I started out as a tool and diemaker, went through my apprenticeship. The owner of my company came out with a product that revolutionized the chip lead market.
He was a genius. The die stamped 12 parts per stroke and we built 3 main dies that ran 24/5 and still could not keep up.
He took that small company global.
Its not the workers, its the greedy profit takers. He was making tons of money but it was not enough.
Sounds like you are a collectivist, union guy. If that's the case, your wages and growth are not based on your performance, rather the time spent at the job...and often, who you friends/family are. That's common and outsiders often can't get into union places of employement unless they have 'friends/family' there or are a union member at another facility. "Legacy jobs" is also a term used to describe such workers as they get in due to their relatives working there, thus controlling who can work at such a facility.
Sounds like the owner was a real sharp guy. What he did addressed a huge demand and even so, they could not keep up.
From a business POV, there are a lot of considerations to running a business. Having union/govt family/relatives members, I know a bit about them. And worked alongside of them. Well, I worked while most of them didn't.
One job in steamboat springs, taking the elevator from the basement with our materials up to the floor we were working on, it had to be operated by a teamster. When he wasn't on break, he had a chair in the back and sat there. We told him the floor we needed to go to and he took his highly trained wooden stick and pushed that button. When he was there, that was his job. And per contract, no one else could do it. So it was often faster to just carry the materials up ourselves 3-5 flights of stairs.
Union glazers mostly showed up, looked around, stood around and talked for a while, then left. Carpenters union reps must have had holes in their pockets as there always seemed to be roofing nails in the parking lots after they left the non unionized construction job. Weird.
I'd see the electrician's union picketing a jobsite. It was interesting as the people holding the signs were about 5ft nothing and didn't speak english. Saw that again in another state, but it was white HS kids. I told them they were getting paid to do that as the union members were out working where they could make more money. They didn't get it.
Healthcare in a lot of VA clinics are substandard because of the high turnover of docs/PAs and nurses. The main reason is the rules are strict as to what the nurses can and cannot do. So the nurses skills go stale and the Doc/PAs get overworked with admin work the nurses should be doing. Or a more clerical, non union employee.
I was at a va once for a few weeks and they had a leaky showe faucet. It was an easy fix, but I was told they had put in a lot of requests to have it done, but never got done. I said I could do it and they told me not to as they'd get into trouble.
An overnight maint union guy would spend most of his time sleeping in the waiting areas. Again, no one could do anything about it, so the nurses would kick the back of the sofa/chair he was sleeping in as they walked by.
Why did the teamster's retirement fund go broke and need to take money from me/us to bail them out? Same w/the uaw. Why did we have to pay for their retirement/healthcare? I have relatives in both mind you.
There is a huge sense of entitlement union members have--entitlement to their work and a share of other people's money to be given to them. It's that "what's mine is mine, per contract, and what's yours, well I should get some of that too" mentality.
Then the productivity and quality of union workers have been substandard for decades. Since more competition was allowed to be brought in, consumers have more choices and many choose quality and price, thus union products fall short. And they then demand money from consumers in the form of bailouts to their paychecks/pensions. Or outright reimbursing the corruption of their leaders.
Right to Work is a good thing. No one should be forced to join a union in order to work. That's literally nazi germany thing (look it up, see DAP/NSDAP). And if they are allowed to opt out, money is still taken from their paychecks to be funneled to the unions. That is corruption.
Let workers be free to work where they want.
Let employers hire who they want.
Let employers be free to locate their businesses wherever they want.
Let people be free, free from the heavy hands of threats, violence, extortion, etc.
