I like this post I made about unions...
Yeah...I do too. I am really glad you linked to it again as I was going to respond to it when I was scanning the 1k posts earlier to get caught up here. But, I just seemed to space it out, or life pulled me away.....whatever.
I too am anti-union. I have pretty much worked in a non-union environment all of my adult life. I now see the effects it has on commerce generally...and the nuclear utility industry specifically.
When a plant goes 'into outage mode' to refuel, repair, and/or upgrade, most of the craft workers hired are union. When a utility is not producing electricity during this down time they have to buy it on the open market to deliver to their customers. It costs a utility nearly 2 million dollars a day to do this.
A planned outage consists of enormous amout of workers...1500 to 2000...to get all of the work done so the plant can come back up online on time. It is a choreography that is mind boggling.
The union workers (most, it seems....it's hard not to paint with a broad brush here) have the mind set that if I work too efficiently I am just working myself out of a gravy train job. So they have adopted what we (non-union) call the Union Shuffle. i.e. Don't get in a hurry, don't over-do, and...god forbid...don't start a task if it is less than an hour 'til 'break'.
Since our group in non-union we are sometimes looked at with disdain if not outright hatred that we are 'taking a brothers' job.....that is until they see the equipment we use and the responsibilty that we bear.
Sometimes it is troubling to hear the hourly wage that a lowly scaffold builder or toilet cleaner makes compared to what I do.
True story here: I was at a plant in southern Michigan and was heading into containment. Before I got to security there was a guy struggling to get a heavy box up the stairs. Naturally, being the nice guy that I am :) I helped him get the box up the stairs. He asked "What local are you?" I replied that I wasn't union. He actually tried to get the name off my ID badge to report me for doing 'union' labor. Shheeesh!
It costs the utility a lot of money to have this mindset working against them, but is so ingrained..I don't see it changing much. |
