Unions and Me....Labor day....

[Bennyboy]

My story

My Dad was a union tile setter, Skilled in tile, marble and terrazzo. He was a journeyman and could do any type of application. .He was paid well and he tiled some of the most famous landmarks in the central valley. All my life we would drive around and hear "I tiled that" no matter where we were, from Fresno to Chico, from Tahoe to San Francisco.....My Father wase trained in all phases of the trade not one specific task, so he was sent out on all type of jobs from theater lobbies to resdiential applications. A Union tilesetter could do anything, round columns, mosaics, terrazo....

Eventually my Dad was able to start his own business. At first he was a union shop, with fully skilled journeymen setters and helpers. In those days, it was the only way you could get the contract for large projects and multi unit tract housing was still quite aways off. When things got bad in his own biz, he could aways get work out of the union hall. He was good friends with the Union rep too who was a regular vistor at our home.

My earliest memory is being on the job site. 3 yrs old, with my own trowel and pointer. Over the years it was what I did on the weekends or during the summer, I worked. I joined the union when I was 13, I thin,k as an apprentice trainee (some weird title they used to have for kids in the trade).

Now let's say one thing, Tile setting is freaking hard work. Being an aprentice (helper/finisher) is among the hardest jobs anywhere. You have to move 2 tons of shit, five times a day. Into the truck, out of the truck, through the mixer, out of the mixer, into the house and onto the wall or floor.. Not to mention it is highly technical and there is no way to cover your mistakes. It is also very repetitive as a setter with making the same motion, with weight, all day long.

My Dad's shop, back then, was a fierce competitior with other contractors that came from around my Dad's time, Fisher and Yeager tile. All three were union and competed for the same work.

Then around 1974 the large building project came into being. My Dad expanded. We added Formica countertops and Marlite bath surrounds to the tile and had a huge shop. As he got more employess and larger contracts he began to hate unions and in particular the Union rep (Red) who once visited our house regularly.

Then in 75 maybe, we voted on the union. And everyone in the shop voted to oust the union but me. Turns out my dad, always the cliche, had a party and took photos of his employees in compromising situations with the hookers and told them how to vote.

For a year or so, he paid the union scale and healthcare. But then a different type of employee came to work. One that knew nothing at all and only learned how to do one thing only in the trade rather than being able to do everything. And was being paid much less without any benefits.. It was in this time period that I got be be friends with a recent hire, Bill Parker..

Eventually the union guys left and went back to the unions at other shops. The older ones retired long ago, the younger ones about to....

A year or two later, the new, cheaper, less trained work force figured they should join the union and right before the vote, my Dad gave everyone health care. Or so we thought. I even had 2,000 dollars worth of stuff done only to find out that he cancelled the HC right after the vote went in his favor.

6 months, a year later, the oil embargo hit, and my dad made a huge fatal mistake and lost everything. This being the second time for bankruptcy. His fierce competitiors, who remained union and strongly so, were still thriving.

Of course after that Bankruptcy, he went back to contracting. But now he was strongly anti union and anti worker. He ignored safety measures. He hired people off the street, trained them to do one thing and one thing only. And paid them shit. And fired them at will.

After being non union for quite a while, he still could only do certain type of jobs, ones that were explicitly non union.
Big projects he could not even apply for because the unions had a "stanglehold" on those type of jobs (the State capitol remodel being one of the more high profile ones) so those jobs went to Yeager and Fischer. Aomng those jobs were the BART Stations, where every time I ride, I think, this work is incredible, I could never do that and only know a few people who could (not surprisngly all of them are in the union).

BTW, ride BART if you wanna see some great tile work. El Cerrito is a mosaic that is staggering in beauty and technique and the Montgomery Street station, has octogons for miles with black grout. Almost impossible to lay, to line up etc.

Then the two gate system was installed in and that changed everything. Now unions did not matter, anyone could work on the jobs. At first there really were two gates and you had to drive by a bunch of union guys to get to your job. that caused a lot of problems.

Of course now there is a "no gate" system.

