Or specifically, fuck whatever union it is that the mechanics at my local car dealership are in. As I’ve posted in a couple of other threads, I’m having problems with my car. The sort of problems where, when the thing finally breaks completely, the car stops dead and can’t be re-started. I need to have some little sensor replaced and the only place that apparently has the super-special tool to snap the fucking thing out of its housing is the dealership. So a separate little “fuck yourself with that very same special tool” goes to Nissan for designing the car with parts that can only be fixed at a dealership that charges twice what fucking Midas would charge for the same job.
Anyway, so the job takes about 45 minutes. Open the hood, pop out the sensor, replace the sensor, done. I work until 3 and can get the car to the dealership by 3:30. But the fucking mechanics’ union refuses to allow their precious fucking mechanics to work past 3. So instead of being able to take the car to the dealership and have them do this less-than-an-hour repair and be on my fucking way, if I want to have the car fixed I have to drop it off in the morning and inconvenience one or more of my friends to haul me out to work and haul me back again at the end of the day. And that’s even assuming that the motherfuckers actually get to it that day and don’t turn back into flowers or goddamn lumps of sugar or whatever happens to them when the clock tolls 3. And, I hasten to remind you, for merely double the price that the same job would otherwise cost me because of Nissan’s prorietary tool scam.
So fuck you, mechanics, and your “I won’t work normal business hours” bullshit. Double-fuck you, mechanics’ union, for continuing the perversion of what was once a noble struggle for the rights of workers and for social justice into the “suck everything you can from the benefits trough like a goddamn fat fucking sow” mentality that makes people like me who have long been ardent supporters of unions tell one of them to go fuck themselves. My great-grandfather got his head caved in fighting to unionize a coal mine and he’s rolling in his grave with what the likes of you have done with his blood.
Well, if the mechanics are on a shift from, say, 7:00 AM to 3:00 PM, then it doesn’t seem unreasonable that their union would prevent them from working after the end of their shift.
Seems like the logical thing to do in that case would be to have one early shift and one late shift of mechanics, so the customers who bring their cars in before work and those who bring them in after work would both have a chance of getting same-day service. Who’s making the work-scheduling decisions at this dealership?
If the union is really managing to force the employers into letting its mechanics work only a six-hour day or less, I’d agree that that’s a greedy abuse of bargaining power. But if the union is simply stipulating that the mechanics not be allowed to work overtime after the end of a normal full-day shift without getting overtime pay … eh, I’m not sure that falls into the trough-sucking-sow category.
Unions are the worst possible system, except for all the other ones. Without unions, workers absolutely would get royally screwed by management. Unions ensure that management (and customers) also get royally screwed, so at least everyone’s even. :rolleyes:
Except many parts of the country have hardly any unions at all and I rarely hear about Draconian working conditions from the mechanics there. Can’t it just be sometimes that a group of people learned how to completely game the system screwing everyone else in the process and that is all there is to it?
If Citigroup, Enron or Wal-Mart can get my car fixed for half what the union shop is charging and without fucking up my day and the day of the person I’ll have to shanghai at least twice for a ride, and do it in less than a week, then more power to 'em.
I forgive the labor movement a lot. I even forgave the labor movement when the union I was in through their inflexibility forced me to choose between quitting my job or dropping out of school a few years back. I don’t cross picket lines and, the above snark aside, I boycott Wal-Mart in part because of their shitty labor practices. But this is just it. When the workers fuck over their fellow workers, i.e. me and the unionized employee who’ll be schlepping me around next week, then fuck them right back.
I hear you. My grandfather, as good a man as ever went fishing, was a Teamster. Worked for them struck for them, fought for them. The great state of Texas was not exactly a welcoming environment for union organizing. And the Teamsters fucked him. Fucked him hard! Heard all manner of other stories like that, and most of them are no doubt true.
But that isn’t unions, that’s people. You want to attract the worst people in the world, just spread some money and power in the water, and you’ll be surrounded by flinty-eyed opportunists and greedly glad-handers before you can say Jack Robinson!
The changes that unions struggled for have become accepted as normal, so normal that it doesn’t occur to us that it is not etched in stone. If the guys who write the payroll checks can pull a dollar out of your pocket and put it in their own, you better believe they will.
But who is it who’s actually fucking you over in this case? I’d be happy to join you in your outrage if I were confident I wasn’t just getting mad at the wrong set of people.
Is the mechanics’ union really greedily extorting unreasonably short working hours from the employers, with selfish disregard for the convenience of customers?
