Unions- Businesses Closing.

[The Bandit]

I see a famous Deli in Montreal is closing because they can't meet a Unions demand for a new contract.
Unions always think they can control anyone's business..until they decide to close down.

 

[Tower]

Is it Dunn's by chance? Or Schartz's?

 

[cancowboy2001]

Ben's

http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/story.html?id=6289ae02-ea7b-40eb-850d-ab64298e0fcf&k=42172
Ben's hasn't been Ben's for a while, but it's still hard to get used to the idea that the downtown delicatessen is gone for good.

Owner Jean Kravitz, 83, announced yesterday she was closing the restaurant, a Montreal institution for 98 years, because "we have come to the conclusion a single-outlet deli cannot thrive in the economic environment of a unionized payroll."

The restaurant's 22 unionized employees went on strike July 20.

...

The waiters, busboys and short-order cooks who walked off the job to support demands for improved working conditions say the announcement doesn't make any sense.

"The closing, for us, doesn't exist," Serge Pellerin, treasurer of the union local, told a news conference yesterday.

"They haven't given us a precise date. Until we get an official notification, we will be back on the picket line," added Pellerin, who has waited on tables at Ben's for 26 years.

"We want our jobs back. We want our restaurant back. We want Ben's back.

"We didn't lack for customers. We served celebrities, we served tourists, we served everyone. People wouldn't have kept coming back if the service or the food wasn't any good."

... more

 

[Berlin]

Ben's

http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/story.html?id=6289ae02-ea7b-40eb-850d-ab64298e0fcf&k=42172
Ben's hasn't been Ben's for a while, but it's still hard to get used to the idea that the downtown delicatessen is gone for good.

Man, that's too bad. I can still remember going there the first time in 1983, summer. Everything in there was so 50's.

 

[C Dick]

The unfortunate thing is that when a union forces a business under, it is beneficial to the union. It shows other companies they are worked on that they are serious, and would rather bankrupt a company than not get what they want. So the company and the workers lose, but the union wins, so they keep doing it. Their incentive to be reasonable is pretty small.

 

[james t kirk]

This one doesn't pass the smell test.

Sorry, I call BS on this one.

You know the old saying, there's always 2 sides to every story, well, here's the other side.....

Charles Mendoza, president of the union local, which is affiliated with the Confederation des syndicats nationaux, said the announced closing is nothing more than a ploy to break the union.

"We worked for the minimum wage before there was a union, and after," Mendoza said. "This isn't about wages. All we are asking for was a 40-cent-an-hour increase." Employees were earning $8 an hour, on average.

"Management never showed any responsibility to the employees or to customers," Mendoza added. "We went on strike because we had no other choice. We really wanted better working conditions.

"There was never money to fix the restaurant, to install air conditioning in summer or heat the place in winter. They didn't maintain the place. Equipment would break down, and they wouldn't repair it. They never wanted us to be unionized. They are out to break the union, not to close the restaurant."

 

[The Bandit]

Of course the Unions going to say that....

If any of you are wondering yes I've been on both sides of the fence...Union and Non-Union.

 

[DoingWhatIDoBest]

Ben's

http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/story.html?id=6289ae02-ea7b-40eb-850d-ab64298e0fcf&k=42172
Ben's hasn't been Ben's for a while, but it's still hard to get used to the idea that the downtown delicatessen is gone for good.

Owner Jean Kravitz, 83, announced yesterday she was closing the restaurant, a Montreal institution for 98 years, because "we have come to the conclusion a single-outlet deli cannot thrive in the economic environment of a unionized payroll."

The restaurant's 22 unionized employees went on strike July 20.

...

The waiters, busboys and short-order cooks who walked off the job to support demands for improved working conditions say the announcement doesn't make any sense.

"The closing, for us, doesn't exist," Serge Pellerin, treasurer of the union local, told a news conference yesterday.

