CinePhillyist Reviews... The Twilight Saga: New Moon
Playlist Rewind: Shonen Knife at Johnny Brenda's
Phillyist Playlist: 311 at the Borgata Event Center
Where Have All Our T-Shirts Gone?
I Have a Baby and Ten Dollars...Now What?
There are very few things that annoy me into "action." One of those things is protests. I find them trite, pointless exercises that delude people into thinking that their voices are heard. You can count on one hand the number of protests that resulted in effective legislation or affirmative action taken. The other is the people constantly soliciting you for money from Greenpeace, Children International, etc. Don't try to prey on my guilt to get me to donate money to your organization. The answer is "No"; I do not have a second for the chlidren or the environment.
Getting back to the former annoyance—protests. This afternoon, I was nicely walking to get some lunch at Dolce Carini and I had a pamphlet shoved in my mid-section. The pamphlet came from the Metropolitan Regional Council of Carpenters. Their gripe seems to be that Susan Schlisman hired someone to complete carpentry in her new establishment, Smokin' Betty's, that offered better rates than this union offered for their carpenters. "What's wrong with that?" You may ask. Absolutely nothing. Isn't competition the American way? Yes, it is. However, it is not the Philadelphia way.
The Philadelphia way is for labor unions to bitch and moan until they get their way. "Susan Schlisman has engaged an unknown carpentry employer, who is contributing to the destruction of the area wage and benefit standards of the community by paying its employees substantially less than the Metropolitan Regional Council of Carpenters." When you read that, you should read "Susan Schlisman chose to go with labor that was more reasonably priced. She chose not to employ carpenters from our union because the contracts we negotiate will handicap her profit-margin for decades to come. Now, we're forced to be paid to stand outside of another of her establishments and dole out 8.5 x 11 sheets of paper listing our complaints."
The pamphlet goes on: "Only a Rat expects to get something for nothing." I don't think that it's unreasonable to expect to pay a fair market value for labor to be performed. If a union can't offer a fair market rate, then that union should reconsider its pricing and contract requirements.
Earlier than that in the pamphlet it says, "Did Ms. Schlisman forget who her patrons are?" No, she didn't; that's the point. She knows who they are and she's trying to keep her establishment's prices reasonable. If she hired the unionized labor to complete this work it would result in higher prices to pay the inflated rates of the Metropolitan Regional Council of Carpenters.
I find the stranglehold that unions have on this city despicable. Does everyone remember when, in an attempt to go green, the Comcast Building wanted to install flushless toilets? Well, they couldn't because the plumbers union would have none of it.
So, there's that, not only do I not have a second for the environment when asked by Greenpeace for my time, but the unions don't either. They want your piss traveling down 58 stories so that they can make a buck.
The environment be goddamned.
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Tell us how you really feel, Andy!
My favorite part about union labor that I see is the surefire delays in project completion that comes with unionized labor. Maybe it's inherent in every construction project, or maybe it has something to do with the fact that every time I see union workers—whether escalator repairmen, carpenters, masons, whatever—there is invariably one guy working while five guys stand around watching/bullshitting.
I feel your pain dude, but I doubt you have the whole truth about the comcast building.
Um the unions gave us a 40 hour, 5 day work week. They also guarantee that their members are paid fairly and that work in safe conditions. I'm sure you'd never want in a sweatshop today, let alone in the nineteenth-century sweatshops that existed prior to the founding of unions, so why lambaste those who wish to protect their jobs, livelihoods, and families. Unlike you, some don't have the luxury of passing their days writing philippics or "standing around watching/bullshitting" as Ross Currie so eloquently put it.
The thing I hate the most about unions is how they demand living wages for their members. Anything above minimum wage is only for well-educated folks like myself who work in office towers, surfing the web for most of the day and posting comments on blogs. And the nerve of those union members to think they deserve a break during their work! When I sit down to eat my $18 plate of agave-soy marinated chicken at Smokin’ Betty’s, I want all that money to go the brilliant restaurant owners who had the capital to start a restaurant selling an overpriced, clichéd food concept, not to the great unwashed who built the place but cannot afford to eat at it. Thank god for economic segregation.
Really, someone handing you a flyer that you disagreed with ruined your day to the extent that you needed to write an ill-informed, somewhat hysterical screed trashing the very idea of political activism? How dare those people express ideas you personally disagree with? The nerve! And in the middle of your lunch hour! (a benefit created by the union movement, incidentally). I bet you thought about it all through your drive home after your eight-hour day (also brought about by the union movement). You might be so angry that you'll still be stewing about it over your weekend (again, unions made it happen). But you're right, protesting never changed anything (except civil rights, women's rights, labor rights, an end to child labor, an end to the Vietnam war, I could go on). Maybe next lunch hour you should walk to the library and brush up on some history. But that's probably too much work, right?
