Dock Workers

MattyG35 · February 27, 2015, 12:20am

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

[quote]MattyG35 wrote:
he liked to work hard and he was rewarded in turn. Eventually the bosses see how much he’s making and re-adjust the pay scale, they kept doing this repeatedly, slowly whittling away at what he was earning himself, never mind what he was making them. [/quote]

This sounds strange, as in odd. Was he not hourly?

[/quote]

It was you get X amount of hours based on the job, eg an air conditioner was like 3 hours, a furnace 7 hours, so he’d work fast, do a 16 hour day on paper, then they changed their system. But some of their jobs, they had different “levels” each level was based on the difficulty of the job, the time, etc. So he could do a 6 hour job in two hours, he’s happy, they got to bill for 6 hours, and then they would change it. Hope that makes sense

angry_chicken · February 27, 2015, 11:32am

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

[quote]BlueCollarTr8n wrote:
In your example; once you demonstrated your value, your compensation was adjusted accordingly.[/quote]

Yeah, I’m still baffled how a 100% raise in 6 months is an example of getting “fucked”. [/quote]

The starting pay was a fucking INSULT and we both knew it. But I was living in a tent at the time. He took total advantage of my situation instead of paying me what I was worth. And HE wasn’t the one who doubled my salary, I ended up switching companies as soon as I was able to make a few contacts and I was assured that I was getting fucked.

angry_chicken · February 27, 2015, 11:36am

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

I would purposely underpay someone that openly thought and spoke that way, if I couldn’t just fire them. That way they would go and be someone else’s morale problem and not mine.

Everyone is replaceable, outside of the Steve Jobs of the world. [/quote]

So you would purposely fuck your employee - thank you for making my point for me.

angry_chicken · February 27, 2015, 11:55am

[quote]BlueCollarTr8n wrote:

[quote]angry chicken wrote:
Companies will fuck you EVERY CHANCE THEY GET. Union’s protect workers from getting fucked. It’s that simple.[/quote]

Having been on both sides of the table…it’s not about ‘fucking’ anyone. It’s about an agreement that works for both parties…just business AC. In your example; once you demonstrated your value, your compensation was adjusted accordingly.[/quote]

I’ve been around the block plenty of times too. I’ve worked for lots of companies that make promises and dangle a carrot in front of someone for YEARS. But somehow, that carrot (be it a new service truck, extra dollar an hour, even a functioning hammer drill!) never materializes.

Management, in my personal experience and in my personal observation, will LIE TO YOUR FACE over and over and over again, tell you what you want to hear for as long as they can get away with it.

They openly break their agreements. We have union by laws stating that if you are a foreman in charge of 5 men, you are supposed to be paid a dollar over scale. 5 - 10 men is two dollars over, etc… That is almost NEVER honored with smaller companies. Especially when times are bad and there are people on the bench. If you press getting paid by the agreement, they threaten to lay you off for making trouble. So people are intimidated and keep quiet.

It’s worse with non-union. I’ve seen VERY capable guys working hard and leading crews getting paid often ten dollars less than they “should”. Even when I was in the mortgage industry, the argument was over your commission percentage. I had to show an offer letter from a competing shop to get a decent percentage - even with a 5 million gross volume! Why? Because they don’t want to pay you what you are worth.

I could give you example after example of many companies I’ve worked for (union and non union, construction or mortgage industry or other commissioned sales) where they lie, don’t honor agreements, drag their feet to honor agreements, kick the can down the road and are finally dragged “kicking and screaming” with leverage you have to force their hand with to finally do what’s right by their employees.

Now the company I work for currently is FUCKING AWESOME. But I assure you it is the exception, and not the rule. So I am standing by my statement: companies will do everything they can to pay qualified people the LEAST amount they can get away with and they will use every situation at their disposal to do so (i.e. they will fuck you every chance they get).

angry_chicken · February 27, 2015, 11:59am

[quote]MattyG35 wrote:

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

[quote]MattyG35 wrote:
he liked to work hard and he was rewarded in turn. Eventually the bosses see how much he’s making and re-adjust the pay scale, they kept doing this repeatedly, slowly whittling away at what he was earning himself, never mind what he was making them. [/quote]

This sounds strange, as in odd. Was he not hourly?