"They haven't given us a precise date. Until we get an official notification, we will be back on the picket line," added Pellerin, who has waited on tables at Ben's for 26 years.

"We want our jobs back. We want our restaurant back. We want Ben's back.

"We didn't lack for customers. We served celebrities, we served tourists, we served everyone. People wouldn't have kept coming back if the service or the food wasn't any good."

... more

well if they wanted it so badly they should have just shut up and went to work. it's a deli for goodness sakes and not even a franchise one at that. Well who can feel sorry for them. Bullies didn't get their way in this situation.

 

[DoingWhatIDoBest]

This one doesn't pass the smell test.

Sorry, I call BS on this one.

You know the old saying, there's always 2 sides to every story, well, here's the other side.....

Charles Mendoza, president of the union local, which is affiliated with the Confederation des syndicats nationaux, said the announced closing is nothing more than a ploy to break the union.

"We worked for the minimum wage before there was a union, and after," Mendoza said. "This isn't about wages. All we are asking for was a 40-cent-an-hour increase." Employees were earning $8 an hour, on average.

"Management never showed any responsibility to the employees or to customers," Mendoza added. "We went on strike because we had no other choice. We really wanted better working conditions.

"There was never money to fix the restaurant, to install air conditioning in summer or heat the place in winter. They didn't maintain the place. Equipment would break down, and they wouldn't repair it. They never wanted us to be unionized. They are out to break the union, not to close the restaurant."

oh pass the tissues! we work for minimum wage! We don't have proper air conditioning or heat! Cry Cry!

See how sensitive I am being here? Is someone like myself going is to feel bad about this? Seriously? Their solution is to go on strike? Now they don't have that stupid minimum wage job that was never cool enough or warm enough for them. Geesh.

They think that's bad working conditions, they need to wake up!

 

[Gentle Ben]

Its not uncommon for food industry to make minimum wages, also not uncommon for small establishements to find it difficult to raise money for capital expenses such as heating & air conditioning repairs .
The union would ask for 40 cents this time, 75 cents next time and on & on It would never end until the owners werent making any money anyway.
If the heating & cooling was that deficient, there are means (labour board or whatever its called ) to step in and have the situation remedied.
I used to work for a small family run business in a management position, the workers became unionized, then to their suprise they found it odd that the management would no longer allow personal use of the comapny trucks for moving or picking up purchases from stores, all of a sudden coffee beaks were timed & at a given time, not just whenever the coffee truck came, and so on, suddenly the workers realized for the small gain they may make in wages, a lot of fringe benifets were taken away from them, they rescinded the union but things never got back to the way they were, for obvious resons
As they say, the grass always looks greener on the other side

Its too bad for everyone involved

 

[1HandInMyPocket]

You know the old saying, there's always 2 sides to every story, well, here's the other side.....

actually the saying goes there's 3 sides to every story, your side, their side, and the truth.

As for the 40 cent increase, I believe that a person should get a raise if they deserve it, not because they've been with a company for a year.

 

[Keebler Elf]

As for the 40 cent increase, I believe that a person should get a raise if they deserve it, not because they've been with a company for a year.

And what about cost of living? Hmm?

Inflation goes up 2-3% every year. No wage increase means you're losing money by staying with the company.

If you won't give your employees any wage increase at all, you get the union that you deserve. Which is exactly what sounds like has happened with this business. C'mon, a deli that's unionized?!? There's a reason behind that, and it ain't no demand for a 40 cent wage increase.

 

[rightsaidfredd]

I wouldnt jump to any conclusions about it being the union's fault for the restaurant closing just cuz the owners said so. That's their spin. Unions are like anything else...there are good ones and bad ones. Maybe DWIDB would like to see everybody in slave labour camps so they could more properly respect their corporate masters, but I appreciate the things that almost exclusively come with union gigs... job security, reasonable rate of pay ($8.00/hr in 2006?!?!?) and maybe even some benefits if you're lucky.

