We need to abolish unions. Yes you heard me right. Why get rid of unions, you may ask? I have personally seen the multitudes of negativity that unions support and continue to see them denigrate and destroy our society.
I came to this conclusion more than a year ago. For two years now, I have a mail man that literally terrorizes me. It first started when he parked in front of my car port/driveway and made me late for work one day. I came rushing out to my car to find the mailman had parked illegally blocking my entire car, blocking my driveway, half on the side walk, and half blocking an entire lane of traffic on one of Los Angeles' busiest streets.
So I yelled: "You can't park there. I need to leave." At that, the mailman walked AWAY FROM THE SCENE. I said: "Hey buddy, wait! I have to go to work! You can't park there."
He turned and snarled before continuing on:
"I'm a government worker, I can do what I want."
He left me sitting in my car for an additional 5 minutes just to be an ass. I didn't complain then. I complained when it happened again. The second time, I walked up to him, and politely asked him to never park in front of my carport again. Saying that there is plenty of parking on the two cross streets running my house less than 200 feet in either direction. Or that there was parking directly across the street 85 feet away.
He muttered something nasty under his breath that I couldn't discern, and ignored me again. And he didn't move.
So I said, "Dude, move your van. What you're doing is illegal."
Nothing. Thinking he was just fucking with me, I let it go. But then I started noticing him doing it everyday. I even once parked my car a few inches out of the port just so he couldn't park there. What did he do? He still parked behind my car but even more out into the middle of the street. Finally after 4-5 days of him doing this, I said:
"Bro- what is the deal? Why do you constantly park in front of my spot?"
He said again: "Man I'm a government worker: I can do what I want."
I lost it. "The fuck you can. Quit parking in from of my spot. You are not above the law. Barack Obama is not above the law. Why not park in front of anyone else's spot?"
Again, he ignored me. That was two years ago. 9 appearances at his post office branch, 5 meetings with the station manager, 10+ phone calls to the carrier managers, 17 phone calls to Consumer Affairs, 6 emails to USPS.com, and two years of him harassing me and deliberately parking in front of my car port when there are 9 other car ports to park in front of, has lead me to ask for his termination.
Yesterday when I requested, both consumer affairs and the branch manager couldn't confirm that thy could even do anything to him. Why? Because he is in the union and grandfathered/ tenured into his position. This is the same post man that, on Christmas eve, parked in front of my spot again. I was taking my mom out to the car, yelled at him to move to which he responded: "fuck you faggot!" right in front of my mother.
Yet that was not enough to even have him punished. Verbally harassing me and calling me the single worst name you can call another man wasn't enough, even with witnesses. I've called parking admin. I've called the Sheriff. I've even called the mayor's office. Only to find this out:
Unless he physically harms me or breaks "more severe a law" then there is nothing that can be done to him as a union rep. They at consumer affairs even admitted to me that mailmen often break the law to deliver mail when there is no parking and that law officials and parking admin turn a blind eye to it all.
Seriously tho- pay attention to the fucked up way mailmen and women park and totally, blatantly break the law.
Like my mailman breaking three laws himself every time he deliberately parks in front of my spot and not a legal spot. Why doesn't he park in front of someone else's spot? Because he knows that as long as it is only me complaining, that I'm like a boy crying mailman wolf and it will only be viewed as a disgruntled customer.
The post office is a prime example of why unions are null and void in 2014. The consumer affairs branch of the post office, for instance, has a lunch hour from 12 to 1. And they're only open from 8 to 4. So these people are getting paid for an eight hour day for only working seven hours plus benefits plus one of the best retirement packages of any federal employee in the country.
Meanwhile our Postal Service just gets worse and worse by the minute. Many branches closed service on Saturdays. My own personal branches decreased hours by 30 minutes. Most of the time that there has been any issues with the post office on a federal level it is been about union wage and benefit increases. Who pays for that? The consumer. We are the ones getting slapped with increased postage due to inflated union demands.
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I work in event production. That means I'm often on set or at the production site for more than 10 hours. But because I'm not union I don't get things like a guaranteed lunch break at a specific time or else penalties are increased. Guaranteed breaks or else penalties are incurd and increased areas and places of the event then I'm not even allowed to go to because it's "a hazard" all because they are union.
As someone in production, I see exactly how much money unions waste on a daily basis. I understand in their contract that they have specifically set guidelines for their meal breaks, but if you literally missed their meal break by five minutes, you could wrack up thousands and thousands of dollars of union penalties. Where does that money come from?
Why do you think movies cost so much to make these days? Well, when you need a driver in a scene, that union worker makes more for his "skill." And if he is on break and you have to bring in another "expert", that person immediately gets the benefits the first driver gets, but all the while still paying the first driver for literally doing nothing. After 8 hours on the job? It's time and a half. After 10 it's double time. After 12 it's double time and a half.
