Is it favoritism or acknowledgment of job performance? Should the only way to receive higher compensation be to advance in position or go to another company? Should the companies hands be tied in this regard?
A Reinauer Barge Captain once told me, “you have to pay your dues before moving up to a good union job. You start out somewhere else then move up.” This would lead one to believe that everyone working for the union is experienced and their job performance is the same. Maybe that’s true, I have difficulty believing that, but I’ll acknowledge the possibility exists.
That’s not true where I work. I’ve had AB’s come on the boat that had never touched push gear, never towed on a wire, and some had never made up on the hip. Some came on the boat and didn’t know the particulars of how to do it on that boat, maybe they had only used sheaves. You could put me on any boat in McAllisters fleet, and probably most, if not all, of yours, and I can make up with little to no direction. That’s not true of everyone. Some guys spent 6 months on the boat and still needed to get the other deckhand up every time we made up. So while the job may be the same, the performance is not. How is it then that we should be paid the same? How is it favoritism that I am compensated more for how well I perform the job?
I believe the the company paying for my travel puts me in parity with the union negotiated travel per diem, you disagree. Does that about sum it up? Yup If, and I mean mean in a long shot, You and I were making the same (within dollars per day as you originally stated) looked at the numbers on our paychecks, I would have an extra 700 bucks in mine per hitch. (50 bucks per day) and when we were sent to corpus christi. I would have a plane ticket waiting for me at JFK, EWR, or LGA to get to corpus, AND the extra 700 bucks too. Don’t worry, Ill buy the beer at IAH though and we can hash over the differences!
So we view it differently and hopefully can agree to disagree. As far as travel outside of New York, McAllister has always paid for my travel when the boat was outside of New York, even before they started paying for my travel to New York. Just so we’re clear though, in most cases it was cheaper for a ticket from St Louis to wherever, or vice versa, than to or from New York. If I was already in New York then the company paid, it was never a thought otherwise.
But I’ll still let you buy the beer, I’m not known to pass up free beer…
And you just found some more ammo! I get the holidays whether I work them or not! evidently you only get them if you work them. Doesn’t is amaze you that some of the crews always seem to swing the schedule so one of them always seems to get the holidays? sounds fare to me, since the good ole boys do the ‘arranging.’
More ammo? I didn’t realize I was in some sort of battle that I needed to win! I thought this was merely a discussion? If you’re treating it as some sort of battle then that explains a lot…
I don’t agree with how McAllister handles holidays, but I understand it and I understand why. The reality of the situation may surprise you, if I’m understanding your comment correctly. The Mate that works opposite of me has more time with the company and more time in position than I. We swung the schedule right before the holidays this year. Not so he was working the holidays, as I’m perceiving from your comment, but rather so he was home. Being home was more important to him than the money. Which is why McAllister handles it the way they do, so they have personnel willing to work the holidays.
Furthermore, I’m not a big fan of this “other crew” concept. I’ve heard it out of various Captains, Mates, and Engineer’s over the years who were working equal time schedules while I was on a 2 for 1 schedule. They’d make some criticism of, “the other crew” and in my mind, and on occasion in words, I’d say, “Hey wait a minute, I AM the other crew”. Everyone on my boat now is equal time and I’ve noticed quite a few ideas that are absolute BS because everyone crew changes at the same time.
LOL! None. I understand your point. We had a Senator a few years back involved in a crucial vote that happens to be the single, hot button topic for me. For the most part his views matched mine, except on the one topic. The rest of his constituency, by majority, held the same view as I and this was well known and publicized. When it came right down to it, he voted his conscience and failed to represent his constituency. Needless to say, he didn’t win re-election and it wasn’t even close.
Government, Employers, and Unions. I also understand what you are saying here. To a large extent their activities balance each other out. Personally I believe we have a choice in everything, even if we don’t care for the choices we are given. As you point out with Government, I can choose not to pay my taxes and there is a high probability I will go to jail for it. It’s not a good choice, but it’s still a choice. I could choose not to work, therefore not supporting an Employer’s political views. So I get to choose between a good living and poverty, again, not much of a choice, but nonetheless a choice. The choice of whether or not to be a union member on the other hand does not present me with as difficult a choice. I am not unhappy with my present working conditions and environment, maybe that viewpoint would be different if I had worked for a union company and experienced the differences first hand.
In many ways I see a Union as another level of bureaucracy, which I am not a fan of. I view it as just another desk jockey trying to tell me how to do my job. Another set of rules that I’m supposed to play by.
Then I see rules (laws) that were clearly supported by unions that to me violate common sense. There have been competing ads on TV in New York over the last couple of months regarding teachers. With proposed budget cuts a lot of teachers may lose their jobs. As the law stands, the last teacher hired will be the first one hired. Is it automatically assumed that someone who has been teaching longer is the best? While this provides job security for the teachers, what about the children? Shouldn’t we be doing what’s best for our children’s education? Are the two necessarily one in the same? Now granted, I don’t know all of the in’s and out’s of this particular law, I’m only familiar with what’s been on TV and I haven’t researched it further, but on the face of what I’ve seen this makes no sense to me whatsoever.
You’re right K. C., sometimes you have to accept the world as it is. I’m just not sure that this is an aspect I’m required to accept. My kids may very well kill me and bury me in the back yard if they hear me say, one more time, “There is the way things should be, then there is the way things are, deal with it”.