Originally Posted by THEKERNALKLINK

I'm a pretty anti union person at my core, but bear with me on this one. My wife and I have a business and we deal with employees, and real estate taxes.


Lets start with the taxes. We need about $3.5 million in capital improvements that involve structures. We're in agriculture, and while cropand is taxed pretty cheap, structures are not. The amount we pay now in real estate taxes is vugar, vomit inducing and ridiculous! Why do we pay them? UNION PUBLIC SERVICE EMPLOYEES! When they hit 50, if they started young, they get 75-90% of their pay for the rest of their lives, as well as medical etc...More salt on the wound, we don't use public schools and 911 is just the number to dial to get the bodies picked up. We're in the boonies, the Sheriff's dept could be up to 40 minutes away. Our ambulance and fire departments are 100% volunteer.


2nd, I deal with employees. We're at a sweet spot right now, but we've had our issues in the past. Our business is "modular" and if we lose feed contracts, or lose contracts for organic grain, we just get smaller automatically. We can do this, because we own half our land, and we rent the rest year to year. Their is absolutely nothing that would stop me from bringing in smaller, irf any seasonal crews, and nothing that would prevent me from permanently sending a full time year round employee home permanently the day before annual bonus's are paid. My family's needs and security come first.


So, GOD FORGIVE ME! Because I've worked 19 years as a very highly paid guy with a lot of perks. I never suffered the hardship of flying an RJ around for less than min wage, and my 401K and separate mutual fund total more than what the company has paid me the past 19 years. Gotta love compounding, employer matching and profit sharing! I have benefited TREMENDOUSLY from being in a union, right?


Maybe, and that's a big maybe! It takes 10 years to get someone to the point where they are suitable to do my job? OR DOES IT? In Europe, you can get a bug up your butt and decide to become an airline pilot, and be in the right seat a year later with your 400 hrs under your belt. Their is a whole slew of them happy to do it just as a subject matter for their Instagram accounts, and they probably make more from Instagram! They also happen to be female and pretty easy on the eyes, but I digress. Aside from all that, I'm not that easy to replace considering the standards here in the US, But anybody that requires less than 2 years of training to replace... WARN SCHMARN, you'd report to work one day only to get handed a furlough notice. I wouldn't even try to get concessions from you.


So God forgive me, I guess I'm the biggest jerk in the world.