Unions are evil. I really think they are. I work for Delphi, which is a automotive parts supplier that used to be part of General Motors (you may know us as the manufacturer of XM Satellite Radio receivers). As such, the plant I work in, as are all Delphi plants in the US, is a Union shop. All of the hourly employees here pay union dues to the IUE-CWA. I am salaried, so I don�t have to worry about a chunk of my paycheck getting removed every two weeks for union dues- I just have to worry about the money getting taken out for my non existent health care coverage- but I digress. I used to be a supervisor, and I was in charge of these hourly workers- at one point as many as 40 of them. I really became discouraged with my job because each time I�d fire one, the union would strike a deal and have them brought back to work. Unionized workers have job protection that the rest of us can only dream about. Late to work all the time? That�s ok! Absent three or four times a month? Don�t worry about it! Too lazy to do your job? We�ll find you an easier one! It makes me sick. People like this don�t deserve their jobs. As I was leaving work yesterday, there were two hourly people talking as they left the plant. One of them was complaining because her supervisor wrote her up because she missed work. She was going on and on and on, obviously upset, saying that he just doesn�t understand what she is going through and how hard it is for her to get to work everyday. I�m sorry, but it isn�t his job to be �understanding� when you miss work. Its his job to make sure you come to your job every day, and that you do your job while you�re here. He isn�t interested in your personal problems. Keep in mind, people- you have to miss A LOT of work to get to where this lady was. Hell, the company allows you to miss 10 days a year, no questions asked, and then you need to miss 3 or 4 more to get to where she is- and its only April, meaning she has missed 13 days of work in less than four months- and this is on top of vacation time she can schedule. If that were me, I�d be fired by now. When she took this job, she agreed to be here for 8 hours a day, five days a week, and she�s getting pissed because the company is trying to hold her to that agreement. And this is all the union�s fault. If there were no union, you�d bet your ass she�d be here everyday. If she wasn�t, she wouldn�t work here anymore! And scum like here are the ones who go out and get a doctor to put them on medical restrictions saying they can�t lift anything over 5 pounds, can�t perform repetitive tasks, blah blah blah. You are doing manual labor in a factory! If you don�t like your job, quit! So now, since they �can�t� do any real work, the company is forced to pay them to sweep the floor all day or sort parts. Money well spent. And we wonder who American cars aren�t worth a shit- because people like her are the ones building them! Why should they put forth any effort into building a quality product? It isn�t like they can get fired for not doing so! The worst part is that there are a lot of good, hardworking people here, and they are the ones who end up getting shit on. Management can�t fire the pieces of shit and hire someone decent to take their spot, so they are forced to lean on the good workers to pick up the slack. So in essence, these hardworking people are paying union dues every month in an effort to make their jobs more difficult. Beautiful, isn�t it? GM and Ford are moving as many operations south of the boarder as they can to escape all of this bullshit. In the meantime, Honda, Toyota and Nissan are opening plants in the US. The only difference is that there isn�t one Japanese auto plant in this country that is unionized. So basically, GM and Ford can�t make money building cars in the US, but Toyota Honda, and Nissan can, simply because of the unions. Here is the kicker- since GM and Ford keep losing market share, and most of what we build in this plant is for GM, we keep losing business, which means we need to get rid of some of our employees. Management was trying to get a deal set up with the union to offer early retirement incentives or to offer voluntary layoffs. The Union wouldn�t accept that- it wants to do a temporary lay off. What this basically means is that rather than have some of the older people retire or offer a layoff to high seniority employees who want the time off, they are going to lay off the new hires instead. They want it this way because if people retire or take a voluntary layoff, the Union can�t keep pulling union dues out of their paychecks- if there is an involuntary layoff, they can. So basically the Union is screwing over their own members in an effort to keep more money in their pockets. I am seriously thinking of writing up an anonymous letter and printing up hundreds of copies to distribute around the plant for all the hourly people to read just so they�ll know how badly their elected officials are butt-fucking them.

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