Unions boycott Geauga Lake and Cedar Point

The Baptists supposedly boycotted Disney during much of the 90's but the company seems to have come out of it unscathed.

The steel mills are closed and the parks are open, for what it is worth.

Big X's over Geauga Lake tickets and events at my timeclock. Don't worry GL, these people come every year - I know for a fact I'll be there and all the other families will still go because they go once a summer. I hope this doesn't hurt the park because these Unions dropped a lot of money on these picnic days. Oh well, I don't like my Union anyway - let's boycott the unions!

It's really easy for adults to boycott something like this... it's a whole nother ballgame trying to explain to your children why they don't get to goto the park and have a good time this year.

Man, Cedar Fair can't seem to do anything right with Geauga Lake.

If they want to come next year charge them double. This is one of thoses things that is so stupid about unions. That and the fact that most of the piss away the money that they get in dues on various candidates without asking their members who to support. Glad I am no longer in a union.

Eventually, every job in America is going to end up at Wal Mart level if corporations keep reducing wages and benefits while management carries home huge salaries and bonuses.

Unions serve a purpose to keep that balance.

If Cedar Fair wants to use non-union labor, they shouldn't expect union-generated profits at their gates. Its a 2 way street.

I do not belong to a union, but fully understand their purpose and will support these unions by not spending a dime at Cedar Fair properites this year.*** This post was edited by super7* 6/13/2005 1:17:08 PM ***

How DARE Cedar Fair want to have their stuff built cheaper, faster, and better.

The nerve of them!

Wah, cry me a river, union is mad that they weren't first on the list, so what. I bet those non-union guys are happy they chose them over the union. And in my experience, union always charges out the ass, and they piss around on the job. At least thats how it was when I was in one.

So props to CF for saving money and getting harder workers. You unions have more work out there than just GL's WWK so quit crying. I'm sure your kids will fully understand why they can't go have fun because daddy wants to piss and moan about non-union guys getting first dibs.

Ok, perhaps a line has been crossed now.

Cedar Fair had a similar problem before with Ghostrider. They used non-union workes to build the ride.

Unions served an important purpose when there were no labor laws to protect workers. Those days have long since passed, and now unions serve mostly to get their members more money than the required skillset deserves. When a guy in an auto plant can make $25 an hour putting the same bolt on a car over and over again with a day's worth of training, clearly there's a problem in the value of said labor. Granted, that may not be a fair comparison for this story (I generally feel that carpenters, plumbers, etc., are very highly skilled workers), but you get the idea. The idea that there is a union that teenagers have to join for a job that requires putting boxes on a shelf is absurd to me.

I wish i had plans to go top GL this year to spite the unions.

The union workforce is a ever smaller part of the american workforce and idiotic decisions like this others they have made is why the number of uniuon workers goes down as does there influence.

Yes Jeff, I am one that pays money for them to allow me to put things in bags and put boxes on shelves. It's a pain in the neck, because what the Union does is encourages teenagers to slack off. You have to get written up 3 times before you can be fired in my Union... for the same violation. So I could show up without my shirt and tie on 2 times and not get in trouble at all because I would have my "lawyer" ... aka Union representative on my side defending me. It's all a big scam now. I say that non-union companies rebel against unions because of how they scam money out of teenagers. I could go on for a while with how frustrated I am with my union...

I do have to agree that unions are fairly worthless this day and age. They did have their purpose before the labor laws, but now they mostly exist to let workers be lazy. My dad worked as a plant supervisor for 21 years, and did the work of 6 men. The people he was in charge of simply refused to do any work, and since they were union, he wasn't allowed to disapline them in any way. Also for what it's worth, around here the Wal-Mart pays it's workers significantly better than it's unionized equivilants.

Now back into lurker mode.....

FWIW....not necessarily related to GL/CP, but to unionization.

Some employees at a Canadian Wal-Mart decided to unionize. Corporate HQ then decided that THAT store (out of their *thousands* of stores) needed to be closed ASAP.

I used to belong to AFSCME here at UF, then our governor thought he could save money by busting up the union...worked here, I am now an employee of UF, no longer do my paychecks come from the State of FL. If I had been in a power position at AFSCME, the lawsuits would have been PLENTIFUL, since the *enticements* offered to employees to leave the union were, well, VERY likely in violation of Federal laws designed to protect workers' unions....

My feeling is that wherever workers are fired/laid off because of the need to cut expenses, that NO ONE in the company should get a bonus of *million$* of dollars for terminating said employees...

We hear the same around here in PA whenever there's some kind of construction project going on. The unions claim their members are better tradesmen. Personally, I fail to see how paying union dues automatically makes one a better carpenter, pipefitter, or whatever than someone who doesn't. It's not like the union buys them their tools, or educates them in their trade.

Both my parents belonged to unions (UMW and ILGWU), and if they both took their monthly pension checks to just about any park, I don't think they'd have enough to buy two admissions. That's how much their leadership cared about them.

I agree gator, that no CEO should be given a bonus for cutting expenses by eliminating employees. But I also say that Wal-mart or any company is within its rights to close any of its stores for whatever reason. Why didn't the union take over the store and open its own business there? They could have hired as many union employees as they wanted. And they're all experts in running a business.

When it came down to it, for years now, auto workers were buying imported clothes and shoes because they were cheaper, garment workers bought Japanese cars, etc., etc. Brotherhood went out the window when it came to one own's wallet.

This reminds me of my one friend who's very pro-union. Funny thing is she drives a Nissan, who is notorious for being non-union here in the states. Her husband has never owned an American made car for as long as I know him. Talk is cheap.

"Talk is cheap..."

...so is non-union labor.

I prefer the wages including Overtime, Benefits, and Protections that I receive negotiated by my union.

I guess thats why people still organize.

member IATSE & IBEW and a college graduate too.

Ironic post of the week...from Uniontown, OH

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let's boycott the unions!

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Seriously... it couldn't be more ironic unless his house caught on fire and Northern Ohio Fire Fighters piled out of their engine with their arms folded. "Screw US, huh?"

-CO

RGB, we are talking about skilled construction unions, not Teamsters or your local grocery store workers. Union electricians have to go through a 4 year apprenticeship with a portion of that being schoolwork. Many of the programs give you college credits to a degree. We also take journeyman upgrade classes to keep up with new technology and codes. So yes, the unions do educate their members.

The thing that I find funny about this is that CF filed an unfair labor practice for the cancelling of picnics. That has nothing to do with labor.

And for the labor laws, they are disappearing very quickly. The unions have to fight just to maintain what they can.

Frank, IBEW #697, thinks they should have their picnics at Conneaut or Kennywood instead.