Right To Work

[PJ The Kid]

Would it be against policy to have a discussion and gather information on RIGHT TO WORK? Looking for information from people it has affected both in a positive way and a negative way. I guess more than opinion, I am looking for actual knowledge and experience.

 

[digger242j]

Would it be against policy to have a discussion and gather information on RIGHT TO WORK?

Here are two sectionsof the Forum Rules that should be kept in mind:

No discussion of politics unrelated to the heavy equipment industry should be made. Slanderous references to political beliefs or parties should not be made within these posts, such as flaming lefty, right wing zealot or other similar type label.

Personal attacks of any kind on other members will not be tolerated. While disagreements in opinions and procedures may arise, they must be handled in a mature manner.

Certainly a discussion of "right to work" has the potential to have some political aspect to it, but since it's related to our industry, it's permissible. The handling of disagreements in a mature and civil manner is really pretty self explanatory.

Although it's not specifically spelled out in the Forum Rules, our policy on any discussion of union/non union issues has been expressed in the past as follows:

Because it is one of those hot-button issues for many people, HEF's policy on the discussion of union/non-union has been expressed as one of "aggressive neutrality". Answers that consist of a statement of FACTS, are fine and acceptable. Once the replies begin to venture into the area of OPINION, either positive or negative, for either side of the question, they are out of bounds. I do believe we're all smart enough to know the difference between fact and opinion.

I have faith that our membership can carry on a discussion of these kinds of things without any need for Moderator intervention, but it doesn't hurt to have a reminder of the ground rules posted. An ounce of prevention and all that...

 

[old-iron-habit]

Right To Work (or open shop) n any state applies only if public monies (federal or state) are used to fund a project. Smaller dollar projects are exempt in many areas. In a simplified nut shell a non right to work state (closed shop) uses union wages to establish the wage rate for the various crafts that work on the project. A right to work state uses projects of comparable sizes that were built in other cities, usually about 5 to establish the rates. There have been large jobs in right to work states that the scale actually ended up being a couple of dollars higher than the local union wage. One could make an argument that all bidders are on equal footing in either case because the labor rates are known. Where many of the disputes and claims come from is misclassification of work to a lesser paid craft. Of course every contractor wants to use the least costly help for any aspect of he project. Normally before bids are awarded there is a meeting with the low bidder(s) to understand what crafts are assigned to certain work to insure compliance with the documents and area standards and to avoid disputes later.

 

[PJ The Kid]

Thank you OIH, That is the best explanation I have seen. There is alot of uproar locally because our new governer is pro-RTW and to be honest I haven't looked into it much and placed most of my interest into other problems at hand that I consider larger.