A completely rational point that will never fly on this website or with general America. People get way to emotional about this subject. The same people who have never worked in a union and have no clue what its like. The same people that seem to think that a burger flipper, mail carrier or even auto worker is in the same realm as somebody who has a specialized education.

Its embarrassing that the majority of this country wants to feel sorry for everybody. If you didn't attempt to put anything into life and settled for the standard $10 an hour job, middle America supports you. Not only do they support you, they want your wage and job security to bankrupt the company you work for.

Everyone always brings up that illegal immigrants do the jobs that American's don't. I couldn't disagree anymore, if the average salary wasn't so inflated, a percentage of the population would be forced to work in those job fields.

Why is it so "mean" that some people, who didn't choose to educate themselves or even take certain opportunites, are stuck in shitty jobs. Why does every member of our society need upper middle class pay on top of job security?

There is always going to be poor people, even in the best country in the world. There is also always going to be terrible jobs that people are forced to work.

Its like talking to the wall if you guys can't see the difference between someone educating themselves in a special field and an unskilled laborer walking into a assembly plant off of the street. Why should the unskilled laborer get paid on par with the person who got an education and was motivated enough to move up in life?

PS: I didn't realize that it was acceptable to bankrupt our economy in an attempt to keep companies in check.

How about this? If you want to keep your job, produce results. If you want a promotion, work harder then the next guy. Don't get all huffy when your supervisor asks you to do something and please don't cite "Seniority" to avoid specific tasks.

If a company is losing money, then you can't expect a wage increase every few months. If a company is losing money, closing plants and has lost its market share then don't strike along with 70,000 other workers just to make things worse.

I couldnt agree more. I think that the companies who hire these individuals should be held accountable. Its not that there are not legals to do these jobs, they just wont work for pennies. And I dont mean they want 20 dollars an hour either.

You didnt respond to my previous post however. In the Navy you'll be using the Seniority argument, except its called rank.

Theres a difference between earning a rank or even seniority and using that rank or seniority to get out of your specified work duties.

Simple example, you're paid to screw on bottle caps on bottles. Theres actually two jobs, screwing on bottle caps and taking a cart to go get more bottle caps. In a typical union shop, the bottle cap mover would be of higher seniority and would never "lower" themselves to the standard of general line work.

I have seen it first hand and it blows. When I was in two different unions I did the job that needed to be done. If I had to do the hardest job, I did it. If we were short staffed for whatever reason and a supervisor did some work I didn't start yelling "grievance!!!" at the top of my lungs until the shop steward came around.

Its all about the individual. Although most use their status in the union as a position of power. Personally, I could care less if someone has more or less seniority as long as the job gets done and no one is jerking around.

For the majority of rank, it is distributed by time in service, or seniority. I think your second statement above is a highly generalized statement about unions. In every job or workplace there are people who dont want to do x job, not just a union environment. At my job currently there are people who wont help out others, yet there are many more who will.

As far as the military again with certain rank it is not expected that you will do certain tasks. Many individuals delegate the workload to those with less rank.

This reminds me of my favorite union story. I was 19 working as an intern for the computer guys at Accuride in Henderson KY. I was considered a corporate worker and therefore was not union. Well, I still had to support the union guys though. One day one of the supervisors needed a new computer. I grab the thing, throw it under my arm, and take off walking across the plant floor. I had multiple people be like "whoa whoa WHOA... what the hell are you doing???" I was already 1/3 of the way to my destination, but I had to turn around, call a union guy and put in a request for this PC to be moved, then wait 30 minutes for these TWO real big guys to show up, with a cart, and they wouldn't even let me put it on the cart, it had to be sitting on a desk then they picked it up, placed it on the cart, and very slowly the three of us walked across the plant floor, then they unloaded it. While I was hooking it up, they all had to stare at me and make sure I wasn't doing anything that remotely resembled manual labor that they could be doing. Then, not too long after that, they all go on strike because they want more benefits. The funny part was that all of the corporate people got together and ran the entire plant themselves, in addition to doing thier normal jobs.

This is the kind of stuff that happens in unions, across the country, every day. You can decide for yourself if it's a noble cause.

