That is pretty universal across the entire industry, has been since really the advent of OSHA and the implementation of federal safety statues and standards.txags92 said:Absolutely anti-union. I had to work with those mother f ers in Michigan for almost 2 years, and you couldn't pay me to hire a union crew. My comments about contractors relative to DuPont wasn't to insinuate that contractors are somehow bad to have on the plant. It is just that for DuPont, contractors were a way to 1) reduced "fixed costs" by transitioning work to a contractor who is considered a "flexible cost", even though the contractor is there doing the same job for the same number of hours as the employee was and the plant can't be safely operated without them; and 2) a way for them to put the risky jobs outside of the "employee" pool to lower the chance that they won't get their safety incentive bonus.nonameag99 said:
not sure if you are ********** (**********=pro union) or non union
It mostly started due to labor and pension costs if you want to be honest about it. Why pay a company man $20 an hour plus insurance plus burden plus pension - which comes out to $40 an hour, when you can pay a contractor a negotiated rate of $25 or $30 an hour? The other "benefit" is that contractors are expendable - they have a poor safety performance, they get booted from the plant. Insurance rates are adjusted to reflect the Owner pushing safety and having good EMR's on internal personnel and contract personnel.
I grew up in the LJ/Freeport area - Dow was the king employer there for years. I can remember when almost everybody was a Dow employee - electricians, welders, operators, engineers, etc. - all took home Dow paychecks and the perks that went with it. Back in the 80's when the economy really started flattening out and going the wrong direction, the accountants pushed a lot of the lower level roles onto contractors and took them off the Dow payroll, it's been that way since then. Most plants now even farm out a lot of their technical or engineering and don't have nearly the number of in-house unit or block management. More and more it is being pushed to contracting because it saves cost - and helps on the safety front like you said.
