, analytical reasoning, knowing govenrment websites, knowing how to surf the internet, recognize a ligitimate website, read their rights, write a formal complaint, and know enough about the governmetn structure to know whom to turn to when their rights are violated.

So yes, in a democracy, we have a duty to ensure that all receive sufficient education to be able to participate in that democracy.

That woud include literacy,

accomplish that and the rest is up to the initiative of the individual

 

[Machjo]

Machjo



You say you had bad employers which means more than one and you say you took them to court then you say your employer leaves you alone.

How much was your total legal costs to fight these employers and if those employers left you alone then why did you have to leave those employers that left you alone?

Two employeres, precisely. After the battle, the employer left me alone 'cause I no longer worked there. In both cases the issue was that the employer had violated my contract so I chose to leave. The employer threatened legal action, I wrote a detailed report to the local labour relations board (free service), and they had a word with the employer. I then settled out of court for compensation because the employer didn't want a bad record. All for free. Normally an employer doesn't expect the worker to fight back or know his rights, so when he does, it usually takes the employer so off guard that he just panics and gives you a good deal to shut up and not make it a court case (would be expensive for him too, after all).

So I made some money in the deal and found another employer instead. Why would
I want to work with a bad employer? Even with a union, I'd feel like I was always in a fight. How do you live with never trusting your employer? Why would you want to work for a bad employer? If my employer screws me over, I fire him! And if he doesn't, I trust him, we become friends, and we have a healthy professional cooperative relationship. That's all I will tolerate. Anything less than that, and I put in my two weeks. If any violation, I take it to the labour relations board. Had they fought back, I would have taken it to court, but as it turned out, I'd taken them totally off-guard.