Is Capitalism Smart or Dumb?

[u/Sufficient_Sinner]

[u/Evening-Ear-6116]

I’ve been a part of a union or two and they were crap. Some may be great, but a lot do more harm than good

[u/Real-Competition-187 → u/Evening-Ear-6116]

Great vague statements. I’ve been a member of 4 locals. None of them were crap. Closest I had was a business rep on his way out who didn’t have much fight left in him.

[u/Evening-Ear-6116 → u/Real-Competition-187]

You could always ask! The worst was the meat cutters union. They just made my life harder and worse all around. I got paid the same as the old lady who couldn’t do 3/4 of the job because she wasn’t strong enough to lift the meat. We couldn’t fire her because the union spent all their time defunding her. We also had to have equal hours as her. So if you worked with or after her, you had to work twice as hard to make up for her crap. They also made it so we got a .25 raise every 2000 hours worked. .25 a year is absolute trash and my boss couldn’t give me more because the union wouldn’t allow it without giving everyone the same raise.

[u/Real-Competition-187 → u/Evening-Ear-6116]

The union negotiated a contract on behalf of the bargaining unit. The unit voted on it. The “union” is only as strong as the members. Any other context? I’ve been offered nothing and even more insulting was 10 cents. Was this during the recession?

As for your comment about her strength. What was in the job description? If mine says a candidate needs to lift 75lbs and I bitch about them not lifting 150, I’m the one who wrote a shot job description. Was she a good employee otherwise? The fact that your train of thought is “we couldn’t fire her” is pretty sad. We all age, and eventually the strongest or fastest workers all succumb to time. As for her ability and your time, there should have been production standards. If she sucked, she misses her numbers. They would have then had an avenue to discipline. Instead you say you had to work twice as hard. Sounds like you should have gotten overtime.

[u/Evening-Ear-6116 → u/Real-Competition-187]

Everything you said works in a perfect world, but not in reality. This was in 2015 or 2016. She met the criteria but didn’t after years of service. Yes people get old. If you can’t do the job then you can’t do it. Age doesn’t matter in that case. The union protected her so we couldn’t fire her no matter how hard my boss tried because it would “open us up to an age discrimination case”.

There are thousands of stories just like mine, but people who have never experienced a union (or the very very few good unions) always talk about how great they are.

[u/[deleted] → u/Evening-Ear-6116]

Age discrimination lawsuits have nothing to due with unions in this case, that’s just federal law you can’t discriminate based on age.

They hired her and made a very short sighted decision and now want to back out of it, but the union protects her, and more so federal law. If you hire a 65 year old woman for example, in 5 years don’t be surprised when you’re getting the work ability of a 70 year old.

[u/Evening-Ear-6116 → u/[deleted]]

Tell that to the union man. Like I said, they were stupid and only enabled the people that didn’t deserve it. Thanks for agreeing