I worked at UPS and the most embarrassing job happened to be the best. The person with the highest seniority in a certain department stood on a platform at the top of the belt. They then threw the different boxes down the corresponding shoots. These guys made $2 more an hour then I did and one of them was there a week longer then I was.

They "picked" boxes, which only involved knowing the zip codes of around four trucks. On the other hand, the loaders like myself had to load 3 semi trucks a day, around 2500 packages. On top of loading these packages alone, you're expected to check every single one to make sure the zip code is correct. If you loaded a bad package it would show up the next day and the union guy would chew you out.

If the "picks" threw bad packages down the shoot, nothing would happen. During Christmas of last year, my trucks were backing out because we didn't have enough staff to handle the increased flow. At the top of the shoots, instead of letting the packages "ride" down the belt, the pick started throwing them off of the belt(onto me). This is a twenty foot drop and the packages weights varied from 1lb to 30lbs. One package hit me in the shoulder as I had my arm on a package on the line. The result? Separated shoulder.

What happened to the pick who had a higher seniority? Nothing, the let him take his vacation days early and he came back about three weeks later.

And the kicker. Even with the separated shoulder, they made me work. They put me in the busiest trailer possible. It was basically a cache all, any package from our belt could go in there, unless it was out of state. Well this was most likely the busiest day of the year and they wouldn't send us(another guy loading, myself scanning) any help.

It started to become a safety issue because the trailer was literally FILLING with packages and our moron supervisor wouldn't shut off the belt. Everything happening was against UPS regulations. The floors of the trailer are supposed to be clear, because its a fire hazard if they are not. The metal gratings outside of the trailer need to be clear for the same reason.

Well the trailer was 3/4 full(about 10 feet remaining) and there had to be 200 packages on the belt going into the trailer. On top of that, there had to be atleast 500 packages on the floor of the trailer. I could no longer move around on my side of the trailer, I was getting pinned in, so I "broke" a UPS rule. There are rollers that the packages flow into the trailer on. They're about 10 inches high and have a thick metal edge on each side, making it pretty easy to stand on.

Well I was walking over them, looked, jumped down and landing on a packaged that I didn't see. I broke my ankle. I then gimped my way out of the trailer, barely getting down the stairs. I then sat down on the floor and my bosses boss came over to chew me out for the trailer backing out.

I told him my ankle was broken, he looked at it and offered me an ice bag. He then made me walk across the plant(.25 mile) to his office. The union scum bags came to see what the problem was. I explained EXACTLY what happened, including walking over the rollers. The HR lady, took my story and called UPS corporate and got the story on tape.

The bosses and union "reps' didn't know this. For the next two hours they interrogated me about the situation and my intentions. UPS has a special doctor that they use. Its free for workers to attend. I asked to go there, I told them that I needed an x-ray immediately.

They disagreed and said it was probably just a sprain. They came up with a plan that would work for them. I would go to the ER, using my own health insurance and claim that I injured myself during a hockey game(my boss new I played on a daily basis).

I disagreed from the very second it was suggested. I told them that I am going to the company doctor, they don't really have a choice. They finally agreed but then found out about the taped story sent to corporate. The story including that I loosely violated a UPS rule and they started going crazy. They started yelling at the HR lady, she started crying. They then gave me the ultimatum. Go home, take care of the injury on my own. Or in the words of my boss and the union reps, "You'll be fired if you go to the company doctor".

I then said "Well if thats the case, then let me call my lawyer, you can relay him that information." They just gave me a look and then agreed that I should go to the company doctor. The HR lady drove me to the doc. After X rays, came back, I had a break in my ankle and in my foot.

The HR lady then drove me back to the plant. She told the union guys and my bosses about the results. They must have felt generous that day because they then gave me "Five days off of my feet." Two of those days were the weekend, which we didn't work.

In five days, I came back and was expected to work at 100% on one leg. When I couldn't do that, the union reps went out of their way to pressure me. They would call me out in front of my co-workers and continuously asked me to do things that were out of my abilities.

In the end, I was "fired", my boss was demoted and UPS was fined $70,000 for the ordeal.

Unions blow.

I didnt know UPS was union...

Corndoggy...I havent seen any of that kind of stuff.