bugeye , that's correct everyone gets paid the same and everyone works at the slowest mans pace .
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I never thought bugeye and I would ever agree on anything but I guess if one looks hard enough they will find common ground.
My experience with union members from the masons union , the carpenters union, and the labor union, have been mostly disappointing to say the least.
Shootall, you hit it right on the head about working at the slowest mans pace, because slow and lazy and whiny is about all I've ever seen from union masons on any concrete pour that I've worked.
I have to say that the labor union does take pretty good care of its' people and I've seen some real hard chargers working for them. But the masons union in LA actually has members that are illegal aliens! How do they get away with this. And their are so many of them that most union masons are lined at the hall just to get two days a week ; three if they're lucky.
Funny thing is that I've seen "imported" (illegal) laborers work circles around union members for half the pay and then when they get into the union, they become worthless.
I've had people telling me to join for years but I've heard too many horror stories about people getting screwed out of benefits when things get rough. I'll manage my own money thanks.
Funny thing is that a master finisher in the union in LA makes around $43 per hour; roughly $320 for an eight hour day. They will take home a little more than $200 of that and it's a roll of the dice whether he will ever see those beneifits or not depending on circumstances, politics, and work availability. They will actually fine a member if they catch him working on non union jobs, and in order to maintain his membership, he has to put in so many union hours per month.
So what does he do if the union cannot keep him working? They fine him and boot him and he's screwed.
During the boom, when I was working in LA, I was getting paid $300 a day in greenbacks and the crews I worked with were like a crack military unit that was cohesive and could work circles around any larger union crew. And unlike many of the sloppy union masons that I've known, my crews actually could pour a slab or floor FLAT, and could actually broom a straight line and run a trowel flat without leaving any chatter marks. You wouldn't see any crowns in the floor or have puddles forming in the seemingly invisible holes that the massive union crews would leave.
And in all fairness to some of those union masons, many of them could work very hard, but they weren't so hot on working SMART.
We didn't get paid by the hour either. We got paid by the JOB. So if we busted out a certain number of house slabs or so many thousand square feet in less than eight hours, we still got our days wage or we started breaking out sledge hammers and chisels.
Just like communism, unions had all the good intentions in the world and they would seem like a good thing until you factor in that one variable that always seems to screw up everything that is good for all, and that is HUMAN NATURE; or should I say human weakness.
Glad to know that we see somewhat eye to eye on one thing bugeye.
