General Discussion

I lived with a gal back in the late 70's..........She had over 5 years as a checker at Safeway....... She was earning 22.00 an hour back in the late 70's, but Safeway only allowed them to work 30 hours, because if they worked more, they would get benefits.
I asked two experienced checkers at Safeway last week, what a checker who had more than 5 years earned right now
Both said 16-18 bucks.........FORTY FIVE YEARS LATER, AND MAKING LESS AN HOUR FOR THE SAME JOB???????????/

10-15 years ago Safeway checkers went on strike.......three different checkers told me they got a couple of bucks raise.
Then, I read the terms of the settlement, and it included that they agreed all new hires should be hired at half the wages of previous new hires.............I asked some of the checkers that voted for that contract, what they thought about where they would be if the checkers that preceded them had voted for that concession on new hires......
Of course, after Reagan crashed unions across the United States starting with PATCO, (Air Traffic Controllers Union), every Union employee's wages/benefits, contract or not, went down. Reagan neutered the NLRB and the unions had nowhere to turn......
A close friend who was a Union Electrical Journeyman said three weeks after Reagan trashing PATCO, the companies the Union electricians worked for took a major hit....He went from 22.00 an hour and 26% fringe, to 12.00 an hour and ZERO fringe.....
On his salary alone, he was able to buy a house, have a wife who didn't have to work, put two kids through college, and had two cars, and was able to take a two week vacation somewhere......
That was classic for a middle class worker's ability to support his family and have a satisfactory lifestyle...

In another industry, about that same time, the airlines hiring flight attendants changed their starting salaries for new hired flight attendants to half what it had been........United Led the way, and all the rest followed within a week.....

I guess with Union jobs, (or any jobs for that matter) WE AIN'T SEEN NOTHING YET.......