Union Work Rules Cost Plenty

[delldude]

Union work rules chased conventions to other cities costing Philly a wad.
 

 

Carpenters Local 8, which is responsible for most of the labor pains at the Pennsylvania Convention Center over the past decade, have been locked out and their jobs reassigned to the other four unions who signed the new work rules that cover the building.
 
The carpenters even reached out to Congressman Bob Brady, hoping his swagger as head of the Democratic City Committee would hold some say, but Philly.com reports that PCC management wouldn’t even return his calls.
Work rules have been the key issue since before the PCC was expanded.  The most notorious of course is that conventioneers are not permitted to use things like battery-operated tools anywhere inside the building.
 
 Tech-based conventions long fled the PCC over the rules about plugging in laptops and servers into electrical outlets.  Ever seen Microsoft hold a convention in town?  They used to, long ago.
 
- See more at: http://www.philadelinquency.com/2014/05/10/carpenters-union-now-locked-pa-convention-center/#sthash.WM7775sG.dpuf

 

[777 fixer]

I think most of us who have worked in the airline industry have stories where we would have been within our contractual rights to walk off a job to take a break or lunch.  But we didn't because we were working on a plane full of passengers or were wanted to get an airplane back in service.  You don't hear about those kind of stories very often.

 

[delldude]

Sounds a little more ridiculous than a lunch break.
 
Notice the four other unions took their work without batting an eye.
 
These are/were the same mundane work rules that plagued or still plague GM.

 

[777 fixer]

Sounds a little more ridiculous than a lunch break.
 
Notice the four other unions took their work without batting an eye.
 
These are/were the same mundane work rules that plagued or still plague GM.

 
Both you and I know that if everyone in the airline business worked to rule operations would be seriously impaired.  So like i said you don't hear about things like that.  And yes the union in the story is cutting it's own throat if they don't adapt to the situation.
 
As for GM they didn't seem to have a problem making money when everyone was buying trucks and SUV's.  Look at the German auto companies.  The unions there have work rules that workers here in the USA can only dream of.  Yet when the economy tanked they seemed to do alright.

 

[delldude]

 
Both you and I know that if everyone in the airline business worked to rule operations would be seriously impaired.  So like i said you don't hear about things like that.  And yes the union in the story is cutting it's own throat if they don't adapt to the situation.
 
As for GM they didn't seem to have a problem making money when everyone was buying trucks and SUV's.  Look at the German auto companies.  The unions there have work rules that workers here in the USA can only dream of.  Yet when the economy tanked they seemed to do alright.

 
Why I remember a time not long ago in commercial aviation.......
 
Europe? tell of their impending austerity due these things our unions can only dream of.

 

[777 fixer]

Speaking of commercial aviation at one time Douglas Aircraft had almost 90% of the commercial aircraft market.  Now they have zero because they don't exist.  While they had their fair share of mundane work rules and feather bedding that's not what killed them.  A long string of bad decisions is what did.  
 
You can start off with Douglas letting Boeing beat them to the punch with the 707.  Douglas had the money and the engineering talent to be the first US manufacturer to do so but they didn't.  Next was to cut corners with the DC-10.  We all know what the result was. Douglas could have been the first to come out with a wide body twin, Airbus did it instead.  MD decided to once again go cheap with the MD-11 the end result being an aircraft that could not meet performance guarantees.  There were plans to make a twin out of it with a new wing but that never came to fruition.
 
While Airbus came out with a clean sheet design for a new narrow body and Boeing put considerable effort into the 737NG MD out a new engine and a some updated avionics on an MD-80 and called it the MD-90.  Wonder how things would have turned out if they came up with an entirely new aircraft more advanced than the A320 and better than the 737NG?

 

[La Li Lu Le Lo]

Is it possible McDonnell Douglas was hedging their bets on Military contracts and lost?

 

[777 fixer]

That's basically what they did.  MD neglected the commercial division for so long that when the DOD contracts started drying up they had little to fall back on.