On Sat, 22 Nov 2008 18:59:48 -0800, "asadi"
wrote:

Dave you ol' pirate...

You are being just a little too hard on the unions - you exhibit the
behavior of one who always wanted a union but never had one...

I worked for the 'guvner' and had a union and am glad I did...to the point.
But I do agree that some glaring, obvious mistakes were made...non funded
pension plans, lack of market competition...and so forth



John, I grew up with unions. Every kid in my neighborhood had a
father or mother working for the unions. Westinghouse in East
Springfield was the big employer. My dad was a Teamster and HAD to
belong to the union or he didn't work. Today the state is a right to
work state. It wasn't then. My dad got absolutely nothing from the
Teamsters except a pin each year saying how many safe miles he'd
driven. They took his money and gave him a pin. Who benefited from
all that dues? Hoffa and his hacks. Not my dad.

Westinghouse would go on strike every Nov/Dec. They'd be unemployed
for five or six weeks and finally settle the strike for pennies
more/hour. I can remember my dad shaking his head and calling them
fools. The only people that made out were the union bigwigs. The
little people certainly didn't. I have hated the unions ever since.

I've never worked for a union shop (thankfully), but I have had to do
business with them when I worked for Honeywell Electro Ops (infra red
dectectors). I worked on the AN/AAD5 FLIR and had to take a couple of
units to a factory in a nearby town for vibration testing. What a
cluster **** that was. What would have taken me two maybe three hours
to do took TWO days by these union heehaws. It brought back memories
from my childhood.

Glad you liked/needed them. Guess that's why we have chocolate and
vanilla. If GM can renegotiate the union contracts, get rid of the
ridiculous "job bank", build a better product at lower cost than
Toyota, Nissan, Honda, Subaru, Hyndai, and yes, even Kia, they may
survive after restructuring. But right now, they need to be shot and
put out of their misery. They shoot horses, don't they?