11-09-2012, 05:45 AM
That storm was a terrible thing, and I hope that recovery and rebuilding will be as smooth and speedy as humanly possible.
On the union thing, I have mixed feelings about unions, from my (european?) perspective: unions are good in regards to protecting the interest of the workforce, but they often overstep their mark, protecting those same workers so fiercely, that it leads to the demise of a company who otherwise could have kept a fair ammount of those same workers employed, perhaps re-hiring others when business is improving.
It also causes other problems: In the past I was a seafarer on cruiseships, and docking in for example new-york harbour would not happen until after 7Am, and be sure we'd be out of there (or at least cast of our lines) before 5PM, because the charges for the long shoremen services before and after those times were plain ridiculous (running in the tens of thousands....) . This meant that 1000's of tourists had to be back on board before sailing time earlier, who otherwise would have spent the money in NY perhaps having dinner or have more time to shop, boosting the local economy. Obviously we weren't allowed to ask for other help for docking / undocking, as the area was union controlled and no other was allowed to do this work. While protecting the interests of those longshoremen, and other harbour workers, it went just a step to far.
So there's two sides to the story , and probably also in this case.
Once again, I hope for a speedy recovery and rebuilding for everyone affected by Sandy, both material and personal.
On the union thing, I have mixed feelings about unions, from my (european?) perspective: unions are good in regards to protecting the interest of the workforce, but they often overstep their mark, protecting those same workers so fiercely, that it leads to the demise of a company who otherwise could have kept a fair ammount of those same workers employed, perhaps re-hiring others when business is improving.
It also causes other problems: In the past I was a seafarer on cruiseships, and docking in for example new-york harbour would not happen until after 7Am, and be sure we'd be out of there (or at least cast of our lines) before 5PM, because the charges for the long shoremen services before and after those times were plain ridiculous (running in the tens of thousands....) . This meant that 1000's of tourists had to be back on board before sailing time earlier, who otherwise would have spent the money in NY perhaps having dinner or have more time to shop, boosting the local economy. Obviously we weren't allowed to ask for other help for docking / undocking, as the area was union controlled and no other was allowed to do this work. While protecting the interests of those longshoremen, and other harbour workers, it went just a step to far.
So there's two sides to the story , and probably also in this case.
Once again, I hope for a speedy recovery and rebuilding for everyone affected by Sandy, both material and personal.
Be sure to visit my model railroad blog at <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.namrr.blogspot.com">http://www.namrr.blogspot.com</a><!-- m -->