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I agree with this completely. Your experiences with Unions pretty much matches my own. Unions need to revise their objectives and goals and get back in touch with their old focus; realizing that demanding better benefits and contracts should also require a level of professionalism and skill set from their members.

posted 4 years, 8 months ago
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And what happens to the people who fight for themselves and make better for themselves with investing in their education/skillset that aren't part of the union? What happens when the company that gets leveraged has to make the decision of going bankrupt or offloading such individuals outside the union? Perhaps they should have joined the Union to save themselves? That's the selfish point I make. All deserve better wages and benefits, but the union members I've met have not done it the conventional way through education or skillet training. They've done it through prying on the company with Union power, and the changes demanded are not just COL. It becomes an exploit of power; a reversal of power exploitation that occurred in the early 20th century before Unions. The unions should hold more accountability to their members, and train them ot match the "worth" they claim to obtain. I just haven't seen enough of that to support Unions anymore.

posted 4 years, 8 months ago
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I used to work at Boeing Portland as a contractor. I wasn't a machinist, but my job specifically was impacted (as well as other Boeing and contract workers) because there was nothing actually happening in the shop. Portland specifically is a machinist shop, and when that shop goes down the entire plant comes to a halt. It irritates me that the old prideful method of educating yourself and broadening a skillet is no longer embraced to improve one's pay and benefits. Instead, in the realm of unions, one's length of time on the job seems to be the only indicator of "worth".

On the same token, I do see the need to leverage a company as large as Boeing to take note of the needs of their workers. I disagree with the selfish way that Unions do that though.

posted 4 years, 8 months ago
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