Who here /trade union/? How do you like your job? Are the dues worth it? Do you feel that you need representation?

Who here /trade union/? How do you like your job? Are the dues worth it? Do you feel that you need representation?

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Trade Unions are the strength of the working class.
As Trade Union membership has plummeted wages haven;t grown nowhere near the same rate.
All this while profits have increased and productivity has risen but with wages for ordinary worker terrible
Nearly every protection for employees has been won by Unoin activism.

This does not mean Unions are immaculate; they are only as good as their members and can be corrupted just like any organisation.

America always shies away from discussing class because any discussion automatically descends into
>Muh commies

Don’t mind the actual work but the job is fucked because management has their heads so far up there goddamn asses. I like the Union. Some little twerp tried to fuck me out of OT and the union had my back.

Thats whats up, how are dues?

Have you had any personal experiences with unions?

Unions are nothing but pyramid schemes and anyone who disagrees has never actually worked a blue-collar job. I am a sailor, our unions are dogshit. They don't give a fuck about you or your problems, every ten years another union president gets arrested for embezzlement, and they continue to collaborate with the shipping companies to actually lower our wages and take away our paid vacation and give it to the licensed guys.

They collaborate with other shit, too. Best example I have is when Oglebay went under. The union collaborated with the company to offer everyone a 2 week relief job (which 99% of people are going to turn down, nobody wants to fuck around with shipping out and shit for just two weeks). That way, when the company went under and had to pay back wages to everyone entitled to them, they didn't. Since anybody who didn't want the relief job had "declined a job offer," they weren't entitled to any severance benefits.

The Union then further fucked people over afterwards. There was a giant lawsuit in the works that was going to sue them for everything they fucking had for that stunt they pulled, so they went around and offered everyone a $10,000 severance bonus. There was a recession (which is why Oglebay went under in the first place), so obviously everyone took it. But then after they took it, the Union announced that they had to pay anybody who hadn't taken it 5 years in backwages (for an AB, that would be about $200,000 at the time).

Unions are the scum of the fucking Earth, and the management involved with them are little more than Mafiosos. I realize not all of them are that scummy, but a lot are. Unions are absolutely useless at best, and criminal racketeering schemes at worst.

Which union, SIU?

Qmed or AB?

And before anyone says "hurrrrr durrrrr if it weren't for Unions, you wouldn't get any vacation and you'd die!" or some shit, no, you fucking wouldn't. I've worked for plenty of companies that are non-union. I didn't lose my leg in an industrial accident, I wasn't fed dog food, and I wasn't treated like a fucking slave. People will just stop working for companies that treat you like shit, the free market works it out. Unions are completely anti-free market because they act as regulators, but they aren't regulators bound by any kind of morals or government oversight. They get free reign to treat workers as their playthings and bargaining chips.

Is it hard getting into the field unliscenced?

I think Oglebay was Local 5000 but I'm not sure, I was working for a different company at the time but it was a huge fucking deal on the Lakes. The whole reason all of the shit started in the first place was because the union went on strike over a $0.50 wage raise or some retarded shit like that.
I've got my mate's license now but I was an AB working for ASC at the time. Thankfully I don't have to put up with the bullshit unlicensed guys have to anymore

No not really. Just have to get your Mariner Credential and join up with a company. Most of them will automatically enroll you in the union (if they have one) after a month or so. If you want to eventually work licensed though, skip all that bullshit and just go to a maritime academy. Yeah, people might give you shit and talk about how retarded academy brats are, but I guarantee you after working the deck gang for 6 years you'll be so broken, cynical and pissed off that you'll wish you had just gone to the academy

Is it easy to find qmed work?

I got a couple years as a snipe from the military. Wanting to go 3 a/e but i need more time in the engine room. I also got a mmc to be an electrician.

Do the unliscened engine room dudes seem happy?

Yeah there's always openings for engineers. If I was smart I would have done that instead of going deck. When you're standing out on deck hosing the wings in the middle of a fucking gale on Lake Superior with wind chill down to -30 because you have to get the deck clean before layup, you'll be wishing you were in the nice, warm engine room watching a monitor all day.

Yeah, engineers work a lot, but it's not the kind of backbreaking menial shit that the deck gang has to do. Deckhands are the ship bitches, they get stuck doing all of the work no one else wants to do

Right on. I want to go deep sea. Is that hard?

Sorry to keep asking you questions but i have made like 3 threads wanting to ask questions to people doing this work and no replies so i had to break out some bait.

What kind of money do electricians and other qmeds pull in?

The one plus the union has offered me is training in subjects im not familiar with.

Some jobs like pipeline will only hire from the unions. The dues are pretty cheap. I pay about $400/year as a Carpenter.
I make $40/h, over time after 40, double time on weekends.
The only real problem is finding work. If you do not know some big shot, or a foreman, and you just go on the list.... Life can be rough.
You could wait months to get work, and it may only be 1-2 days worth, and back on list.
I target big jobs, when not working, I drive around looking for huge construction.
I just go in and ask if they could use a union Carpenter. Works quite often, and I have landed 5 year project by this method.
This is how it is in Canada at least.

Unions work when they are placed in a non adversarial open dialogue approach with businesses. Unions are the only way workers can get better perks if you work in a job where you can be easily replaced. Programming is good pay but companies want pajeets to deflate wages and they offer perks to prevent IT guys forming a union.

