I have some experience with union labor. They are uniformly lazy and incompetent. Why? Because there is no incentive not to be. Unions are great equalizers: They punish the excellent and elevate the dullards.
Cable man story: At this one hotel that I serviced, the engineering staff were --by union contract-- afforded thirty minutes to perform a service call. So if an engineer were dispatched to change a lightbulb, he got thirty minutes to do it. If he were dispatched to open a guest room for me that took two minutes, he'd spend the remaining 28 minutes just roaming around and fucking off.
They fuck off a lot.
Another story: When I lived in New York, I knew this producer for a TV network. He told me that it was difficult to get anything done because the film crew --consisting of who-knows-how-many people-- had structured their breaks (apparently you have to have a certain number of breaks) ...they had structured their breaks such that this producer had a complete crew for only fifteen minutes out of each hour. In effect, these union employees were costing four times the fair-market value for their services.
Another story: A New York hotelier wishes to convert his hotel into condos. (That is, he wishes to put his own property to its highest and best use.) The unions don't like it because the hotelier will no longer need drooling morons fucking off and wasting 28 minutes out of every thirty. Union gets city to pass an ordinance or something saying that the hotelier cannot convert his hotel.
If given the choice, I would NEVER, EVER, EVER hire union labor.
Let's hope their union gets smashed. The dullards will take their rightful place in the breadlines and the excellent will get paid twice what they do now.
I refuse to work with someone to whom I cannot say, "You are lazy and you are now fired."
