Would you cross this grocery picket line?

[Shayna]

*Originally posted by DougC *

– - Not to pick on any one person, but the wages paid in CA and the wages paid in the St Louis are are apparently two different things.

I believe that’s directed to me, so let me say that first of all, I don’t feel picked on in the slightest. You would have no way to have known, of course, that although I am currently living in California, I am a native St. Louisan. 3rd generation, actually. My mother went to Soldan-Blewett. My father is a Wash U alum. I graduated from UMSL. As did the boyfriend making upwards of $20/hr straight time to whom I referred above. He started as a stock clerk, worked his way up to store manager, put himself through college working for that store, and then went on to work in their headquarters offices in the accounting department once he had his degree. The grocery business was an excellent career for him. It afforded him many opportunities and benefits.

You said yourself that wages start above minimum wage (which means employees who’ve been there longer are making even more than that) and even part-time employees receive at least some health insurance coverage. That, in and of itself, is highly unusual. And having to “pay your dues,” as it were, by earning that privilege only after a year of service is not surprising, nor is there anything wrong with that.

At the fortune 500 company I worked for 5 years ago, I had to pay a (albeit relatively small) portion of my own, personal health insurance coverage. It didn’t start out that way when I was first hired, but changed as costs increased significantly and the company couldn’t/didn’t want to absorb all those increases anymore. So a small percentage was passed on to the employees.

And I went 3 years years at my current position without health insurance benefits at all. Not because my boss didn’t offer them, but because I couldn’t afford the 50% contribution to the cost that I would’ve been required to pitch in in order to get it!

At least in this particular instance, with the grocery store workers, the company is ony asking that employees start pitching in a portion of the additional expense to cover their families. Insurance for the employee is still covered 100% (which means that employees are getting an increase in the value of their benefits).

Health care costs are skyrocketing and, for the most part, employers have been absorbing the bulk of those additional expenses…

http://www.laborresearch.org/story2.php/292

(emphasis mine)

…benefit costs rose 4.7 percent last year, down slightly from the 5.1 percent increase in 2001, but still well above the budgets set by most companies. In the first quarter of 2003, benefit costs jumped 2.4 percent, double the increase for the fourth quarter of 2002, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Benefit costs are expected to rise five to six percent this year, driven largely by health insurance premiums, which rose 10.2 percent in 2002 and are forecast to rise again this year by 12 to 17 percent.

<snip>

Benefits now account for 34.5 percent of total compensation for union workers, compared with 26.1 percent for nonunion workers, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Employer costs for health insurance for union workers average $2.70 per hour or 9 percent of total compensation, compared with $1.17 per hour or 5.6 percent of total compensation for nonunion workers.

So when the cost of an employee’s benefits goes up and the company absorbs those costs, in essence, the employee is getting an increase in their compensation package – and without being taxed on it!

Sorry, but I’m still crossing those lines, if necessary.

[ParentalAdvisory]

Well here in Chitown there’s a garbage strike, maybe some of you have heard about it. I heard it was over today, but still unsure. Anyway, at my current position as an IT peon, I make $18.00 an hour for dealing with complete morons in the support field. I work very hard at it, very skilled at it, and my hours suck - the main reason I hate this job. I’ve been looking for other jobs, but there just isn’t much out there for my field of work that pay more than $18, or even close to it. During to garbage strike, I was all about getting a job as a garbage man. I mean these guys are making like $20.00 or more. And they’re striking to get like $27 by the next 4-5 years? FOR PICKING UP TRASH? Granted the main reason for the strike was for benefit reasons, but still, $27 an hour in 5 years, for picking up trash, IS F**KING GOOD!! I bust my ASS at my job, that is shitty as hell and I hate it. The second I find something, I’m GONE! But in the meantime this whole strike thing is going on, I was all about going to get a job, picking up trash for the companies that are being held hostage by this stupid ass strike. But I’m told by everyone that I’d never land a job like that because it is a “cakewalk job AND you HAVE to know somebody to get that kind of job”. WHAT? So basically, the companies are probably going to lose alotta face and money because of these greedy bastards, and I have to know somebody to work there? Is that fair? I THINK NOT. I’d kill for what they were making before the strike. I mean, for the job, that is EXCELLENT CASH!
Not only that, these bitch ass mofo’s are going to get overtime for all this garbage that’s piled up. One night my friends really thought about taking our friends truck, going door to door, and for $10.00, we take your trash - and wing it at the dump facility 3 miles down the road. We probably would’ve gotten arrested for littering (ironic, maybe?), so we didn’t. We had a good laugh over it though.

