Is Anyone Still In The Union ?

[Evans Electric]

Coming from the days of the " Closed Shop".....  the comunist led ETU ...    and contractors being JIB "Free" members   I was wondering if many Forumites were still members .

I've just recalled when I started work as a 15 yr old apprentice in industry .  About 10 sparks in the maintenance shop , one of whom never spoke to me at all until after about 2 yrs he issued a threat ...as the union shop steward  saying he couldn't make me join the union as an apprentice but at 21 I would be forced to join or begger off .  Nice bloke

Thankfully  I left at 17 to join a large contracting firm ...at 21 became a "Free " JIB union member .

I met many characters over the years who should never have left the rock from whence they had crawled from under and the Forman at that place was the first I came across , a slimy sub-human turd with the charisma of a bucket of vomit with a dead rat floating in it .

 

[Andy™]

no point in most of us here being in a union... all they do is arrange strikes, and since a lot of us are SE...

 

[ProDave]

When I first started out, with the company who put my through my apprenticeship, I was in the EETPU (Electrical, Electronic Telecommunications and Plumbing union IIRC)

After a few years I resigned from the union after they had told us a pack of lies at one years pay meeting.  Nobody seemed to ever notice I had left and nobody ever said anything ot tried to get me to re join.

Now being Self Employed I can;t see what they could possibly offer me.

The whole mentality of "work" was wrong back then. I was often told to slow down as I was making the rest of them look slow!!!

 

[Evans Electric]

I realise most of us are SE   but there are some employed Forumites.

Dave  : Thats a familiar tale from those days.

 

[Sidewinder]

I am, joined @ 16 and have never left.

The Union assisted me during a previous redundancy, and helped my Father In Law get a payout afer he had an injury at work which happend because he had to pack up on his own, because all the other site crew left him on his own.

He never worked after that, but he got enough money to survive on.

If he had not been in the Union he would have had nothing.

His injury was with him until the day he died.

 

[OnOff]

I'm in UCATT. Was working on a site maybe 15 years ago and thought in might come in handy. Called the rep in once over a possible grievance but he was a bit useless tbh. First thing he told me was he'd just been to a place where they were laying of hundreds of workers and he was on the verge of a breakdown on the back of it. Only keep the subs up as my daughter likes the diary they send every year!  :lol:

 

[Andy™]

you could always change to the 'TEF union', where the only benefit is a diary...

 

[OnOff]

I always remember as an apprentice that our then engineering union wangled an extra day on top of every Bank Holiday. Six days at Easter it was we had the Thursday and Tuesday off too!  :lol:

 

[steptoe]

I was often called a lot of names by union guys,

in days gone I was what I think you guys call a journeyman,

called in near completetion dates to try and get contracts finished on time,

squad of maybe 40 of us, worked day and night, good money, and all to stop the penalties that would be incurred by the company due to lazy union guys refusing to do more than the minimun they needed to do.

so, would I ever join a union,?

:slap

 

[Sidewinder]

I even had my union subs paid for by a previous employer, and no, not my, company.

Whilst there was no closed shop, there was one site that we went, that, the workers reckoned if we had a union card we were legit, so we would be cosher, and not get any grief, so the co. stumped up.

Suited me.

 

[Richard-the-Ninth]

I have to admit, on the whole the union does seem to be a waste of time.

 

[steptoe]

I even had my union subs paid for by a previous employer, and no, not my, company.

Whilst there was no closed shop, there was one site that we went, that, the workers reckoned if we had a union card we were legit, so we would be cosher, and not get any grief, so the co. stumped up.

Suited me.

why would being jewish help you?  :C