I stayed non union myself buying into the "There's more work" mantra that was prevalent in construction at the time. During this period, I had an employer fire me for seperating my shoulder rather than treating me and having me file a workers comp claim. I had an employer fire me for being ONE minute late. I had another employer once pay me on XMAS eve, after 6PM, so I would not find out that there was no money in the account to pay me. Another employer worked me 24 hrs straight and paid me for 8. Straight time. Another did not pay to cleanup the shop and had him employees (myself) using saws and equipment standing on top of stack of "Formica Cut outs" while using the saw. One employer used to give their employees "beans" (amphetamines) and then meth so they would get more work out of them. None of them offered any type of healthcare or retirements. Or wages coming close to scale. One, even, while working on prevailing wage jobs, made their employees falsify documents and the employer pocketed the $$ (Diff between 10 dol per hour and 25)

In all of those cases I filed compalints with the Labor Relations board and got nothing out of them. (turns out they were funded by the employers). I even had photos of the cut outs in the shop, and the documents. Nothing, not even a reprimand.

During building downturns, which were about every seven years, you had to scramble,and we would go to the tile shops and look for someone to hire you. For any amount. Always while standing in the tile shop hoping someone would hire you, I would see some of the old union guys. They too would be hurting, but they were still working a few days a week or even a month. And because they were fully trained in the trade, they could do anything and would do the projects that had wage controls. (Go'vt projects, sahools, airports etc.) while the non union shop had employees rather than tradesmen and was limited in the scope of work they could perform..

I went to work as a supervisor, for Green Valley Tile, A union shop, who hired me expressly to get them out of the union. The union crew was well paid but friends with Lee the owner, who said he could not continue with union rules. So the shop voted to leave the union. Some stayed but many left and went to union shops, Fischer and Yeager and an new upstart, some old friends from in the day, Sherman and Leohr, a union shop..

Now when I ran that company, I had about 20 union employees to start. When we got out of the union about half stayed with the company. We still paid well and had benes. Well I had to make up the difference in workers and hired non union employees. (A number of them from the non union shops above, including Bill Parker.) Almost over night, the work suffered. I had to watch them like a hawk all the time. Shitty job after shitty job installed. Even the old union guys (mostly longtime friends of the owner) started putting in work that was not up to their usual standards. Eventually all of those union guys left for union shops and I had a crew of 20 guys that were awful at their jobs. I had to tear out 100,000 dollar jobs all the time and redo them only to have them fuck them up again. I would fire them and have a new set of problems with everyone I would hire to replace them. These employees were strung out all the time on speed, had poor health, missed work all the time and borrowed money and missed work so often on Monday that I had to start paying them on Monday so they would show up for work on Monday. Not to mention that they were always getting hurt on the job and trying to work the workman's comp scam constantly. About a year after I left the company they went under. Low wages, low bids and bad workers doomed them.

One thing was old Bill Parker. Who was never a skilled setter. But at the end of my tenure there he was the best I had. We did a huge gang bathroom at an Air Force base. I gave him detailed instructions as to how to do the job. He certainly knew how to do the job. But he fucked it up huge. Didn't slurry the mortar bed and when the inspector came in, wearing high heels, she could tell instantly that the floor was not adhered to the concrete. 100K gone like that. Turns out the employer offered him a bonus, behind my back, for Bill to finish quicker, so he only slurried about half the floor. There was no way to know before the inspection so I just thought the job done.

I worked at various shops and in my dads shop and did other things. Every day I was afraid of losing my job. A boss would tell me :"If I did this I would get a bonus" , I would, and no bonus.

I helped my dad build another large shop, but again with all non union setters. We would take people off the streets and teach them to do one aspect of tile and give them a job. for peanuts. Keep them afraid of losing their jobs everyday. Of course, the employees, along with my dad's General maanger, were stealing huge sums of money, doing side work and charging the labor to the company. 100's of thousands of dollars lost. Of course one of the employees, was my good buddy Bill Parker. He needed money but was not skilled enough in the trade to do anything but the type of work we offered (and the other non union shops who did apartments and tracts) so he could not get union scale....So he had to go along with the scheme and steal to make the money he thought he was worth. (he told me this)

Of course, again, my dad filed bankruptcy.

I did some other stuff, another downturn, and then saw that Fischer and Yeager are the only ones doing any work and went back into the union. But I did not have the skills to be a setter and went back as a finisher. 20 years after I had been a union finisher the first time. It was so cool anyway. I actually made more as a finisher than I made as a setter for any non union shop. The demands by the employers in regard to work for the day were sensible, not slave like. I got a physical before working. They gave me Health Care and I never busted my ass. I knew most of the crew, all of them had been in the union for years now and had homes and families etc. The work was tits on a ritz. Perfect. No matter what it was these guys could deal with it. They worked fast but safely. They were awesome.