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I watched as the teachers in Chicago went on strike last year, leaving hundreds of thousands of school kids no where to go. Who was left picking up the costs of their strikes? The state and parents of those kids who had to find some day care or child supervising for their kids since the highest paid educators in the country with the greatest benefits wanted more and didn't care how it effected the children. All for greater tenure flexibility and increased retirement benefits.
I'm sorry, I do love teachers, but let's be real. What other profession allows you to work only 3/4 of the year and still have an annual sallary? And until teacher performance increases, do any of these teachers deserve more? (Chicago school district coincidentally has some of the worst records in the country in terms of quality of education, test scores, drop out rates, etc.)
Tenure is another thing- good teachers don't need it and bad teachers hold onto it as their only security from being fired for being shitty at their jobs. Job performance is something that should constantly be measured, not measured up until 10 years then dropped forever. Yes, I am being VERY hard on teachers and understand they are "underpaid" but again-- how many careers pay full time for 3/4 the work? Also ask yourselves this question:
Growing up, how many teachers did you have that you liked, learned something from, and remember as an educator that made a difference in your life???
For me, that answer is two:
Mrs. Hunter in 6th grade told us that we could write what we wanted to and be what we wanted to be. She encouraged creativity and hard work as a means to be able to achieve anything. She inspired me so much I have chosen to be a writer today. And Mrs. Blackburn in 11th grade. Mrs. B actually gave a shit and tried to make learning fun by incorporating a Mr. Keating type of education style in everything she taught us. I still remember some of their lessons today nearly 15 years later or more.
So if most of us can acknowledge that out of the 30 plus teachers we have had growing up, little more than 5% of our teachers are deemed by us as valid. Why oh why then do we have tenure protecting people who shouldn't be educating our children in the first place?
Granted, I see that there was a time and a place for unions. I understand that companies and corporations used to commit atrocities and terrible acts against their employees and expect them to work for less than nothing in horrible conditions.
But the 1890s are gone. This is 2014. A day and age where my drone camera can see exactly what you're doing from thousands of miles away. A day and age where everyone has a camera. Everyone is a photographer and anyone can video everything that you're doing with the flick of the wrist.
Are unions really necessary to "protect the rights of employees" when they aren't really doing that in the first place? I mean, the CEO of a union doesn't make the $65K that 95% of all of the union makes. Same thing with the CFO. In fact, all unions have someone on staff that is a lobbyist. This lobbyist' sole job is to guarantee wage and benefit increases for the union. Do you think he makes $65,000 a year? Nope, probably something more like $500,000 a year. Same with the CEO. Same with the CFO. Maybe even more than $5 million a year.
And unions act like all employees are "union" and "the same." I'm sorry, if I have a doctorate in engineering, I'm not the same as you and should receive more than someone with less training and education as me. Just as someone who has been an employer for 30 years should receive more than someone who just joined. Why pretend that any of us are the same, when really every person and employee brings about their own unique qualifications and traits to the job?
What exactly is "union" about that? Today, there is nothing unifying about unions other than everyone wants to make more money and live better. Let's not be blind, anytime union increases happen, the ones that pay for those increases is the consumer. It is the taxpayer. Rarely is it ever the union worker that actually has to make a sacrifice. Because what would the point of being in the union if you're seeing that you're having to make nothing but sacrifices. These days, unions are just as bad as corporations with their dirty politics, money lobbying, and undercutting the American taxpayer under the guise of helping the union.
I just don't see that unions are the way of the future and I'm not the only one. Several years back in 2011, Wisconsin Republican Gov. Scott Walker faced down the unions and signed the Wisconsin Budget and Repair Bill. Along with balancing his state's budget and fixing Wisconsin's growing debt among other things in the bill, it also severely limited unions and government workers availability in asking for increased salaries and benefits. The teachers and government workers striked soon after the Bill's bipartisan passage. But Walker held strong and crushed the unions and demanded government workers return to their jobs.
A special election, backed by the unions at the cost to taxpayers of $7.7 Million, was held in order to oust the governor for his actions against government employees.
However, the public wasn't having it. It was spread far and wide just how bipartisan the support for the Bill's passage was. Apparently the taxpayers and voters of Wisconsin were sick of floating the unions demands and handily re-elected Scott Walker to governor. At the time of the recall election, Walker had been in office less than a year. Now he is the only U.S. Governor in history to have ever faced a gubernatorial recall election and survived it. I shouldn't say survived. I should say beat the opponent handily with 56% of the vote. It is estimated that $80 million dollars flowed into the recall election in Wisconsin and that $30 million came from unions.
Wouldn't that $30 million have been better served elsewhere? Or if increases and benefits were so important, couldn't some of those increases come out of the $30 mil spent? Or maybe it should come out of the CEOs of the unions' million dollar salaries?!!!
That's why, as I said in the beginning, I am against unions. Because there really is nothing unified about them at all. We should start seeing them for what they really are: corporations within corporations.
