On 10 May 2000, at 17:40, James Kaplan KG7FU wrote:
> I can't button my (lip) finger on thise one!
>
> a) Corvallis is home of OSU, notorious underpayers and former home of
> one of H-P's largest non Palo Alto facilities. IE: It's a relatoively
> depressed area, and being a college town they think they can buy
> know-nothing admins for $8/hr.
That's funny-- my first job was in Corvallis. I started 2 years ago at
$11 an hour, plus, as I said, full bennies.
> b) You should disband your union. Unions are designed to protect the
> moron gene pool.
If it wasn't for unions, my 11-year-old would probably be working 60-
hour weeks in something considerably worse than one of Phil "The
Whiner" Knight's sweat shops.
Furthermore, my dad was what I'd guess you'd call a telephony
manger at Southwestern Bell. He wasn't union, but he'd started as
a union telephone lineman. Those union educational programs
helped him become an engineer, and the quality of his work got
him into pretty high-level management. He *always* supported the
union. Why? As he told me, "your salary and benefits are always
keyed to what they can get away with paying line workers. They
bust the unions and everyone who works for a living is going to feel
the consequences."
$8 an hour, eh? Seems like what he said is coming true. 20 years
ago, when you could make $14/ hr. in the mills around here, real
wages were a lot higher in this area.
BTW, I know a number of *extremely* good and dedicated union IT
folx who would take some pretty serious offense at your crack
about the moron gene pool.
Cheers,
Dennis
"Custard pies are a sort of esperanto: a universal language."
--Noel Godin
