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dewster 
Maryland Fan
TN
Member since Aug 2006
4747 posts
| re: My personal experience with the Michigan unions (Posted on 12/12/12 at 9:09 am to carbola)
We used a union shop for electrical work at a mall renovation because they were the lowest bidder. They did a decent job at first, but they were slow. We kept asking them for more manpower and the same three guys would show up (one would work, one would supervise, and the other would train....they needed at least triple the productivity to keep up). At one point they were 5-7 weeks behind. They started leaving equipment behind and not picking up after themselves. It got really bad when the finishing crew would have to work around their slow pace.
I had two slashed tires the day after I made a change order go to a non union shop. Inspectors stopped showing up after that too, so we ended up delayed even more.
I had to hire the union crew back just to pass an inspection or even get the inspector to show up.
Shady bastards.
This post was edited on 12/12 at 9:17 am
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Jbird 
Iowa Fan
Odramaville with EthanL
Member since Oct 2012
5538 posts
| re: My personal experience with the Michigan unions (Posted on 12/12/12 at 9:11 am to accnodefense)
Worked for a Hydraulics manufacturing company, the supervisor wanted me to work one hour of overtime to show the swing shift what I was doing and what needed to be done. So about 5 minutes after the shift ends union fatass sees me on the floor and asks me WTF I thought I was doing. I told him and all hell breaks loose, day shift guys coming back in from the parking lot, swing shift guys walk off the floor. Here is the deal, I was the only guy who had knowledge of where we stood on the project, grievance gets filed because I didn't have seniority, they ended up paying all 50 plus dayshift guys one hour of overtime to settle the problem. 
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Lsut81 
LSU Fan
Member since Jun 2005
55439 posts
| re: My personal experience with the Michigan unions (Posted on 12/12/12 at 9:18 am to carbola)
frick Unions and their goons... Most of these people are bottom of the barrel and not able to think for themselves....
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Tchefuncte Tiger 
Navy Fan
Member since Oct 2004
20416 posts
| re: My personal experience with the Michigan unions (Posted on 12/12/12 at 9:18 am to carbola)
My Dad is a retired Exxon engineer and his stories about unions are rather hair raising. He instilled in me a deep hatred for them. With that being said, when I was in the 11th grade I went to work for Kroger on College Drive and was forced to join a union to bag groceries. The look on Dad's face when I told him I'd joined a union is something I will never forget. I would have rather told him I was a homo.
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RCDfan1950
LSU Fan
United States
Member since Feb 2007
6914 posts
| re: My personal experience with the Michigan unions (Posted on 12/12/12 at 9:21 am to Tchefuncte Tiger)
Merry Christmas bro. 
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Jbird
Iowa Fan
Odramaville with EthanL
Member since Oct 2012
5538 posts
| re: My personal experience with the Michigan unions (Posted on 12/12/12 at 9:24 am to Tchefuncte Tiger)
quote:
I would have rather told him I was a homo.
Toddy just she a tear. 
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Dark Tiger
LSU Fan
Member since Sep 2006
3914 posts
| re: My personal experience with the Michigan unions (Posted on 12/12/12 at 9:27 am to Jbird)
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CptBengal 
USA Fan
BR Baby
Member since Dec 2007
30980 posts
| re: My personal experience with the Michigan unions (Posted on 12/12/12 at 9:28 am to accnodefense)
Before I went to grad school I worked as an Environmental Consultant in the Philly area.They were building three new luxury apartment towers down by the Delaware river, and as such the soil compaction was an issue for these 30+ story buildings. I was there to monitor the soil compaction and to deal with potential environmental concerns due to the proximity to the river of leakage, dumping, etc., and to help direct the marsh reclamation they were doing as part of the build.
I=For a week straight I showed up and the whole work crew setting the foundation (using a micropile technique) was a group from North Carolina. Good dudes, but a completely non-union crew. These dudes were machines. Byt the time I hit the job site at 6:30 they had already been working since 6 and rolled straight through to 6 pm every day, with a 30 minute lunch break. Everybody helped, and I even chipped in when I could, it's just the way I was raised.
Next week I show up and everybody is doing nothing. Sitting around, just waiting. I walk up to the foreman and ask what's happening. He points to a 4 door new Ford F-250 and says the union is here. I was like, "so, let's get back to work, the reclamation portion has to be completed by x date or i need to file extensions with the EPA and PDEP." He tells me to just wait. About 2 hours later a brand-new BMW 6 series shows up and 2 mooks with nice leather jackets and greasy hair get out. They wont come onto the site, yelling about their shoes getting dirty. Me and the foreman walk-up and the guy says this is a union town, and they need to stop work immediately.
I was blown away that the guys would stop, but they did. One of the micropile drillers told me that if they didn't stop, all of the equipment would have the hydraulics lines cut by morning and the materials would be "gone". I thought this was absurd, and commented to the mooks out of the BMW. They said, "Well, it's gonna take us a couple days to get the union guys set up for this job." They didn't care, just fricking thieves.
The crew from NC was an 8 man crew. The Union sent over 15 more people. Most of which just sat in the trailer or their trucks and did NOTHING. The only two to work was a young black kid and a young kid from Jersey, and all they did was move trash and fetch coffee.
tldr: Unions suck.