Unions are as evil or divine as any company can be.

 

[The Bandit]

The ONLY losers are the stooge employees put up to this by their union "borthers" at union hq... who STILL have their job.

What a priceless line...

I can tell you from experience the opposite happened to us when I worked for Consumers Distributing. The majority of workers wanted to go on strike...the union president said go ahead" I'll still make my $650 per week"(that was 1981). We went out on strike for 8 weeks, and our pay went from $6.57/hr to $8/hr. So it turned positive, but against the presidents wishes...so they're not always right.
In this case in Montreal it seems the workers were given bad advice.

 

[SPQR]

I can tell you from experience the opposite happened to us when I worked for Consumers Distributing. The majority of workers wanted to go on strike...the union president said go ahead" I'll still make my $650 per week"(that was 1981). We went out on strike for 8 weeks, and our pay went from $6.57/hr to $8/hr. So it turned positive, but against the presidents wishes...so they're not always right.
In this case in Montreal it seems the workers were given bad advice.

It's funny I was working for consumers at that time as well, in one of the warehouses and I remember our big thing was we never had toilet paper for the bathrooms, and the managers could never buy it because they didn't have a budget for it.

On the other side of the coin I work with unionized companies now, and unions have old and unflexible rules.

Unions have their place, but they need to be revamped.

 

[JohnLarue]

[B]

And what about cost of living? Hmm?

Inflation goes up 2-3% every year. No wage increase means you're losing money by staying with the company.[/B]

So quit and find better employment elsewhere
Unions served a purpose when they use to send kids down into the coal mines.
Since then they have
a) become the unwitting stooges for the mob (Teamsters)
b) destroyers of economic value

I have worked in both union & non-union shops. The difference was unbelievable
The union shop did not survive. All these union heads could not understand their demands made their employer uncompetitive and blamed their employer for shutting the place down.

The non union shop servived and flourished. The owner actually paid more than the competition via bonuses, however at his discretion.
He viewed it like this "I risked a lot of money to start this company & I need to get compensated for taking that risk. Do I want to pay my employees well? Of course I do, however I will shut the doors if a union was to form. I will not have anyone who did not take the same risk I did tell me how to run my business.

With low cost countries like China & India starting to produce more & more of the manufactured goods for the world, unions will go the way of the dodo bird

 

[shack]

Do the deli prices go up by 2-3% every year?

Food prices do go up which translates into higher tips.

 

[rightsaidfredd]

I have 3 jobs I bounce around between. 2 are union and 1 is nonunion. I'm very lucky cuz the nonunion gig is a very good one-employers treat employees with respect and the pay is fine. That is the exception. Aimless union bashing is as emptyheaded as blanket corporate bashing. If more companies treated their employees with respect as opposed to things in the way of the bottom line, unions would definitely be obsolete.

But thats not the case.

And please spare me about how unions run the company. The company runs the company. While it may be harder to get rid of bad apples, its still plenty easy enough if you do your work properly. Bad apples dont do anybody any good-union or company. But I've seen so many lame employees stay on because management were too lazy to do anything about it-then blame the union saying that they can't fire them. It's laughable.

And does anybody think cheap labor and lack of worker/human rights abroad is a good thing? This whole dump on the little guy mentality is really
mean spirited.

 

[Keebler Elf]

If more companies treated their employees with respect as opposed to things in the way of the bottom line, unions would definitely be obsolete.

Quoted for Truth.

 

[james t kirk]

I've always felt that unions have their place in representing workers for better wages, better working conditions, safer work places, etc.

I firmly believe that if "they" ever succeeded in banning unions, it would be a race to the bottom and it would be 1922 all over again.

Where unions fall flat is that they often get carried away in throwing their weight around, "that's not my job", "you need a union electrician to do that", etc.

Unions and management are really not that different, they each are self serving and constantly paint the other side to be the bad guy. As long as there is a tug of war, things are fine in my books.