I am not one to knock my union brothers, but there comes a point where you just say give me a break. I am boiling right now because these “union brothers” have done enough to make me explode and today just puts the icing on the cake. Let me give you a little background on these particular “union brothers” I am talking about. I have worked for a company for eight years as a union ironworker connecting iron. I would work in just about any conditions as would my forefathers would. Within the first week of starting this job my foreman brought in another connector from the union hall. This guy smoozed with the boss, talked a lot of shit and before you knew it he had the foreman convinced to bring in his “connecting partner”. The two new guys proceed to take my connecting job and I was busted to a “lower” grade job. I even took a pay cut, until the owner of the company (great guy) took care of me and my pay. So the two new guys are connecting and the foreman thinks he has the A Team working for him. These guys “cry” about everything, slowing the whole erection of the building. One day last week they left after two hours while the rest of us continued to work because they were wet, today they showed up thirty minutes late and shut the job down because it is too muddy. Yeah you heard me because an ambulance could not get to the building if there was an accident they shut the job down. A crew of 20 guys had to go home without pay because “something” could happen on the job. See being in the union we as workers have the right to stop a job if there are unsafe conditions. Granted the mud on the job is knee deep, and I have worked in worse, but to say that we can’t work because an ambulance can’t get to them is crazy! Sounds like someone just wanted a day off work, so again they take the food out of my mouth! What a bunch of pussies, excuse the language but com’on any ambulance would park the 500 feet outside the construction fence and the EMTs would trudge through the mud to get to your ass. Then all the guys on the job would gladly carry the gurney to the ambulance that is what “union brothers” are about. It was a damn lousy excuse to get a day off work, because the boss called me at 1:30 and said the job was being grated be there tomorrow for work. It is people like this that give union workers a bad name and hurt our “brotherhood union”. Get a life, work honestly for what you have, respect others and we would all be a lot better off.

These Pictures were taken on Monday of the job we are working on at Central Michigan University