OK, I finally have to add my two cents on the topic. I've heard the union opinions for about 16 years. The last attempt to bring a union standardization to our discipline failed miserably! Sorry to tell you this, but it scared the hell out of many who require our services! Another little known fact to the situations, only one company agreed to sit and talk with the union, which was a tremendous business decision, take a guess who that was? The other companies didn't want to let their cash cow profit margin out of the bag and refused to agree to any negotiations.
The Technician work force, in general, fails to truly recognize the necessity and value of their function. The customers aren't offering opportunities out of the generosity of their hearts, you are a requirement! Believe it or not, if we don't show, their outage doesn't go! Sure any utility can run an outage with their house staff, but most utilities have trimmed their staff to the bare bones minimum and running an outage under an emergency contingency staff plan would prove to be a regulatory disaster! If the Technicians didn't show up, the regulators would!
Some say, they don't want their opportunities limited by a union agreement! They want to go where and when they want to. I can't agree with you more! I follow the same rule, but under a different methodology. If company A limits the available opportunities, or offers me a poor compensation package, I go to company B, C or D! I may not go where I wanted to, but at least I will go when I want and for as much as I want! Are you sure you were fully informed of all the opportunities available? The longest duration and the most money? Did your resume make it to where you wanted, or only sent to where the company wanted it to go? I hate to be the one to bring this to the attention of the members of this site, but the current plan, which is also currently in motion, for one Contract Company, is to totally eliminate the selectiveness of the Technicians! In other words, “You’ll go where we want you to, or nothing at all"! You have to admit the value of that selling point to their customer! It would eliminate bonuses, control wages and benefits!
If we organize, we could make those Bastards pay through the nose! If you believe that to be the foundation of a union, you need to be banned from the union! Actually a union would provide an equal playing field for its members. It would eliminate all the secrets held over your head and not privileged to see! You know the ones I'm talking about, the contract constraints, on contract you can't read! It would also provide a venue of factual communication. Not to say incorrect information is actually the way of doing business, but I've heard the response of some recruiters, “You didn't ask the right questions or enough questions"! I didn't know an employment venue was a question and answer game!
Probably the most important, from my opinion, is training and an apprenticeship program. The nuclear industry, in our country, has been dead for quite some time! All of the nuclear high schools have closed and the military services are offering major retaining bonuses. I'll take the heat on this one, but my recent experiences in the industry, leads me to believe that the majority of the Technician populations, is lacking in the necessary skills of the trade. The reason for this is self evident, limited employment opportunities and ZERO training programs!
How could I draw such a conclusion?
Recently I attended an outage and spent an entire day reviewing OE's! The sad part, they were all current! All of the situations were repeats of events that took place many years ago! Simple mistakes that compounded into reportable events due to a lack of training and experience. What kind of events? Workers picking up debris, failure to believe instrumentation readings, improper training with specialized instrumentation and the list goes on! I was in the room with several other individuals and this appeared to be the first time any of them had ever heard of such events, including the instructor!
Who can train the future work force? Actually their is still a population of experienced individuals available for that venue. You read their comments on this site all the time! They represent various facets of the industry, not just the commercial sector! DOE, DOD, DOT, R&D, D&D and about a dozen other sectors of the radiological industry. I know many of them, some I agree with, some I don't, but when it comes down to the bottom line, they know their stuff! I don't know of any, who would outright refuse to offer assistance and training to a new work force.
Another portion of the union debate, that seems to be overlooked, is with whom? Everybody seems to want to pit a union against a specific company. Sorry boys and girls that is a venture I wouldn't want to take part in! Now if the Technician population wishes to discus the current situation of our industry and improve it, I'd be interested in that! The talk of a formalized organization and due's can be put on the back burner for now. Unionizing, or organizing, is simply the concept of deciding what is necessary to improve our industry today and in the future. Even an individual, who dislikes the discussion of unionizing, shouldn't have a problem with offering advice to potentially improve his own future! Contract on the table? A contract has to grow from the needs of all parties involved.
The first order of business would have to be what the Technicians need vs. what they want, a starting point.
I suggest, for dsicusion:
Wages
Travel Expenses
Per Diem
Bonus
Pension
Vacation/PTO
Medical
Vison
Dental
Perscription
Progressive Opportunities, POSTED
Training
Evaluations, REAL ONES!
Disciplinary Standards
Company Communications
Again, these are topic that need to be discussed.
My $0.02, sorry for being so long winded, RG
EB, congrad's on the new job!