The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers announced on Wednesday that its 4,900 members had voted to reject a deal its leaders reached with the U.S. freight railroads in an effort to keep the system running. It is now extending its negotiation process to September 29.
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I was a member of IAM when I worked out at the ammo plant for 9 years.
We never got shit from IAM. They were absolutely worthless. We had a contract negotiation in progress with the company wanting to freeze our wages for the duration, and the International endorsed that shit. It's not like we were highly paid anyway, I was making about 10 bucks an hour at the time, mid 1980s. I think we were asking for a 15 cent raise every year for the next 3 years.
The IBEW oncw allowed the company to give 4 employees a 10 % pay cut. Paul the bastard said that 4 guys were not worth his time to protect.
ReplyDeleteWe went out on strike back in 75 at the Power Shovel Company in Marion Ohio . About 2/3rd of us were Steel Workers and the other 3rd was IAM . We got strike pay and the Machinists Union guys got a fuckin' , heh . The IAM told them they were broke . And they were . They blew all the money paid in to the strike fund on alcohol and parties . I turned down a couple of jobs over the years when they told me it was an IAM shop .
ReplyDeleteMy Dad was a UAW member for 25 years. When he retired, he was promised a prescription drug card that would put his copay at $4.00 for his life and my Mom's life. He had to fight yearly to keep that, and when he passed they put up enough hoops to jump through that my Mom gave up on it. He also had a nice sized life insurance policy. It wasn't worth the paper it's printed on. The insurance company vanished without a trace some time between his retirement and his death. Unions are there for the union leaders, not for the members.
ReplyDeleteWhile going to college after HS, I worked at a plant refining various cooking oils. The company gave free turkeys and food for Thanksgiving and again for Christmas.
ReplyDeleteThe Teamsters fought against that because it supposedly favored senior employees. So that gift giving was stopped. The union turned right around and boasted how they got the company to agree to union demands. Demands which included turkeys and food for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Their other demand was five cent to fifteen cent/hour raise but only after two years of employment.
The union was nowhere to be found when two drunk employees repeatedly threatened to kill me. For making them look bad, they said. The work ethic instilled in me by my dad was not to their liking. They did sabotage my car including knifing the tires and smashing windows in the company parking lot before they got fired.
Hope your local power plants are stocked up https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/update/coal-stocks.php
ReplyDeleteSammy
Decades ago I came to the conclusion that unions had long since outlived their usefulness.
ReplyDeleteA 19th century solution to an 18th century problem. Now that our illustrious betters are bringing back the good old days, there may come a time where they are relevant again.
DeleteMy firefighter union was in contract negotiations with the city. We wanted a 10% raise, city said no, you get 5% max.
ReplyDelete(We’re so broke!)
The cops said Fuck You, you’re giving us 15% or you can patrol the streets yourself.
They got 15% and we got our shit 5%.
But it created “Good Will” in future negotiations our union shitheads said…yeah right.
The next year the cops again got a fat raise and we got sore assholes!
As mentioned above, the only folks that come out ahead are the local union leaders and the mobbed up AFL-CIO bigwigs.
IAM sounds about as worthless as SEIU and IFCW unions
ReplyDelete- WDS