What do you think of them?

I am starting a blog. I want to address all issues of negativity towards Unions in general. I know the benefits of unions pretty well since i am in one. I also know many of the problems but wanted to get some outside feedback if could.

thanks

Whats the point?
Beyond the issues of rampant corruption present in any group that aspires to lobby an authoritarian system and charges people money for the privilege, why bother when such a group cannot guarantee you job security in a world where everything is getting outsourced to the lowest bidder?
Why not make your own job and be your own boss and have direct ownership of the means of production instead of actually paying some bozos to 'argue' on your behalf to somehow get you better pay and conditions when they are clearly failing not only to manage that but to even keep you employed in the first place?

I myself haggle my own pay and conditions of employment, why outsource all this responsibility all the time?
Are you men or mice?

I appreciate your comment. I could do that to a point. I mostly work in industrial painting though which pays much better than painting the back bedroom for Mrs Bloggs. As a union painter I get training, a pension, healthcare and much better hourly pay than the non union painters. As an individual you are not going to be able to bid on an industrial job of any decent size at least.

thanks again though.

i-baster wrote:
As a painter in the specific industry you are in you mean?
As an individual myself, I can and do get contract work that pays well above what an employee would earn.
I invest and train myself and offset my expenses against tax. I have no union costs and little in the way of tax costs other than whats obviously unavoidable here- road tax for example.
If your particular skill area doesn't allow for self employment then you ought to be looking to get skilled in something that is instead of staying with that profession perhaps?
What happens when there's no work left for you in it because they're getting robots to do it or simply outsourcing it abroad?
Do you re-train then at a later stage or do it now?

I am saying that an industrial job requires man power and specialist equipment etc and so there is no way to do that self employed. I can work for a non union company and get about half the pay and probably lower safety standards. I pay union dues but those dues are more than covered by the extra pay that I earn. I pay taxes yes but mainly because it is easier to pay taxes and be a part of the system than it is to try and live outside of the system. Remember i am a resident alien and my wife is an American. They can deport me quite easily if they wanted to. I could try and drop out but I have kids to think about as well. I am happy for you but It is not really an option for me right now.

i-baster wrote:
I'm suggesting you prepare for something else.
At the end of the day you're just doing what the vast majority of people do. Train for 1 career and expect someone else to provide a job for you for life.
The future is no longer going to be like that I'm afraid..if you want to be successful then you have to get trained and qualified in something else. What that something else is, is up to yourself. In my case it's IT but the training is almost constant.
It doesn't require much in the way of special equipment, just know how. Its the knowledge that is considered valuable.
There are other jobs that pay highly that you can train for with nothing more than books and a few short exams.

The west is no longer a 'producer', we're importers. Industry as such is dying.
You're probably OK if you retire with a pension in the next 5 - 10 years max. If you're younger than that though, well a unions not going to be of any use when you're unemployed.

You don't have to drop out of your current job to train in something else.

When you have oligopolies and corporations given representaion by spokesmen, media pundits, PR people, lawyers, lobbies, think tanks, and the CBI, why is it somehow "socialism gone awry" when the other side of the labour market do the same?

mikey mikey wrote:
The words the media uses eh? Fantastic stuff, bloody hilarious in fact.
When I watch the news today its like I can hear the muppet show music in the background
Ra da da da da daah, ra da da, da da daah, doobie doobie doob! LOL

Well only time will tell where we are in ten years. I know that stuff will need painting though. Computers and IT is a big thing and will probably always need people and you might only need to learn new shit related to your field. Of course not everybody in society can do the same job. There is not 100% employment. I could figure out some skill and get that skill but there is no guarantee that I will make it in that field or that there will be a need for that skill. I have not always been a painter. I have done other things. This is my trade though. This is my skill and perhaps my best chance at retiring at a decent age. If I can keep working then I can in theory retire at in my early sixties if not sooner. It all depends on hours that I put in. There are not many people that are able to say that of a job they started at 30.

i-baster wrote:
Yep, I started out in IT at 28 or 29. I actually trained to be a mechanic, things didn't work out that way though.
IT just has high demand and pay and you can sort training and qualification too with realistic amounts of money but like I said, I doubt you'd want to do that so its just a case of finding something else that you are interested in and that does have demand. It might take a while to spot it.
Alternatively you could do some house painting on the side for cash, a job every other weekend or so will plant seeds so to speak and you might end up getting enough work to pay a young lad part time to do the job.
Its how things worked out for me, I now have some part timers working for me now and then.

Every union painter I know does side work. I have done one side job but being new to Georgia I don`t have much word of mouth business yet but then I have not been doing this that long really. Union work just offers better pay than even side jobs and it usually lasts a lot longer and so for some painters side jobs become tough to fit in even. I have thought about doing other things on the side but i never dream of working non union. Side jobs are not really considered non union jobs anyway.

www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/weekend/201...1/1224323450534.html

Its a worrying trend. I don't see unions doing much to stop that.

i-baster wrote:
Join the Masons!

I'm trying to set up a YMCA residents committee that hopefully will end up a nationawide thing, they have zero voice, or zero collective bargaining power in these Hostel/halfway home places, also trying to work something similar out for Unemployed and Youth in my area and joing a few residents committees etc, i think grass roots organisation is positive on many fronts aswell as just being a very pleasant opportunity to socialize and share ideas..

I do know a painter who is a mason and sure enough he is one of the few union painters I know here who has more or less a full time permanent job. Not for me though.

This thing about masons getting favours from brother masons is bollocks btw. It would be considered the wrong thing to even approach each other to ask.

Gilly wrote:
Well the mason painter I know is a "good ol boy" which is probably more of the reason why he is in his job you know?

Gilly wrote:
Ah-ha!! And so the mask begins to slip.

'Fess up, Gilly-bean.

i-baster wrote:
I'm not being deliberately obtuse - but I don't really know what a 'good ol boy' is.

Abs, I'm telling thee nowt!

from wikipedia

Just found this, i-baster. Might be of use as there are some interesting things discussed: