Courage My Love - December 7 - 2010

Okay, back at work. We have a new installation tonight, so there is some training going on. This installation is a slightly higher degree of technical difficulty compared to what we usually do. That said, there will be some people incapable of doing this, or they will be able to do it, but be so freaking slow I want to pick up the Navigation unit and beat them about the head and ears. I call them my "money makers" which is totally a misnomer because they perform at less than half the output of anyone else and keep saying "I'm trying my best!" Well how's this bubba, your best just ain't good enough. If everyone worked like you do, we might as well just close the doors because we are losing money the minute you step on the shop floor.

While I understand and appreciate the history of unionism, and I grew up in a union town, with a union company and a father who was a shop steward in the union, I believe the time has come where unions have outgrown their purpose. Today they are but the right hand of management, at best, they support management and at worst they protect those who should honestly be fired. When I worked on the railway, for a fine Canadian institution who shall remain nameless, I caught a union brother in the act of masturbating. Yes, choking the chicken, playing the pipe, what ever you want to call it. He was supposed to be working, but found something much more fun to do. Where was he doing this? Why, in a rail car, one with a private room, had it's own couch, sink, washroom, everything the local jerkoff needs. And what happened to him, you ask? Nothing. Nada, zip, zilch. There was no obvious defense, but the union wanted it kept under wraps (so to speak). Just think of that guy next time you board a train.

The brothers on the union movement fall back on the false pride of their history and as noble as it was, most of them are in the union because they couldn't keep a job in the real world. And speaking of brothers, they have a long way to go, before they treat everyone equally, and that would be the sisters I am referring to. Women in the union still have a long way to go to get equal access to jobs and training that their union brothers assume is their manifest destiny.

I have dealt with 5 or 6 unions in my career, both as a member, or as management and they are more or less, leaves of the same tree. There are no issues left for them to fight for. The wages are good, the benefits extraordinary, and even management has been to charm school in the last twenty years, so bullies are mostly gone. The one item they cannot control is job security, because it is a basic tenet of business that the most competitive will survive, and the least will die off. What makes companies competitive, is controlled wages, high quality and the ability to change quickly to meet the market needs. Unions are so entrenched in the old ways, they refuse to change, their job is their job, and they won't do one iota of work that is not in their job description. This not only cripples a company, eventually it kills it.

Unionism protects the employee who is  not interested in working, it stifles creativity and it is the single biggest factor in our work ethic going to hell in a handcart. Now ask me how I really feel...

Times have changed, the world has changed, and still the old ways struggle to hang on. Courage my love!