panhead
Well-Known Member
Not true at all,most unions are not the massive institutions that the UAW has grown into,most are very small in manpower & take a very small percentage of an employees hourly wage,my local has 4 full time employees who make much less than i do & they drive their own cars,i pay my union a whopping 2% of my after tax income.
Employers are all after one thing & that is maximum profit,the only carring relationship that exists between any employer & his employees is with the employer caring about 2 things,profits & productivity,no employer gives 2 shits about quality of life of its employee base,they will only pay the absolute bare minumum wage to keep an employee base working & not a penny more,non union employers talk all the time about how much they care about the employee's well being,that is until the employees want better benifits or a raise, then they cry poverty & claim they will price the company out of the market if they increase labor costs,total bulshit on scab company owners parts.
My non union counter parts make at the max $20 an hour which is less than half my hourly rate of $47 per hour,for a grown ass man supporting a family $20 an hour is a insult & not a liveable wage,my non union counter part also has no pension,some have 401k plans but that is no substitute for a pension & requires the employee contribute to the 401k out of the allready extremely low working wage they recieve,most do not use their 401k plans to their maximum contribution level because they cant afford to loose the money out of pocket to get the employeer to match the contribution.
My non union counter part also recieves a much lower value health insurance that also requires him to pull money out of pocket to even have the plan, where my insurance is 100% paid for by my employer.
All our employees also recieve a $300 a month performance check that is tax free,if we show up for work every day on time & only have fully excused abscenses then we recieve the check,this comes out to $3,600 a year that my non union counter parts do not recieve.
Our employees also recieve travel pay,this comes into play when we work more than 50 miles away from our union hall,our travel pay starts out at $40 a day plus mileage,my non union counter parts do not recieve travel pay,they have to foot the entire gasoline expense out of pocket, no matter how far away they have to work.
My non union counter part also recieves no vacation pay where i recieve a check once a year that pays me $5.60 for every hour i work,this translates into about $8,000 a year that my non union counter part does not recieve.
We also pay for all our apprentices 3 years of trade school they must take in order to learn their trade & recieve certification then their journeymans card,we also pay them to take any training needed for speciality items such as saftey courses & abatement issues,none of my non union counter parts recieve these incentives & these are things that cost my employer alot of money every year.
We also supply all our foremen & superintendants with late model work trucks at company expense,these trucks are fully maintained at company cost,my non union counter part is on his own to supply his own truck & to maintain it out of his pocket,between monthly truck payments,fuel & maintainance this comes out to atleast $5,000 a year that my non union counter part does not recieve.
Now with all the extra stuff i get that my non union counter part does not recieve any man with common sense would think that the non union shop would pass these tremendous savings onto the consumer,the non union shops do not pass the savings on, they line their pockets with the extra cash,i see this all the time,when sealed bids are opened i get to see the numbers & 99% of the time non union shops are right in line with the union shop bids,alot of the time the non union contractors have a higher per sq ft price over the union shops.
How is it possible ,when my yearly income is atleast $50,000 more than the higests paid non union counter part of mine & im just one man at my company,all our workers are paid twice as much as their non union counter parts & thats just the hourly wage,when i add up all the incentive programs we offer them,the travel expense,the truck & maintainance,free gasoline the ratio would put my non union counter part at making about 40% of my hourly wage,again how is this possible ?
For what i pay my union vs what i recieve from them is a no brainer,they come in once a year,look at all the books,investigate all company expenses vs profit margins & use this information as a barginig tool when contract time rolls around,all my non union counter part gets to know when he "asks" for a cost of living raise is what the company owner tells him,if we do not get a yearly cost of living wage it's because the company is not finincally able to do so,if my non union counter part does not get a raise it could be because the owner of the non union company is greedy,or built a new house in the FLA Keys,or a new sports car,or lost too much at the casino,bought his wife 10 new mink coats ect.
In the last 4 years all my men recieved a total of $6.53 in cost of living wages where my non union counterparts wages have gone down by a margin of 10% to 15%,these numbers are isued yearly for all to see.
Construction unions do not get work because they are union,they get work because they turned in the lowest square foot price for the job,if non union contractors passed the massive savings in labor that have over their union competetors then they would have a unstopable advantage over every union contractor, the labor cost advantage would put all construction unions directly out of business,this is not the case,construction unions thrive in my state because all the non union shops owners & upper management take & keep all the profits foe themselves while the employees who bust their asses struggle every day just to barely make ends meet.
People are greedy,its in all of our natures to be self centered,greedy & only think of ourself,its also in all our natures to think we deserve a larger slice of the pie than we are recieving right now,ask anybody you know if they think they deserve more money per hour,every last person will say that they deserve more money,this is how all people think,now turn that around on employers & company owners,all of them think exactly as we do, think they deserve a bigger slice of the pie & non union contractors are getting that larger slice of the pie, while their employees are taking it up the shitter with substandard wages that keep all family members working full time jobs just to make ends meet,most never get ahead in life.
I & my union men make the company i work for millions of dollars every year,i see what i make them in our quarterly reports,i make them these profits because the men who work for me all are well trained,have good lives from making a liveable wage, in turn they repay all the good treatment they recieve from my company & me by busting their asses every day,our profit margins are still huge even though we pay about 60% more in wages than our non union counter parts.
Both union & non union contractors all buy their materials from the same suppliers & pay the same prices so material prices are exactly the same with the union shops having no advantage in hourly wages or material costs,how is it that my company thrives when we pay so much more to our men,there is only one possible answer & that is greed on the part of the scab company owners.
Never look down on a guy because he makes alot of money per hour,for every dollar a man is paid you can bet the company big wigs are making $5 for his $1,and in the case of scab labor its more like $1 for the working man & $10 for the big wigs.
Work union & live better i say.
its northern lights.