To sum up what I was talking about, maybe someone from a union can help me understand. Do you really have to know someone to be part of a “cakewalk” job such as a garbage man union that makes $20+ an hour for a VERY SIMPLE job. If so, I could never have any respect for something like that. Hiring should be equal oportunity without requiring you to pay fees to keep your job (Buying your way in). You know, I could never get hired because I’m not part of the Good Ole’ boys club? Not cool.

Look, I’m not totally against the unions that have helped employees throughout the years, because god knows, many have been screwed. IMO, a union should be built to protect employees benefits, vacation and such and once sustained, dismantled. Because in the case of the garbage strike in Chicago, it was straightup abused. $20+ an hr. for PICKING UP TRASH!!! Holy CHRIST! And they want more? Huh?

Another thing about unions that just makes me sick. This whole “That’s not my job”, “That’s not my responsibility” attitude. Get off your ass butthead and load the damn printer with paper. Maybe then you’ll get your report.

So yes, I would cross, with 911 on speed dial and a lawsuit for aggravated battery on order.

[SnoopyFan]

Do you really have to know someone to be part of a “cakewalk” job such as a garbage man union that makes $20+ an hour for a VERY SIMPLE job.

Say WHAT?

Let me get this straight. If you don’t do your job, maybe a few people are inconvenienced. If garbage men don’t do their jobs, the city smells, disease is spread and people and animals can get sick. You sit on your ass at a desk all day talking on the phone. They hop on and off a truck hundreds of times a day and lift heavy bags and God knows what else from each house. Hell yes they deserve to make a lot more money than you do!

Why don’t you go stick your head in a dirty toilet for 8 hours and then come back and tell us how cushy garbage men have it, mmkay? That’s the working conditions they work in every day.

You know, I could never get hired because I’m not part of the Good Ole’ boys club?

How is this different from EVERY OTHER GOOD PAYING JOB IN THE WORLD? It’s not what you know, baby, it’s who you know. Them’s the breaks.

[Bill_H]

mhendo wrote

So you say that a union is just like a corporation, yet yo deny to unions the same sort of bargaining tactics that you allow to corporations?

Actually, my entire point was that when corporations take advantage of their near-monopoly and use a brute force approach to getting their way, it’s called “anti-competitve” and is very illegal. Did you even read my post?

[Bill_H]

SnoopyFan wrote

If garbage men don’t do their jobs, the city smells, disease is spread and people and animals can get sick. You sit on your ass at a desk all day talking on the phone. They hop on and off a truck hundreds of times a day and lift heavy bags and God knows what else from each house. Hell yes they deserve to make a lot more money than you do!

Not according to the market, which is the definition of the “fair.” And the word “fair” is in there pretty tight with the word “deserve.”

I really hope you don’t expect that when your opinion flys in the face of common priorities (i.e. the market), that somehow your priority should override the rest of society’s.

And that, in a nutshell is my problem with unions. Unions use threat of pain (and actual pain when necessary) to deliver above-market (i.e. unfair) compensation to their workers. That’s just wrong.

[ParentalAdvisory]

*Originally posted by SnoopyFan *
**
Let me get this straight. If you don’t do your job, maybe a few people are inconvenienced. **

You’re right. The same goes for if one garbage man doesn’t do his job, who does that effect? Nobody really. But if my fellow key pushers and I didn’t do our job, this company would fall to their knees without IT support. Jobs fail, reports get messed up, orders don’t get filled, factory workers can’t work. Trucks come to a stand still. Hundreds of food chains across the world would not get Cheese, Cigarettes and thousands of much needed food products. Therefore there wouldn’t be anything to throw out. No garbage pickup required - probably not, but you get the idea.

