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Originally Posted by Dynamic
Just going to chime in on my experience on Unions since we are derailed anyways.
First of all I have never worked in a union. I have worked at a pretty big forestry company for over 11 years, including the last 7 as a tradesperson. We have union and non union mills and our is a non union mill. From what I can tell in my years of experience is that if you give it your all, don't take shortcuts, and in general give an honest days work you will be rewarded union or non union.
My only dealing working directly with union tradesmen was when I was doing my apprenticeship at NAIT. I got teamed up with a union guy on a project and me knowing the drill knew that if we finished early we could go home early. So I'm trying to get our assignment done (making hydraulic circuits) so I can go home and this Union guy was telling me to take her easy and lets just make this last the day....??? He basically stalled the whole assignment and instead of working with me he made sure we were the last group done exactly as class ended. It was infuriating and even just trying to reason with him was maddening. I just like to get stuff done and that was NOT his mindset at all.
And the union guys in our class, IIRC there was only 5 or so, where all the bottom of the class and barely scraping by. I am sure one guy did not make it. Another interesting fact is that all these Union guys were all on EI just scraping by while many of us non union forestry guys were being paid a full wage while at school, paid tuition, and a living allowance on top. I was treated very well despite not being union.
I know I have no idea how a real union works, but this is just my limited real life experience dealing with union tradespeople.
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I'd be interested in the details as to why the union apprentices did not have their course paid for. I've known a lot of local tradesmen who's apprentiship courses were paid for.
I'm not in favour of people dogging it on the job, you're being paid to do a job. I do however believe in setting reasonable expectations. Employers need work done so they hire people to do it. A younger worker is likely able to work at a higher pace than older worker, but that pace is likely unsustainable, over time that worker's pace will inevitably slow down. Now if this happens around age 40 after 20 years of hard work is it really fair to expect the same pace? You knew that employee was going to age, is it better to just work a guy to death and then boot him out the door when he can't meet the maximum standard or is it better to maybe set the expectation a little lower so you can keep that employee long term and not have a need to retrain more employees to replace them when they either break down, or realize this job is dead end since they will never last.
I'm doing so you raise productivity costs, but you lower training costs, general wages (do to it becoming more desirable work), workers compensation costs and lost productivity due to injury. You are also better able to plan and structure your business long term without worrying that you're workers productivity will be dropping off a cliff at any time. The best way to promote better productivity is to give people incentive bonuses on top of an existing reasonable wage, that way that employee will know their work is appreciated and also have a sense of security that they're worker values their hard work and is not looking to chew them up and spit them out, I don't know about everyone but I think most people who felt that reassured would and appreciated would show their boss by giving it their best. Of course there'd always be a handleful a bad apples who wouldn't do that but that's life, you gotta go with whatever gives you the best probability for success.
Look at high risk short shelf life jobs, jobs like a crab fisherman, those jobs pay insane amounts because very few want to or can do them and the workers rarely last, if they could make those jobs safer and more worthwhile from a career perspective they would.