[/quote]

It was you get X amount of hours based on the job, eg an air conditioner was like 3 hours, a furnace 7 hours, so he’d work fast, do a 16 hour day on paper, then they changed their system. But some of their jobs, they had different “levels” each level was based on the difficulty of the job, the time, etc. So he could do a 6 hour job in two hours, he’s happy, they got to bill for 6 hours, and then they would change it. Hope that makes sense [/quote]

Auto mechanics work the same way: changing a transmission = 7.5 hours that they can bill for (even if the mechanic gets it done in four).

countingbeans · February 27, 2015, 2:43pm

[quote]angry chicken wrote:

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

I would purposely underpay someone that openly thought and spoke that way, if I couldn’t just fire them. That way they would go and be someone else’s morale problem and not mine.

Everyone is replaceable, outside of the Steve Jobs of the world. [/quote]

So you would purposely fuck your employee - thank you for making my point for me.

[/quote]

No. I wouldn’t “fuck my employee.” A person that thinks, acts and speaks like you have about their employer is a cancer to moral, not an employee.

I fight to take care of employees everyday. Cancers can pound sand.

countingbeans · February 27, 2015, 2:46pm

[quote]angry chicken wrote:

[quote]BlueCollarTr8n wrote:

[quote]angry chicken wrote:
Companies will fuck you EVERY CHANCE THEY GET. Union’s protect workers from getting fucked. It’s that simple.[/quote]

Having been on both sides of the table…it’s not about ‘fucking’ anyone. It’s about an agreement that works for both parties…just business AC. In your example; once you demonstrated your value, your compensation was adjusted accordingly.[/quote]

I’ve been around the block plenty of times too. I’ve worked for lots of companies that make promises and dangle a carrot in front of someone for YEARS. But somehow, that carrot (be it a new service truck, extra dollar an hour, even a functioning hammer drill!) never materializes.

Management, in my personal experience and in my personal observation, will LIE TO YOUR FACE over and over and over again, tell you what you want to hear for as long as they can get away with it.

They openly break their agreements. We have union by laws stating that if you are a foreman in charge of 5 men, you are supposed to be paid a dollar over scale. 5 - 10 men is two dollars over, etc… That is almost NEVER honored with smaller companies. Especially when times are bad and there are people on the bench. If you press getting paid by the agreement, they threaten to lay you off for making trouble. So people are intimidated and keep quiet.

It’s worse with non-union. I’ve seen VERY capable guys working hard and leading crews getting paid often ten dollars less than they “should”. Even when I was in the mortgage industry, the argument was over your commission percentage. I had to show an offer letter from a competing shop to get a decent percentage - even with a 5 million gross volume! Why? Because they don’t want to pay you what you are worth.

I could give you example after example of many companies I’ve worked for (union and non union, construction or mortgage industry or other commissioned sales) where they lie, don’t honor agreements, drag their feet to honor agreements, kick the can down the road and are finally dragged “kicking and screaming” with leverage you have to force their hand with to finally do what’s right by their employees.

Now the company I work for currently is FUCKING AWESOME. But I assure you it is the exception, and not the rule. So I am standing by my statement: companies will do everything they can to pay qualified people the LEAST amount they can get away with and they will use every situation at their disposal to do so (i.e. they will fuck you every chance they get).[/quote]

For every example you have, I can come up with an employee who thought he/she was a bomb ass worker, but in reality, sucked massive dick at their job and was vastly over paid.

magick · February 27, 2015, 6:04pm

[quote]usmccds423 wrote:
There seems to be a disconnect between what white collar workers and blue collar workers experience as far as employee / management relations go. [/quote]

Isn’t that why blue collar workers historically gravitated towards unions more-so than white collar workers?

anon50325502 · February 27, 2015, 6:09pm

[quote]magick wrote:

[quote]usmccds423 wrote:
There seems to be a disconnect between what white collar workers and blue collar workers experience as far as employee / management relations go. [/quote]

Isn’t that why blue collar workers historically gravitated towards unions more-so than white collar workers?
[/quote]

Could be. It could also be a cultural thing with blue collar works where as it isn’t with white collar workers.

Who knows.

angry_chicken · February 28, 2015, 1:46am