This could be good for treecare workers...

As a proud member of ironworkers local 401 , I think that this a great idea but certainly would make union tree care companies extremely expensive for res. work and unless the workers were willing to create a target fund in which they were willing to absorb some of the cost to help the contractor compete with a non union company we will never see a union contractor on a res. tree job, or smaller commercial work ..
 
union-labor.jpg
 
it does seem that, at least for the foreseeable future there are too many obstacles to any sort of Tree Care union. Too bad.

I guess when I read the article I was glad to see a shimmer of light in defense of the worker vs corporate america...
 
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unions are only good for over paying useless workers.

They were necessary a century ago when working conditions could be deadly, but now all unions care about is increasing wages and therefore union dues.

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Amen. And fostering cronyism. Unions suck. Unless you're a zombie, and you think that every man or woman has the same capabilities. Can of worms, anyone?

-Tom
 
I worked for UC Berkeley for 2 years and was part of AFSCME. UC was a cool location to work, but the union mentality paralyzed workers who wanted to learn more and increase the quality of their work.

It would be good to have more to resist corporate America, poetmk - I agree. It's a shame that unions seem to hurt more than they help.
 
In Boston's poster all the guys are wearing white hats... that ain't union labor boys, that's management. Union laborers would be wearing color coded hats.

I don't advocate unions in tree care but unions are one of the precious few defenses regular people have against greed and power. I don't belong to a union and never have but they definitely have a place. Labor is the most abused segment of the US population.

Take a look at yourselves, you risk life and limb to provide a service, you EARN your money every single day and yet you have relatively pathetic pay and benefits compared to a top brass manager who hardly works at all and gets most of his income for free because he happens to already have a lot of money.

People don't join unions to make big salaries, they join because it's required to get a lot a jobs... they don't get much choice. And the fact is, most union guys make enough to live comfortably, no more... They SHOULD live comfortably. The downward pressure on wages is waaaay out of control, so far out of control that a non-union person can work their fingers to the bone holding three jobs and not make ends meet. That's just wrong. We aren't talking lazy people, we're talking regular folks, hard working folks, people that deserve to live without constantly worrying if they can pay the damn water bill.

Wages NEED to increase... a hell of a lot. I can't believe you guys roll over on that and blame people who are just like you, people who want to WORK for their living. It's the corps begging for handouts, not the people.
 
Blinky, I agree that unions (in essence) exist to support the common worker. Unfortunately they keep the common worker common, make the exceptional worker an outcast, and fund big political machines that profit from the hard work and sacrifice of the workers.

I respectfully disagree with you, I think unions suck. I have worked for one for fifteen years and I'm quitting in April to run my own company and be a part of the solution. My two cents.

-Tom
 
We don't really disagree Tom. I'm no fan of what unions often become. I'm for the people who do the work to get enough of a share that they don't have to struggle just to pay bills and send their kids to college, especially when bigshots who hardly work at all are the ones pressuring people to work for less. Unions came closer to achieving that than anything else so far... then they went haywire as the same kind of people they were fighting took them over.

Good luck in April Tom, you won't regret it.
 
as a proud member of ironworkers local 167 memphis and apprentice of the year 2004 in the great state of texas representing local 84 houston tx; unions are a great thing but not unlike alot of things in this world some of them have become outdated. in memphis a union hand makes $22 per hour with about a ten dollar an hour benefit package and we regularly compete and win against the uneducated under payed and abused cheese eaters. education from the top down is how unions have to compete in todays market. there is no room for less efficient unskilled workers. any company can take three highly skilled tradesmen with the proper tools and do more QUALITY and SAFE work in day than a crew of ten unskilled and under trained men and still cost the contractor less and you can take that to the bank be that trees or iron.
 
Apparently most big companies don't agree, they'd rather get by with cheese eaters.
The goal of a public company is to take the money OUT and give it to shareholders. That's what a good CFO does nowadays, push profits to shareholders. In their single-mindedness they focus only on cost and the reduction thereof. Quality and safety are lip service items... CHEAP is the only goal.
 
Don't assume you get quality work from union treeworkers, I should really snap some pics from the city guys in my town, they're union and the their tree pruning is pathetic.
 
Funny thing, just learned that over 80% of our yearly Shade Tree Short course attendance comes from municipalities. They get the training but most lack the accounability to do quality work.

How friggen difficult is it to do a collar cut?!
 
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