This has been bugging me all week.
I work at a hospital. A huge hospital. We are currently building a new building. A huge building. As such there are a lot of people working on this building. Huge buildings, after all, take lots of people working together.
Some are electricians. Their union went on strike in the fall. Some are construction workers. Their union went on strike in the fall. Some are plumbers. Their union is on strike right now.
This bothers me. Not because I don’t feel people have a right to fair pay or “job security” (pfft). It bothers me because each one of these people signed up for the job. They were hired to do the job at a specific wage. They knew what the wage would be. And they accepted the job. For most of these workers it is about 6-12 months of work at a very reasonable pay rate (they are tradesmen AND union… they’re making close to 100$/hour).
So, they accept a decent contract at a decent rate of pay on a prestigious job site making something that will make the city better.
And, 3 months into their contracts each of these groups decided to strike. For more money.
I don’t get it. I honestly, really, truly don’t. It’s not like HSC suddenly cut their pay check. It’s not like they didn’t go into this with eyes wide open. It feels like the unions took the gig knowing they could (and would) milk more out of not just HSC but ultimately out of tax payers money. The budget for this project actually includes allowances for union pay raises because they knew the unions would want to strike. The reason they don’t simply say “yes” is because there isn’t enough money to give everyone a raise every 3 months just because they’re a union.
The worst part of this is that when one sector of a union strikes, so does everyone else. So the union plumbers all over town are striking right now just because the guys at HSC want more pay.
Crazy.
I know I don’t have the whole story, and I’m not claiming to side against these guys, but it seems to me that somewhere in someone’s head has to be a thought that goes something like this:
“This is a big government contract. If I do enough work, me and my crew become indispensable. Then we can get more money.”
And that, to me, is wrong.
Edit: Am I completely off base here?
September 14th, 2004 at 12:35 pm
Ugh, that’s despicable. The hospital should be able to hire workers who will actually get the job done, and for far less too. Unions just seem so greedy. And bureaucratic. And expensive. I think union workers are grossly overpaid, and we all – taxpayers, consumers, employers – pay their bill.
$100/hour is ridiculous for those trades, plus probably really generous benefits. I recently heard that longshoremen make around $140K/year. Wow, vastly overpaid. I can’t help thinking of the Mafia, in how unions can have such a racket going.
September 14th, 2004 at 2:49 pm
Jeremy, no, you’re not off base on this one. This, as G wrote, is despicable. I think unions are an antiquated institution… once used to protect workers from unsafe working conditions. They really don’t serve a purpose in modern organizations – for anyone other than the leaders of the union. IMHO.
You and I feel the cost of these groups in the prices we pay at retail for everything we buy. If the auto workers get more money, then the people who build houses need more money to be able to afford a car, so house prices go up…. it is a never-ending cycle. However, I’m not suggesting that prices are directly tied to unions, but they certainly don’t help the situation… and these people can’t be fired very easily either… I did a project at a union shop one time – my goodness, these people acutally slept on the job!!!
Urgh! Anyway, I’m with you on this one.
Jon
September 15th, 2004 at 6:09 pm
Unions are the biggest joke these days. I have no respect for them.
June 10th, 2005 at 7:56 pm
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