Germany creates world beating companies with their system of unions

Yes, we get the same. We can upgrade shit whenever we want to expand the field of qualifications to get a better shot at work.
Electricians have the best perk I think, they get off at lunch on Fridays. Pretty sweet.

I don't think going deep sea is hard, you just go through different unions for the most part. I'm not really the guy to ask that, honestly, I've spent my whole career out here on the Lakes.
A QMED makes about as much as an AB I think, so like $25/hr or so. But you get a ton of overtime. It's hard to answer how much anyone on a boat makes because it really does just depend on how much you want to work. You aren't usually required to work overtime, and you don't have to take your paid vacations if you don't want, you can work through them and then cash them out at the end of the year. I've known mates who hate being out and are always broke and I've known ABs who had $110,000 seasons.

Grocery fag here. I get lots of extras that wage slaves don't normally get: two weeks paid vacation, two personal days, 8 paid holidays a year.

That said, they don't do a lot of us wage wise or holding management accountable. Dues are $416 a year.

Hows the rotations? I dont mind being out but is it true that once you get liscenced you are pulling in over 100k on a 3 month on off rotation?

Is great lakes dock and dredge a good company?

For construction?

It depends on the company. A lot of companies on the Lakes will do a two month on/one month off cycle. In practice though, they don't really like it when people always take their vacation because it gets annoying for the office to find you a relief every single time. They're prefer if you stay out a bit longer and cash in one or two of your vacations at the end of the year.
No clue, sounds like a little tug company or something, not something I'd have experience with. I've only ever worked on the ore boats. The only two companies on the Lakes with a really bad reputation are Grand River and ASC. Grand River because they're poor as fuck and ASC because it's filled with sandniggers

Well im definitely not trying to bitch and moan but 25/ hr.......im getting better offers to be a yard bird. How hard was it getting liscenced?

25/hr is the base pay, and it varies from company to company. When you factor in the fact that you're working 80+ hour weeks, you're making a lot of money. I worked on deck for 8 years before I got my license, there's a lot of STCW shit you have to do. I would just go to an academy instead of hawsepiping it if I were you, but engineers get licensed differently than mates do. I think you need a college degree.

Don't go into this career if all you're concerned about is the money. You won't like it and you'll quit after your first season. And don't think that just because you're on the Lakes and closer to shore that you'll get to go home more or some shit. I've had several seasons where I was gone 300+ days straight.

Its not so much for the money as it is i hate commuting to work. I just want to go somewhere. Bust my ass for a few months then be off. A lot of the contracts i am looking through pays by the month.

For a liscenced engineer all you need is time and passing tge tests.

Which stcw's are the most important?

Also im like 31 years old. Which academies could i even do?

There aren't any that are "more important" than another. You need all of the required STCW competencies to write for your QMED and eventually for your license. If you work for a good company, they'll usually sponsor you and pay for your classes. If not, you'll be paying out of pocket for them, which can quickly add up to tens of thousands of dollars. That's why I said you might as well just go to a maritime academy, honestly. It basically works out to the same price and you'll have your license in four years instead of 5 or 6

The Great Lakes Maritime Academy is the only one on the Lakes, and they have a lot of older guys that go there. I know people who are like 40 years old who went there. The other academies are geared more towards kids fresh out of high school. GLMA is also the cheapest

Yeah thats why the union route sounds good as they said they will send me to school. American maritime officers union just said to get the rest of the sea time i need and they will handle the rest when i showed them my resume

Yes.
I am a member.
I have been a local rep. I have seen how managers are molded and act like show-jumping dogs to "get da promotion" and "be a good house nigger keep everyone else in line here's a bonus"

My friend is on a functional council
We have good relations in ouer industry generally but this is because the managers know we are powerful.
Out industry is transport.
There is much corruption and dodgy deals across the board. No-one is clean.
But this pales in comparison to the senior managers which are the class that makes alot more money by colluding with tenders, suppliers, contractors and politicians and implementing the worst changes with no consequence for them if they fuck up.

Yet the Union is literally the only leverage an employee in most industries will ever have; collective bargaining brought much bargaining power and gets to the essence of why they were so strong in the first place in the years following Industrialization of western economies.

You can literally be killed for being a Union member in many 3rd world countries where corporations want all the resources/monopoly and do not care about rights, workers or social good.

Germany and the nordic countries show a way forward. Better relations, better conditions and respect.

You have to organise and fight; and fuck the intellectual liberals that smile and shaft you.
It's how you get the bare essential conditions you have now. Don;t shit on those that sacrificed before.

For the best satire watch
>Last Exit To Springfield.
Absolutely superb summation of the need of Unions.

Have you gone to a meeting?
What have YOU done to change the Union and organise?
youtube.com/watch?v=BuYZz2n2AjQ

>I wasn't fed dog food, and I wasn't treated like a fucking slave. People will just stop working for companies that treat you like shit, the free market works it out.

Really worked out for the workers in the Industrial revolution without Unions eh?
Companies will hammer wages with enough migrant and unemployed to put pressure on your conditions at all levels save for senior management.
Any gains were because of the Unions which forced changes in the very legislation your companies have to abide by. Wages and conditions eroding subsequently and immense lobbying to rollback legislative gains is proof of this.

The free-market extolled the virtues of child labour. Go and read the arguments put forth to support this under "muh free-market" when people stood up to this.