ALTRAV,

I'm well and truly retired, I'll soon be 86 and the only work that I do these days is a bit of lathe work for myself, miniature steam engines and some general turning for friends now and again.
I also have a fairly complete blacksmith's forge and associated gear, my father was a 'smith and my eldest son has exhibited his blacksmithing skill internationally; he's a damn sight better than I ever was!

I spend a lot of time hunting foxes and cats (when I see one) and I target shoot as well, rifle and pistol once a month as well as occasional visits to the superb shotgun range at Inverell.

The production line that I put in on that occasion was for the manufacture of the lowly tin can.
Tin cans are however truly precision items, tolerances are tight and an ordinary can for, say, baked beans had to be within 0.002 inches of being square on the ends of the body before the tops were fitted (the tops often being of special design were fitted first) and the bottoms went on at the cannery when filling took place.

If the contents of a can are to last then the can has to be perfectly airtight hence the degree of precision the machines that produce the cans must be capable of and the often tedious but necessary setting up thereof.

Whilst on the subject but wildly off-topic, let us remember how the greedy trade unions closed so many Australian timber mills and cost many rural jobs.
Much of our building and general-purpose timbers are now imported thanks to this union action.

Or have I got that wrong?

I seem to remember some Green union or something...

Issy, that sounds about right if memory serves.
I don't retain a lot these days, but irrelevant and criminally insane people like the greens and the unions,..........well, that says it all.
They are both vandals, both ignorant of so much, and both care nothing for the people and their welfare, and both have self interests as their first priority.
So what you say would be correct.
One only has to take a quick look back, and see the trail of destruction these criminals have left in their wake.
What the unions didn't succeed in the way of industry and of course, jobs, the greens and other criminals like animal liberationists and other sick idiots, are trying to finish us off altogether, and make us reliant on the govt, which is being run by the elite, and we know what their agenda is all about.
This is serious and if Aussies want to live in a state of oppression and control, then carry on, but if you don't, like me, then stand up to these pricks, don't cave, give them back twice as hard as they dish out, until they get it through their thick stupid heads that their brand of tyranny and mayhem is not wanted.
Australia and more specifically Aussies have lost too much already, don't let these pricks take away mining and farming as well, it will leave us with nothing, NOTHING!
Let's hear from the greens and the unions and other random criminal sabotage groups, what their plans are to make Australia viable and productive again?

ALTRAV,

Not all unions were/are as black as you paint them.
The union to which I belonged and was a Rep for, The Australiasian Society of Engineers was moderate always and did their best to negotiate with employers to the extent that they were called "Scabs" by the more belligerent unions.

There are currently some 70 active unions in Australia and some 90 that have ceased to exist either through amalgamation, or the trades/jobs that they covered no longer exist.

" .... 90 that have ceased to exist either through amalgamation, or the trades/jobs that they covered no longer exist". And through irrelevance.

ttbn,

How impressively observant of you.

They are irrelevant because the trades/jobs that they covered no longer exist and they ceased to exist because of the advances of technology.

Have you found any reference to big firms inadvertently overpaying their workers?