We had safety meetings and we actually discussed safety (For most of us in construction "safety meeting" meant "Smoke a joint"). We had safety rquirements, and equipment. IF we were to climb a scaffold, it had to be certified. (I had two friends get crippled for life due to unsafe scaffold accidents). Safety was about being able to work long term in your trade...

Eventually I did something else tile related when the boom hit so I got back out of the union. I could no longer do the work too due to all the years of work. But I knew I could do something.

I opened a business in the tile field. I would go on a job site and find union tile setters. And their work was perfect ( I sealed it so i got to see it up close). the biggest two residential projects in the area were not unionized but,.... the tile setters were. When I asked the job site superindenent why that is he said "I dont have to worry about them". They were competetive and didnt have to bust their employees hump to make money. Some of the same guys I knew way back when were on that project too..And the work was ALWAYS PERFECT. nothing missing, nothing crooked, perfectly laid out.

The entire trade had turned from hourly employees to pieceworkers, outside of the union. More work, less pay. Most tile contractors paid by the piece. Million dollar homes. 100K upgrade in tile and stone. And it was SHIT. On one project, in El Dorado Hills, in a project where the starting price for ahome was over 1 Million dollars, one setter left the spacers in the joints in 25 homes. This was discovered after the owners had moved in. I was the one who found it when I sealed a home. The tile setter got paid for the work, vanished, and the tile company had to pay for 25 FAMILIES to move for a month while they replaced the tile in entire homes. Everywhere I would go I would see shitty work. Jobs unfinished. But not at the projects where the union crews worked.

Now we are in the big building slowdown. There is no work, Most of the non union shops are gone. They certainly have gotten smaller... It is one bucket shops or union shops. And remarkably, the union shops are still thriving. The guys I knew in my union days are working and some have retired.

The non union guys i know...Well Bill Parker is dead. ABOUT SIX MONTHS AGO. Had no healthcare and didn't pay attention to something and now he is dead. 54. Bill wasnt a good setter and could never set in the union. And he didn't want to go in as a finisher, take the program, so he just kept on doing the kind of work he could do..

My good friend Dean, he has seriously depleted lung capacity. A very common malady among cement workers and tile is all cement. 50 feet is it, with him walking .In a day. Non Union shops never required employees to wear masks...union shops always did....

Others are like myself, who bodies are gone due to the heavy workload in our non union jobs. I know no one who is going to retire. Not in my trade or the others who bought the "unions are bad" meme of the 80's.


Oh yeah, My Dad died peniless. Five times bankrupt over his lifetime. His longtime hated rivals, Fischer and Yeager, are still in business. Still Union. Sherman Loehr is still in business. too. Still Union. And the other big shop in town, River City Tile, well they are union and they too, are still in business. And even though anyone can bid the work that these shops do, due to "right to work", nobody outside of the union can touch them because they cannot find the skilled tradesman that these jobs require.

When I was in the union the number of illegal workers was exactly ZERO.

When I was in non union shops the number of illegals was substantial.

If I had one thing in my life to do over again, I would have stayed in the union and got my journeymans card.. I would I would have made better wages and paid more in taxes too. Had a nice credit union too.



Some observations:

If I was to hire anyone, I would take the union guy, everytime. No question about it. Union employees are great. They work hard, take pride in their work, show up every day and are paid well and are loyal to the company. They also don't miss much time because they have health benefits and don't have problems related to putting off doctors visits.

As for being an employee well that is no brainer right there. I was paid well in the union, had HC, and all that. I also showed up, took pride in my work and remarkably enough, worked all the time. And the funny thing was, I worked on projects that were bid on by non union shops (right to work). I also worked on Gov't projects where it was prevailing wage jobs. I also had a very stable life, no drinking or drug problems and didn't show up on Monday broke wanting to borrow money.

[livetohike]

1. Thank you for taking the time to reflect and write this on Labor Day

:hi:

[Omaha Steve]

2. Thank you for posting!

K&R!

[Bennyboy]

3. BTW< I am in a union now...

SEIU caregiver. Loving it too, Even get HC next year..