It is time for America to get rid of Unions! They hurt our country and kill businesses! IMO ~~~TRagic Hostess situation!

[CDiablo]

I worked for HP for a little over 4 years and I would have killed for a union. I was a CE, a traveling tech that (originally)worked on a number of laptops/desktops doing(mostly) hardware repairs. When I was hired I was told that "there are no raises, just position changes and bonuses." They paid almost $15 an hour when I started had decent (about $70 a month) benefits which was fine for when I started since it was entry level. We had a staff of 15ish for the area, which was sometimes more than adequate. In my tenure there we went through 3 bosses, Mark Herd(5 years with the company; resigned for "inappropriate conduct"; $34.6 million severance package), Leo Apotheker(1 year with the company; dismissed by board for doing nothing and Hp dropping 42% share/$32 billion; $13.5 million severance) and most recently Meg Whitman(current).

After the first year all bonuses were cut. After about a year and a half with the company (6 months before Mark Hurds resignment)there was a mass email that said everyones pay would be cut across the board in order to "keep from cutting jobs". 6 months later the first person was let go from my team. Every year benefits were thinned and costs were raised. Every few months from there on someone got the axe. For every person axed responsibility was shifted to other CE's, but this did not count as a position change. We eventually shifted into an area where we regularly didnt have enough people to do the work/travel assigned. By the time I was let go in August we had 5 staff left and I was 1 of 2 let go for the month. My job had grown far outside of the original description, I had less benefits and was making less than what I was hired for(while cost of living has jumped quite a bit). Meanwhile A failed and a disgraced pair of CEO's walked away with an amount of money equal to 1600 years of my salary, in addition to their yearly 7 digit bonuses.

(tl;dr: Had a job with 15 other employees, people got fired, responsibility shifted, no raises not enough people to do work. Failure CEO's walk away with almost $50 million severance + salary when fired/quit)

I by no means feel unions are perfect but they are needed to prevent shit like this from happening.