unions and tree workers

Nick, A young healthy single guy should be able to buy health insurance for less than $150 month. If you put another $150 month into an IRA that's only a couple-three days pay for most employed climbers(less days for self employed). That leaves 28 days in most months to make enough $ to pay the other bills, etc.
 
We are not a big enough group so to speak, to get group insurance rates through the I.S.A.or TCIA (NAA). It has been tried before, we arborists aren't a big enough group to interest the insurance industry in giving group rates.

Ax-man
 
Nick - wtf are you doing at the doc so much??

Why are you asking others to tow your load. The thing people don't get with friggin insurance programs and govt programs is that someone pays for it. Insurance is betting you will pay more in premium than you will claim. 99.99999% of the time they are right. Is that a scam?? No, you benefit from having coverage should something catastrophic happens - other people who don't have catastrophic events happens, pay a little for that too so it evens out because not every one is going to nick them selves with an 088 or fall from a tree.

You boss pays your insurance? Wake up and smell the dumbass floating around. That is money he is NOT paying you.

If you want to enter into some sort of co-op / union to set up insurance and put YOUR money aside for YOU, then do it. The only way a union for tree workers could pay more for retirement than you personally can set up yourself, is if everyone pays into the pool, and not everyone lives to draw from that pool.

I would rather decide what I do with MY money.

This society has an epidemic of not being responsible for one's actions.
 
So tell me , How many here are self employed and are giving benifits to your employess? and not just a major med.

This is merely just conversation and getting peoples point of views. No use in jumping down someones throat over this or degrading what you dont know about peoples work habbits, union or not. Many union workers work hard, there are just the few who creat a bad name for the rest. Same goes with the tree industry.
 
"Where the union might help the most, is for employers who are cant afford to give medical to their employees. It's very costly as some of you may know. The city pays out over $650.00 per month for my medical plan. Do you think an employer in the tree industry could do that ? And then add retirment on top of that and then all the other little perks." posted by Kliminfool

I don't think the residential tree customers would tolerate those extra costs. It works for government agencies and utilities because they are basically monopolies. Government just raises taxes, utilities just raise electricity rates. Most residential tree customers would hire a non-union company and save $ if the service was the same.
 
Is that necessarily the case? The Care of Trees (www.thecareoftrees.com), Davey (www.davey.com), Bartlett Tree Experts (www.bartlett.com) a just a few companies that DO offer full benefits packages. I know these are larger companies and can afford to offer these to their employees, but the money's got to come from somewhere. Their customers still keep calling back.

I guess the obvious answer is, "Nick, why don't you go work for them, then?"

love
nick
 
What do you mean by full benefits?? Many of the larger private tree services here offer medical, dental, 401k, paid holidays. Usually spouse, children cost extra though.

The union benefits are in a different league though. When I was line clearance I recieved $6000 yr. retirement without contributing anything(couldn't, didn't have a choice). Medical Dental was for whole family at no cost to employee(I believe they could have found better insurance for the 2.50hr the employer paid for it, but again, didn't have a choice) We didn't get paid holidays. The city of Portland climbers make great pay and get something like 6 weeks paid time off(holiday, vacation, sick) I can't remember the retirement details, but they're doing better than most private employees.

I checked those links Nick, and those are great examples of why a union is not needed.
 
Been there, done that. I ran a crew for the local Davey R/C office for two years (R/C is Res./ Commercial, NOT line clearance). I made from $12- $14 per hour to run a crew as a climber/ foreman. The insurance coverage stunk. The only way I could actually get anything covered was to use the emergency room at the local hospital.
They also ran me into the ground and almost burned me out on tree work. Every hour I got paid had to be billable to a job. The only way I could actually get paid for equipment maintenance, paperwork or any 'behind the scenes' work was to shortchange the customer. I had to get the 8 hour job done in 6 hours to cover drive time, dump time, fixing saws and chippers time, paperwork time, etc. Many days I worked the extra hour for free after the rest of the crew went home. The only ones benefiting from the system were management and the dumb fuks who just went home early without wondering if their saw was going to run the next day. And if I didn't take care of the equipment, then I'd end up working for free to cover the extra time from equipment failures.

Keep dreaming your dreams, Lovey. Someone up there will pay your way for free. Your benefits will just drop out of the sky and you will be blessed without actually having to go out and EARN anything. 'They' will pay for it, whoever 'they' are.
 
Nick,

In previous posts you stated you worked for The Care of Trees. Why did you leave?? Just curious??? From the outside, looking in, seems like a good position to have if you are not running your own business. If you don't care to reply I'll understand.

Ax-man
 
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