@Midlifemale

🤦

I'M NOT LIBERAL & NEVER WILL BE

@pdockal Well that's good news. Then you are on the right side of this country...a republican.
I'm sure you are doing well at your union job....but unions control so much of the workforce and it's bad for many businesses. If you work for a well managed and owned company, a union is not needed and you will benefit more from working hard then you will from a union run company.

@Midlifemale

bad for business oh really .....


Data show that states with so-called “right-to-work” (RTW) laws have lower unionization rates, wages, and benefits compared with non-RTW states.
On average, workers in RTW states are paid 3.2% less than workers with similar characteristics in non-RTW states, which translates to $1,670 less per year for a full-time worker.
Claims that weakening unions will lead to state job growth have proven inaccurate. There are no measurable employment advantages between RTW and non-RTW states.

3.2% may be inconsequential to you but .............
Michigan repealed right to work
there are measures working on getting right to work overturned etc

As Martin Luther King, Jr. pointed out in 1961, “right to work” is a “false slogan” since RTW laws provide neither rights nor work and are in fact designed “to rob us of our civil rights and job rights [and] to destroy labor unions and the freedom of collective bargaining by which unions have improved wages and working conditions of everyone.” Decades later, research bears out King’s contention that “wherever these laws have been passed, wages are lower.”

RTW laws are historically rooted in racism and designed to maintain unequal power. When private-sector workers first gained legal protection to unionize following passage of the federal National Labor Relations Act in 1935, unionization rates grew quickly. In response, opponents waged anti-union, explicitly white supremacist campaigns to limit worker power and maintain Jim Crow labor relations. These campaigns pursued state legislation as a means to constrain workers’ newly won federal union rights via RTW policies, and especially to block multiracial union organizing. RTW laws have since spread to 27 states and continue to generate economic outcomes that disadvantage all workers.

shall I continue ?????????????

@LadyGrace They have a Vo-Tech school here and the boy is going for HVAC this past year and next year. I told him maybe if he wanted to he could also go to a 2-year college, Okmulgee Tech like my brother-in-law and his son did for HVAC. That way he could get his contractor’s license.

@cherokeepatti oh that's absolutely fabulous! I am happy to hear that. That's the way to go!! I know you're so proud of him. What a great occupation and it will always be in demand.

@cherokeepatti You might want to tell him to get a job in his field and work for someone else while learning
everything about the business.

@Heartlander Then how else other than by merit? You prefer DEI and affirmative action?

@RedBaron Not really. I prefer not depriving so that everyone has access, but that's not the same as giving some privileged access. Except maybe when that privilege is in exchange for some benefit to the interest of the people. Like the GI bill, or work study programs.

I'm not big on sat scores or academic success for a lot of different reasons. One being my own experience by starting our kids in good Montessori programs. Programs based on the needs of the kids rather than the rigidity of the process. Our daughter never saw a report card until she was in the 6th grade, and is an over-achiever. In part because school was a place to learn and live, not a contest or a place to be graded. In college she integrated school and work through the university's extension services with the hands on engagements during the summers being as important as the classrooms in the semesters.

@Theyitis

Private for profit colleges don't need my tax money ... there are much better places to spend that money ... maybe more mental health services ?

What's wrong with unions ??

@pdockal I wasn’t a shop rat. I was a framing carpenter on a field crew. And you’re wrong about me caring about what wages the employees make. Your ignorance shows that you don’t really know beyond what your union bosses are telling you. Most contractors I hire that are nonunion. Give better packages to their employees than unions can offer. Why? Because the benefits are so expensive that a non-union contractor can offer better benefits for less money

Most have excellent 401(k) packages that employees contribute to and employers also support and contribute to. For instance, my employees have hundreds of thousands of dollars in accounts that they control now and forever. They get profit-sharing, they get vehicle expenses, and they’re paid right up there with any other union employee..

What do you know about Lois bid? Are you a contractor? Do you own your own business? You first have to get the job. The reason many union contractors are non-competitive are the work rules not the wages. Some of the favorite union contractors I hire are able to go back to the unions and request modified work rules for various projects to compete with non union companies. That’s how it works in real life.

@carpediem



Why would a union shop have to request modified work rules (translates to lower wages & poorer working conditions) if the non union shop they are competing with pay better ?

You just proved my point
The only reason a union shop requests modified union work rules is to downgrade

@pdockal Unfortunately, you don't know what you're talking about. Work rules mean things like, a painter can do more painting per day. A mason contractor doesn't need to have the same ratio of laborers per bricklayer. A concrete sub can finish more area of slab per man per day. All those things save money and allow the union companies to compete by letting their people produce as much as a non-union outfit generally does.

I think we're done with this conversation. You're dramatically ill prepared to have a serious discussion on the issue. Best of luck to you.

@Blackie Yeah, I remember all of that. Kids loved the wood shop and automotive class.

@Blackie I went to High School in the mid 70's In addition to Auto Shop and Wood shop we had Welding shop, Steel milling shop.

And foundry shop. I made sand cast molds, melted aluminum and poured the molten aluminum in the castings I made.

Over 50 years later, I still have the things I made in high school.

@cherokeepatti yes trade schools, are the best, i went to them a few months at a time while working, and wow, do they help getting a good job but a 2 year degree in ecomonics or history ispretty much useless

@oldguy73 I agree.

@oldguy73 Well ... with the $$ they are pulling in there is definitely a need there for a few business and accounting courses :)

@Carla Why do you keep confusing Trades people with screw turners?

@DogMan sigh...heavy sigh.

@Carla It's probably because we don't have higher education now like we used to. All our universities are dead, obliterated by communist administrators and professors who won't teach anything but communist revolution. Until we grow balls and arrest every last one of them and put them on trial for treason we won't have any actual higher education.

@softspokenman Thats a great Idea.

@Midlifemale

The benefits outweigh the 1% dues
Controlled how ? Non union companies can fire @ any time for no reason which is more control because the worker is scared to lose their job
I'm very free so I'm not sure what your babbling about
When times are slow (out of work) i keep my benefits... most trades ebb & flow irrigardless of they are union or not
I can go to any local in USA/Canada and go to work if they need workers ... i don't have to solicit my own work

@carpediem That's awesome carp, I knew we thought alike for a reason. I started my construction company in 2004
in Las Vegas. My project managers make a little over 100k per year, and we have a great IRA where I contribute the max.

The only bad thing is, I am wanting to retire, but it's hard to do when your people love working for you. I would turn the
business over to them, but they do not have the capital to finance large commercial projects. It took me many years
to acquire the capital I needed.

@DogMan I'm in the exact same position. I do commercial construction. My company does construction management and acts as a GC. My superintendents all make in excess of $100k with benefits up the wazoo including 401k, profit sharing, full health insurance including life insurance, company vehicles, end of year bonuses, and paid vacation. In fact, they can take any day off they'd like with pay if I get a week's notice. They only need to keep their projects up to date and they all do.

The unions have tried several times to "salt" my operation. But I'm wise to those tricks. I assume you know what that means. I only wish someone could take it over so I can focus on my "fun" business.

@Musicman very true, people don't realize that,

@DogMan

I never could understand the math behind the price of college tuition. It's only understandable if college tuition is something universities give away free to some while charging others more, a lot more.

That cost shifting follows the model liberals created in health care.

Like multiply the student-faculty ratio by the advertised tuition, subtract the average faculty salary and what remains is a fortune. So where dies all that $$ go, or was it ever there?

@DogMan my plumber friend makes about 300k a year, drs. don't, plus he gets paid in cash a lot

@oldguy73 Thats great!