Quote:
Originally Posted by iCurtis
A family friend worked at Caterpillar, and said the rule was if you were an engineer, you couldn't do anything that required two hands. (i.e. all wrenches must be turned by techs, all heavy things must be moved by techs, etc.).
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Same rule at my current company.
While I agree both are necessary, some of the stipulations that come from this are just stupid. When I worked in manufacturing in a non union plant and we needed a tool that we didn't have in stock for whatever reason our sister plant (unionized) accross the street had more storage space so most of our tools were there. When we went over there to get the tool we were allowed to find the tool on the shelf, but we were required to ask someone else to take it off the shelf and hand it to us, so we could carry it out!
It was literally the most ridiculous transaction, and they had a guy who specifically did that all day. He handed tools to people, took the tags off of them and placed them in a bin so that someone else could update the inventory! One day I made the mistake of taking the tooling because he wasn't around. Next time I went back I got a half hour lecture about how I was trying to replace his job and how he was going to file a grievance with his union. The worst part...he made more than me.
My point is, yes there are skilled blue collar jobs that require training and specialization. I have a high respect for these people and I love working with them, I believe unions protect them. The man in my story gives these workers a bad name, and unfortunetly unions also protect these men, it's a trade off and white collar folk, like me, have to learn to work with them...won't learn that in school though.