**

If garbage men don’t do their jobs, the city smells, disease is spread and people and animals can get sick. You sit on your ass at a desk all day talking on the phone. They hop on and off a truck hundreds of times a day and lift heavy bags and God knows what else from each house. Hell yes they deserve to make a lot more money than you do! **

Yeah but their job is purely physical. Not saying that all physical jobs are easy, but I bet most are in shape and can handle their own. Sure I sit on my ass all day, but believe me, my mind is fucking jello at the end of the day. I’ve done both kinds of jobs, both technical and physical work. With physical work, you’re usually sore, but not as stressed out as technical work. I still don’t see how they deserve more money than I do. Let’s be honest, garbage men don’t need much skill. Not to say that they are stupid. It’s just the job doesn’t require real skill. Except knowing directions and being in shape, that’s it. I would love a job like that. Get up, put on my dirty clothes, come home, shower. What’s the problem? That’s the job. It’s not HARD. Shit, these days, they roll the can to the truck and hook a wire to it and push a button.

**
Why don’t you go stick your head in a dirty toilet for 8 hours and then come back and tell us how cushy garbage men have it, mmkay? That’s the working conditions they work in every day. **

Where da snorkel at?

I realize this. Precisely why I said I would do it for $20+ and hour. Like in a second. I’d rather be around shit than shitty people. They DO have it easy, more than they know.

[mhendo]

*Originally posted by Bill H. *
**mhendo wrote

Actually, my entire point was that when corporations take advantage of their near-monopoly and use a brute force approach to getting their way, it’s called “anti-competitve” and is very illegal. Did you even read my post? **

Yes, i did, and i’d like you to show me all the government crackdowns on the oligopsony and monopsony* pressures exerted by companies like McDonalds and Wal-Mart on their suppliers and their workers. If you can demonstrate that such behaviour is penalized, or even if you assert your own belief that it is just as bad as union pressures, then i’ll accept that you’re offering a genuine argument.

But simply saying that anti-competitive behaviour is “very illegal” (what does that mean, anyway? Something is either illegal or it isn’t) doesn’t amount to a hill o’ beans if corporations are allowed to get away with their anti-competitive tactics.

*for those unfamiliar with terms like monopsony and oligopsony, there’s an economic dictionary here.

[msmith537]

*Originally posted by SnoopyFan *
How is this different from EVERY OTHER GOOD PAYING JOB IN THE WORLD? It’s not what you know, baby, it’s who you know. Them’s the breaks. **

Slight hijack but unless you happened to be born into a wealthy, high profile family, the way you get to “know people” who can get you a good paying job is to network with them. You go to schools with good reputations and strong alumni networks. You join social clubs like fraternities or sports teams or other activities where you meet people with similar interests. You join industry and professional groups. You create a good professional reputation so when people are thinking of hiring someone in your field, they think of you. What do people think? That you just wake up one day, call some guy you played lacross with in high school and have him set you up with a cushy marketing job?

[DougC]

• • • I would also point out that I do feel that unions are socialism, plain and simple. The observation that workers have some sort of right to collective bargaining presumes that the employees have some ownership in the business, when they (usually) do not.
      …
      If you paid the neighbor’s kid $10 to mow your lawn using your own lawnmower, but he went “on strike” and a federal mediator came in and told you that you’d be required to pay him $30 from now on, what would you think of the situation? You’d think it was a crock of shit, because you own the lawn and the lawnmower and you can find any number of other people to do it for less than that. And you’d be right–that kid has no legal claim to ownership of your mower or your lawn, just because of all the other times he mowed it.
      ~

[Uzi]

*Originally posted by Rico *
**A journeyman clerk at a supermarket is making $37,232 per year BEFORE benefits, pensions, and anything else.
**

At the Co-op supermarket in Calgary they put in aisles where you scan all your own stuff. They have a person who bags for you and is most likely there to keep an eye on you and make sure you scan everything: in other words, a security guard (minimum wage job). They better get all the raises they can now because if the public can do their own scanning and all it takes is a bag boy/security guard to watch them, then they might be out on the street shortly.

[Kakkerlak]

I was brought up as a small boy to cross picket lines and smile.

Dad grew up dirt-poor in the Maritimes and has his own business now (too small for a union). The (union) shipyard is just a memory and pictures in the museum now.

I was required to join the Boilermakers 104 when I was a teenager working in a steel shop. I remember them taking my money, I remember them limiting my wage. I also remember them threatening to get me fired because I cleaned up some scrap metal… that was a Sheetmetal 66 job, son !

The Teamsters are striking my local dairy right now. They think they’re in a strong position because the second-largest dairy just went under.

I have never been in or near a union that demonstrated any real care for their members. In my personal experience, unions care for unionism. They shouldn’t, but that’s what I’ve seen.