Well I told everyone in my last blog about going back to work through the Carpenters Union. I might as well give you the story about the first week back.
First I have to say that before I left the Union I worked for a company and was a Supervisor of 40 to 60 men. The Company was owned by 2 young guys that had the good fortune to have some money to invest. Eventually these 2 owners begain getting gready with all the money coming in and started to disagree with each other over how to do business. They had a falling out and decided to have a divorce. The problem with having a divorce is that all of the contracts that they had signed through the company needed to be honnored before they could go their seperate ways. As the Supervisor of the company I was the one that had to bring those jobs to a close with a very limited number of men. It was a rough period of time due to the fact that the 2 owners of the company were not speaking to one another and that what ever money that was coming in went to whomever could get their hands on it first. Paychecks for all of the employees could not be cashed because there was never enough money in the companies account. The whole crew would take their checks directly to the bank that the check was written on right after work and the cashiers would see us coming and run to the door before we walked in and tell us that the checks were no good. It became very comical.
Well after the contracts were all completed I learned that the company owed over $130,000.00 to the union for all of the empoyees medical isurance benifits ect. Seemed to me that the business agent for the union was really doing his job for the members. The union has no problem demanding dues from the members but sure won't get off their butts to make sure that the members are being represented when they are on the job. It just doesn't seem right to me.
After all of the above and being also upset with the union I decided that I had had enough and needed a break from the union and that is why I accepted going to work with a so called friend that I have known with the union for about 8 years. I still payed my dues and kept myself in good standing with the union.
After the final inspections of our last job my partner went to the homeowners and picked up the final check. I have not seen him since. He owed me 4 weeks of salary. I learned from the homeowners that he had talked them into writing the check out to him instead of to the company. I also learned that they had done this with most of the payments, some very substantial amounts. When I finally did get a call from this guy he told me that he had bankrupted the company. He had signed whatever with the lawyers and everything was going through. Luckily I am not going to be affected by this because I never signed my name to anything. I as a partner only listed myself with the company as a project manager.
Ok, now back to the union. I called the union business agent and told him that I was looking for work. Within the hour 1 of the 2 young guys that I had worked for gave me a call. He was all excited and talked with me for almost an hour telling me how he needed me. He had all of these jobs going on and about 50 men working for him and so on and so on. I called the business agent back up and directly asked him if this guy had straightend up his act and had straightened out the situation that he had created with the union and the business agent told me that "yes, he has straightend everything out and is doing everything properly through the union".
Well back to work I went and not feeling good about it for one minute. I arrived my first day after a 1 1/2 hour commute. I was handed a set of plans and give 2 apprentices and off I went. The job was a 2 story addition with also a kitchen addition. The second day I was only given 1 apprentice. Last saturday I was asked if I would come in because there was a comercial job that would need to be worked on to get ready for trusses. I worked a 10 hour day with several other guys putting the second story on the building. I was informed durring this days work that for saturdays, cash would be paid. I thought this odd for an employer that was on the up and up. I also saw it odd because atleast 3 other guys working with me that day were executives officers of the union hall.
On monday and tuesday I worked back on the addition with the one apprentice again. Wedensday back to the comercial site and with 8 guys we worked till 10:00 pm installing 300 trusses with a crane.
Thursday and friday back to the addition. I forgot to say that all week I have been requesting to have a sit down with the owner of the company and felt that he is avoiding it. Friday the addition is framed to the point that only a few rafters need to go up over the kitchen addition. About 3:00 paychecks arrive. I open mine and see first off that I have been paid 8.00 and hour under my rate and that no over time is included. I call the office and no answer. Leaving I get the feeling that a stop at the bank that the check was drawn on would be a good idea. So that's what I did. I walked into the bank, presented the check and was told that there was not enough funds in the account to cash the check. I walked out of the bank and called and called the office. Finally the phone was answered and the secretary, the owners wife who use to be a stripper that he devorced his wife to marry tells me that I should take the check to a check cashing place to cash it. I could not believe what I was hearing. How can a company that has so many employees tell someone that.
I was furious. I left atleast 10 messages on the owners phone for him to call me. He finally does around 6pm. He told me that I should have gone to some certain branch of the bank in some town that he deals directly with and I cut him off. I told him that didn't cut it. The bank said that there wasn't enough money in the account period. I asked about my rate and was told that he and the business agent had worked out some kind of deal and that he didn't have to pay me my rate for one month. I don't know what that is about but I will deal with that come monday. I asked about the over time and was told that I would be paid my over time as cash at the end of the month for straight time. I told him that no I wouldn't. I told him that the way he did business was not going to work out between us under these conditions and that I would be in the office on Monday to pick up whats owed to me. By law here any work over an 8 hour day is time and a half and over 40 hours is time and a half.
So, If you have read all this you can see that I have had a great week. The topper of it all is that the 15 hour day I put in on wedensday left me with more dang blisters on my feet than that I recieved on a fifty mile forced march in the army loaded with full gear. With the gas prices I spent over 150.00 in fuel for the week. I haven't brought 1 penny in income into my home in well over a month so I am in a great mood.
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