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Newbomb Turk
Navy Fan
perfectanschlagen
Member since May 2008
9961 posts
| re: My personal experience with the Michigan unions (Posted on 12/12/12 at 9:29 am to Tchefuncte Tiger)
quote:
I would have rather told him I was a homo.
You still haven't told him YET?
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CITWTT
LSU Fan
baton rouge
Member since Sep 2005
25726 posts
| re: My personal experience with the Michigan unions (Posted on 12/12/12 at 9:35 am to Tchefuncte Tiger)
That union finally made Kroger to close up the shop in the early 80's in Baton Rouge and the surrounding area. Lafayette is I think the closest city with one, if not the Chuck.
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mtntiger
LSU Fan
Asheville, NC
Member since Oct 2003
7833 posts
| re: My personal experience with the Michigan unions (Posted on 12/12/12 at 9:42 am to Tchefuncte Tiger)
quote:
I would have rather told him I was a homo.
So when are you gonna tell him?
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Jbird
Iowa Fan
Odramaville with EthanL
Member since Oct 2012
5538 posts
| re: My personal experience with the Michigan unions (Posted on 12/12/12 at 9:47 am to CITWTT)
UFCW went on strike at a beef processing plant in Dakota City Nebraska in the 80s. They burnt a person's house to the ground that they thought was a scab. IIRC two people died in the fire, only one problem, wrong house, the people had nothing to do with IBP. Not one person was arrested. 
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TROLA
LSU Fan
BATON ROUGE
Member since Apr 2004
5276 posts
| re: My personal experience with the Michigan unions (Posted on 12/12/12 at 9:57 am to carbola)
I changed over to AT&T Uverse for my tv, internet and phone in winter of 2010. Considering this was new to the area, there were many problems. I loved the service and disparately wanted to keep it but only if it worked correctly. The workers were coming to my house weekly trying to figure out what the problem really entailed. The inside guy would do some tests and say it was the outside guys problems. He then would proceed to call in a outside work order. The outside guy would claim the opposite and call back the inside technician. Finally after about a couple times of this I asked the inside guy if he would also check the outside lines.. His answer.. I cant do it (even though he knew how and had the same equipment) because the outside guys are Union and only they are allowed to do that work. He was very bitter about this and claimed that this led to many sabotage type deals between the inside and outside guys. Both trying to screw and pawn of the mistakes on the others. After this conversation I called AT&T and cancelled.
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dr smartass phd
LSU Fan
Pennsylvania
Member since Sep 2004
10287 posts
| re: My personal experience with the Michigan unions (Posted on 12/12/12 at 10:08 am to carbola)
This is your enemy
Leo Gerard
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Tchefuncte Tiger
Navy Fan
Member since Oct 2004
20416 posts
| re: My personal experience with the Michigan unions (Posted on 12/12/12 at 10:48 am to Jbird)
quote:
UFCW went on strike
That's the union I was in. They're the one who closed down National/Canal Villere/The Real Superstore.
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Jbird
Iowa Fan
Odramaville with EthanL
Member since Oct 2012
5538 posts
| re: My personal experience with the Michigan unions (Posted on 12/12/12 at 10:50 am to Tchefuncte Tiger)
They made the Teamsters and Hoffa look like school girls. 
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Tchefuncte Tiger
Navy Fan
Member since Oct 2004
20416 posts
| re: My personal experience with the Michigan unions (Posted on 12/12/12 at 11:11 am to Jbird)
quote:
They made the Teamsters and Hoffa look like school girls.
I wouldn't go that far. Just look what the Teamsters did when they tried to unionize Louisiana Creameries - lunch box bombs in milk trucks, shooting milk deliverymen. The Teamsters is pretty much a terrorist organization.
This post was edited on 12/12 at 11:29 am
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Papercutninja
LSU Fan
Baton Rouge
Member since Feb 2010
376 posts
| re: My personal experience with the Michigan unions (Posted on 12/12/12 at 12:04 pm to carbola)
In the early 90's my Dad worked for the Real Superstore in Lafayette. The union decided to go on strike over wages and sick leave or something like that. He had to go to work everyday and cross the picket lines and face the jeers and taunts of guys that were supposed be his friends as he was non-union. I was pretty young but I remember how it crushed him. That strike was one of the reasons that National Supermarkets sold its Louisiana stores which were all closed within 2 years.
FORWARD. YES WE CAN. WE ARE DOING IT.
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Jbird
Iowa Fan
Odramaville with EthanL
Member since Oct 2012
5538 posts
| re: My personal experience with the Michigan unions (Posted on 12/12/12 at 12:08 pm to Tchefuncte Tiger)
More than a few deaths from the UFCW in the upper midwest, they may not be as horrible has Hoffa's mafia controlled machine, but they are pretty bad.
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50Mullets
LSU Fan
A more civilized age
Member since Oct 2012
1351 posts
| re: My personal experience with the Michigan unions (Posted on 12/12/12 at 12:21 pm to LSURussian)
quote:
if I had moved the truck the teamsters would have walked out
This is the part I really don't understand. Since union people are clearly so averse to working, why do they care if someone else does their job for them?
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