Are you really that mad about being handed a flyer? Because many of your facts are wrong. Unions have done great things, as enumerated above. The Comcast Center does, in fact, have waterless urinals. And carpenters deserve to earn a fair wage, one that offers benefits and enables them to feed their families.
I don't think Andy's attacking political activism, or questioning the gains unions forged for this country's workers in the early stages of the labor movement—only whether their continued existence across such a wide spectrum of industries is necessary and really in the best interests of the greater good (including, by the way, whether union bureaucrats really act in the best interest of their memberships).
But I think the point being missed here is the misleading, if not outright false, literature distributed by picketers in these instances. How does the union know that their non-unionized competitors treat employees unfairly? I'd especially like to know how the particular union that Andy got a pamphlet from knows that the "unknown carpentry employer" pays its workers "substantially less than the Metropolitan Regional Council of Carpenters." If the union doesn't even know who the "carpentry employer" is, it can't possibly know what it pays its employees.
You are absolutely right. In the nineteenth century, unions were desperately needed. They did, in fact, bring us 8 hour work days, lunch breaks, and weekends and I am thankful for that. However, today in Philadelphia, Unions cause their own harm sort of harm to the city. Many conferences do not come to this city because to set up a table they need to pay 3 people for 4 hours, union rules, or 2 electricians to change a light bulb. If someone were to change his or her own light bulb, he/she would get a grievance filed against him/her and their group would be fined for even more.
I am not a part of a Union and I make a fair wage, I get breaks, I get overtime. Do you know why? There are laws in place. If someone is willing to do the work for a certain price and stay within legal guidelines for labor, I'm not sure why we can't hire them. This is, after all, a capitalist society, and yes, people in fact, open restaurants to make money. So if you're opposed, don't go, but don't tell me that you suffer as a union worker when the union workers I see are doing just fine.
Precisely, alisskai. Precisely.
One more thing, there are waterless urinals in the Comcast Building. But do you know what else there is? Full piping and plumbing for "regular" urinals. That was the "compromise" that was reached with the plumbers union. A lot of wasted material and unnecessary labor.
I didn't see the particular flyer in question, but it sounds like an "area standards" flyer, objecting to the contractor based on their failure to pay the area standard wage rate. Incidentally, another effect unions have had is to raise the average wage rate in the industries where they exist, including for non-union companies. So if you're making a decent wage, it actually isn't because of "the law," unless you're making minimum wage. The law doesn't set wage rates above the minimum. And it's not exclusively because of The Market, i.e., what you do is so awesome and irreplaceable that employers will joyfully pay you any amount of money to do it. It's probably because at some point, unions got involved in your industry and drove up the wage you are making, regardless of whether you are a member or not. And, to the extent that the law provides worker protections, guess what, those laws came about through activism, most of it by unions and other interest groups. The government didn't just wake up one day and say, hey, we should make sure worker safety measures are in place, regardless of how expensive it is! Likewise, the Fair Labor Standards Act, which governs breaks and overtime for HOURLY employees only, was passed through the efforts of unions. I can attest that we salaried employees don't get crap in terms of breaks or overtime, unless we belong to unions who can negotiate those "perks" for us (I don't, and it frankly sucks. No lunch break for me today, although I'm stealthily wasting office resources by posting on here right now, obviously).
I don't know anything about the Comcast building so I will refrain from comment, except to say that flushless toilets kind of gross me out, to be honest. Irrelevant, but true.
Wow, all these wonderful posts about the history of labor unions and their contributions. Great. But the function of unions, especially in Philadelphia, needs to be revisited. Where are carpenters in Philadelphia being grossly mistreated? What legislation has passed recently because of their work? What I do see are strong arm tactics, political corruption, and bullying. Also part of their history. Maybe needed in the past, but not really the best tact anymore.
There are both waterless toilets and a complete plumbing system that will never be used in the Comcast tower. Independent contractors working at Smoking Betty's were physically threatened numerous times not to return to the site. Other sources mentioned to me tools were stolen and one person was "roughed up". Unions still have merit, but I know a number of skilled laborers who complain they are corrupt, disagree about unfair union dues, and don't really believe they should be forced to join them.