Does this sound ridiculous to anyone? My office has 7 phone lines. 2 of them were down this morning. They (who shall be unnamed) actually sent over 2 guys to work on the lines (at the same time). I joked with one of them figuring maybe it was just a cross up, and said "you guys can't walk and chew gum at the same time?" One of them said: it's union rules: can't send 1 guy to fix 2 lines.

working major convention set ups at the javits center made me hate unions. or whatever that union was. one of those pricks had the nerve to admonish me for plugging in a power strip while he was shooting the shit with his buddies. f'ck that noise, there's work that needs to be done.

Funny, I obtained my anti-union sentiment not via the media, but through real-world experience. In a recession, they were unfireable, while the rest of the non-union workers in the company were doing the work of multiple people due to cuts. They were a bunch of dead-weight lifers, and would be nothing more than a workplace memory at 4:59p.m. while the rest of us would still be working, rushing to finish projects.

Stephanie, seems like it would have been a good idea to negotiate your hours, salary, and job function ahead of time. Then you wouldn't have to work twice as hard because your upper management made bad decisions and forced you to do twice the work, presumably for no extra pay. But I guess that is just what all the lazy stupid people do.

Maybe there haven't been layoffs in NYC yet, but why not go talk to some of the government employees in other parts of the country that have been laid off, police, teachers, etc, and just wait until the state lays off workers at the beginning of next year. "Happy new year, here's your pink slip"

a smart person would have joined the union.

A lazy person would have joined the union.

I Won! is my "Screw them, I didn't get mine hero"

Nice double post. Anyway, I got mine and didn't need to join a union to do it. How about you?

I Won! is my "Screw them, I didn't get mine!" hero.

I have to agree with the commenters who note the anti-union bias here (and in the rest of the media). I don't think the position is well-thought, however. It feels like a knee-jerk response driven by the lobbyists for the privatizers who would have us all working for the "minimum" allowable under the law--and even lower if possible, through Walmart-style unpaid overtime, etc.

Good luck living in a world run by corporate bosses with no protections for employment, seniority, and wages/benefits.

I don't see many people going after the Wall Street folks who make much more than fire-fighters for doing a job that turns out to be tax-payer subsidized gambling.

I think we're going to look back at the lost gains of unions and feel nostalgic.

Why all the animus against teachers and other public employees?

Seems to me that if people value education and other essential services so much, they should make those salaries competitive. As it is, no one in their right mind will want to teach at the unprotected charter schools where there is no collective bargaining and no security of employment.

People would like to see "amateur" politicians to go along with our "amateur" teachers. Good luck with that.

You make many valid points. However, the teachers' unions earned a lot of contempt for overprotecting scum who should never be allowed near children and an outdated seniority system.

The problem is not so much the union protecting its members, but the speed (or lack thereof) of the disciplinary process. Start the investigations quickly, and come to a conclusion. If there's misconduct, then punish the guilty party, up to, and including firing. If there's no misconduct, then get the teacher back into the classroom.

do transit employees have princess parties on their birthday off? very popular these days.

Any system where public employees are paid salaries much greater than their private-sector counterparts and given $2.00 in benefits for each dollar paid in benefits to private-sector counterparts is unsustainable. Private sector salaries are held in check by whatever the actual business can generate as income. The government simply can raise taxes, raise taxes, and raise taxes.

What is the private sector equivalent of FDNY and NYPD?

Well said.

And I realize the original article is from the Post, which to me makes the people here even dumber.

"and mortuary technicians even get an extra $636 a year to deal with rabid animals."

I wouldn't take 600 bucks to deal with rabid animals for day, let alone a whole year.

I agree, but they probably can also take 2-6 months paid off if a rabid animal even looks at them the wrong way.

This whole anti-union slant of Gothamist is a fucking joke.

Usually it's a bunch of jealous hacks who can't get the jobs they're bitching about.

Of course, if went and looked at management's contracts the union perks would be a joke.

But morons and hack journalists are too quick to buy into what they're told by corporate America, which is that it's all the unions fault.

American car companies- all the fault of the union workers who actually BUILD the cars we drive.

Not the fault of management, with their minimum 6-figure salary, planes, and vacations.

What a crock of shit Gothamist.

Maybe not that surprising from a bunch of hack writers who can't get enough of spray paint vandals' sperm in their mouth.

On a smaller scale, ABC this year was cutting all sorts of positions and hours.

Of course, anyone with a clipboard and a tie could get a 6 figure management gig, even if they never worked in tv before.

And no one question Bob Iger's 29 million.

But goddamn those greedy union workers, making the product and keeping it on the air and asking for roughly 2/3 of what a manager would get. A manager who would have to ask a union worker how things work so they can write a report or recommendation.

Same shit different day.

It's a sad world when common people, exemplified by the cut and pasters here, don't realize the company is NEVER going to look out for them. The jokes on you, jack-offs.

And for the record I quit my union job, but I've beent here and know the score. This anti-union BS in the media is the result of lobbyist groups on behalf of large corporations and other dumbasses like Gothamist writers who bite on the bait like it was Banksy's penis.