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After growing up with Union welders making crazy money but demanding more all the time as their skills and work quality was sub-par... and then watching them constantly whine about too much work for too little pay while being totally baffled that companies were trying to avoid hiring union... there is one incident which I witnessed that remains etched in my mind.
A 300' trawler is in a ship yard. It has to be out on Day X and each day late of course is going to cost 6 figures in revenue.
A mount for a winch needs to be welded so the winch can be mounted and hooked up to hydraulics.
I'm getting pissed that it isn't done because it was supposed to be done from the start as the winches are needed to get the rest of the gear on board and get ready to fish.
I finally track down a welder and beg him to weld the mount.
He says "I can't"
"why?", I asked.
"well, those tools are there and i'm not allowed to touch them", he replies.
I go to move the tools, not knowing or caring whose they are and he freaks out.
Can't touch anything of theirs. Period.
So, i'm livid. I need to find out who's tools they are so the guy can get them out of the way.
I spend a couple hours running around like an asshole trying to find whoever was working in that spot.
Finally, I do and get him to pick up his fucking shit.
I go back to the welder.
"ok, the tools are gone, can we get this done please?"
"i'd like to, but I can't", he says
Now i'm past fury and have come full circle to amused
"Uhmm, why can't you?"
"That light bulb is out. Its a safety issue and I can get into a lot of trouble", he calmly says.
"Ok, fuck it, i'll be right back", I say as I leave to get a bulb.
"no no... you can't change it. That's the electricians job. Seriously man, we can get into trouble if we change it", he says almost frantically.
Now, i'm a little irritated again, having spent hours fucking with this 20 minute welding job that I should have just done myself.
I leave to find the electrician.
After wasting another hour running around the shipyard like i've got nothing to do, I finally find the electrician who is responsible for our job and explain that the light needs to be changed so the welder can do his job.
He laughs. "you need to find the apprentice, thats not my job, thats his job"
"Where's he at", I asked
"dunno, i'm busy" he replies
So again, off I go to find one more asshole in a chain of assholes.
Long story short, I spent the whole fucking day trying to get a simple 20 minute task done because somehow that simple task ended up involving a dozen people that were not only apathetic, but that seemed to relish in the fact that they could comfortably interfere with the work being done.
These are the people that feel everything is "unfair"
These are the people that think they need to be dictating how a business is to be run
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I remember oil refineries close to my house where much of my family worked doing "turn arounds" where they shut down production for maintenance for a 6-8 weeks. One of those refineries was owned by Tesoro.
All of my fathers, grandfathers, uncles and their friends tools had "Tesoro" etched on them. I honestly thought that Tesoro made tools.
As I got older, I came to understand that Tesoro would have to budget in ~$300,000.00 just for the tools that would get stolen in those weeks.
How did they get stolen?
Well, the union guys had it in their contracts that they could not be searched, their lunch boxes could not be opened etc. So they would wipe the place out.
But lets get this straight....they were treated "unfair". I heard about that non-stop. They would beg for the right to get to work 7 hrs a day, 14hr shifts with double pay for overtime and make a huge amount of money in that time... but if you asked them, everything was unfair. Their nice houses were unfair. Their fully stocked garages were unfair. Their new vehicles every 12 months were unfair. Having the cash and time for 2-3 vacations a year was unfair. Everything was unfair and according to them, they deserved more.
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Yes, fewer illegal immigrants working equates to more job opportunities for American citizens.
Rochard
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