(And if so, is there someplace I could read up on their negotiating tactics? I would be pretty damn impressed, albeit also somewhat irritated and disapproving, if it turned out that—in today’s climate of rapidly weakening labor protections and harsh anti-unionization tactics—there existed a union that actually managed to extort a six-hour workday for its fortunate members. Mercy, the workers’ paradise has arrived and I hadn’t even noticed! :eek: :dubious: )
Or is the Nissan dealership scheduling a single shift of mechanics from, say, 7:00 to 3:00, and refusing to hire a second shift (or pay the first shift overtime) so that customers can get their cars serviced after midafternoon? In that case, I’d say it’s the dealership screwing you over, not the union.
Somewhere, there is a mechanic bitching that he can’t get somebody on the line to answer questions about his kid’s SSI benefits or something when his shift ends at 3:00.
In many (most) parts of the country technicians are not union. Even if they are not union they probably don’t want to work past 8 hours each day. Some guys will, many won’t.
Bringing a car in at 3:30 and expecting it back in 45 minutes for a 45 minute job is well how do I say this nicely? Oh yeah, can I have some of what you are smoking? It has got be be way better than anything I have.
You car comes in at 3:15, it takes say 10 minutes to write up, and say another 10 minutes to get parked and sent to dispatch. Now here is the kicker. The shop probably doesn’t have guys sitting around drinking coffee at 3:35 in the afternoon just waiting for you to arrive. If the shop is successful, I can pretty much guarantee that they won’t have anybody standing around. So your car goes into the queue. Now the people that dropped their car off at 8AM have this silly notion that their car should get worked on before some wanker that brings their car in at 3:15PM. Pretty unreasonable of them don’t ya think?
Anyway, lets suppose that by some miracle that your car does get into the shop within 15 minutes. We are now at 3:50 and a wrench has yet to be spun. The next problem is your engine is red fucking hot, and your technician is not big on 3rd degree burns. So he opens the hood, and goes for parts and coffee while it cools down.
Let’s say for giggles that by 4PM the car is cool enough to work on. Technician starts to work and gets done by 4:30. Now he has to turn in the paperwork and it has to get processed. Add 15 minutes minimum. More like 30 in many shops. Does your car get a wash? That is going to take time also. In fact I have seen the car wash take longer than an oil change at some shops. If you are very lucky you will be out of there at 5 PM.
Oh, and by the way Midas can buy the special tool (if in fact it requires one) if they want. Also you want to go to Midas for car service? :eek: You are big into anal rape I guess. Holy crap dude, run don’t walk away from Midas. The only people that fuck more customers than Midas is Iffy lube.
I want the union to have enough flexibility that a mechanic would be able to stay until 4:15, or a mechanic could start at 8:15 so that his or her 8 hour shift would run until 4:15.
My call center is staffed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year including holidays.
Fine, so then how about a mechanic who can start at 9 so s/he can stay until 5? The issue is the inflexibility of the union.
I don’t know if Midas can buy the special tool or not. That Nissan builds the cars requiring non-standard tools to service them is bullshit. I have a hard time blaming Midas for not buying every single specialty tool for every single make and model of car out there. As far as using Midas for service, Midas would have charged me $125 for this repair. The dealership will charge at least $250 if not more.
If so, then that indeed sucks. But I’m still a bit puzzled how you know it’s the union making all the decisions about work schedules, rather than the dealership saying, e.g., “We want all our mechanics to start work at 7:00” and the union responding “Okay, but in that case they all have to stop work at 3:00 or else you have to pay them overtime”, which wouldn’t seem like an unreasonable response to me.
Wait, you lost me on this. Are you talking about CEO’s? Union bosses? Politicians? Lawyers? Special Interest types? Wal-Mart managers? Oil execs?
Seems like the quoted part could apply to just about anyone.
And Otto, while I can see how the union might have a part in this, I’d have to spread some of the well deserved venom towards the dealership as well for not getting whatever sort of deal is needed to serve their customers. The specifics in your case are truly fucked up. Rant on, this one is warranted.
But Otto, do you have any evidence that union is dictating what time the mechanics start work? I’d bet that it’s the dealership’s decision.
But since automotive technology is continously evolving, new tools will always be necessary. That’s just progress. Would you rather be driving a car that utilizes 100 year-old technology?
And anyhow, is that the union’s fault?
Good. Midas won’t buy that tool until they recognize a significant demand that they can capitalize upon. If you want to maximize the odds that Midas will have all the necessary tools to repair your car, then I guess that you could buy an older example of a very popular model.
When I was a kid working at Midas, we didn’t have a single highly-skilled mechanic on our roster. Instead, we had guys who lacked training or experience. As soon as one of our guys got enough of either, he moved onto greener pastures.
