Quote Originally Posted by cffisher View Post
Not sure if this changed any but I was in the carpenters union for a lot of years. The only benny was wage there are no paid vac. no hospital benny it was all on you. So I tend to agree Unions have run there course Chicago just proved that in my eyes.
In Philadelphia we get a hourly wage in our pay check,a hourly benefit (pension,medical),hourly annuity,vacation hour goes to the union hall (they manage the money),My union officials get the same pension and benefit per hour that i get no more no less,if the invest badly they lose also.My point was to express that if a non-union worker was to lose the prevailing wage on government jobs why would they vote for the person who is taking that away! Just like every thing else there are good unions and bad unions-good company's and bad company's-good people bad people!! I got in the carpenters union in 1973(very slow time for construction)our present president of the Philadelphia Carpenters was a carpenter turned business agent. I was very lucky and worked for 33 years and got to retire at 52 years of age(I worked!! the union does not keep you working they manage the benefit money and collect from the company per quarter.) My union officials were smart enough to for see the future and invest wisely!! There are 10,000 active carpenters and 5,000 on pension,over a billion dollars in the fund,if the carpenters can do it, would you not think others could(greed gets in the way) And to add to this all three contractors i worked for in 33 years are self made millionaires!! I personally would like every one to have a good paying job and to live comfortably and retire at 50!! Some may call it communist or socialistic. There is way to much money out there,yes its capitalism and you worked hard for it but come on what is better one person to win 100 million or 100 people to win a million each? A hundred millionaires would spend more of that money to keep the economy moving rather than one person with 100 in the bank. Pete