How can I convince a bunch of brainwashed conservative anti-woke pro-trump blue collar rednecks who operate and maintain my combined cycle power plant that unions aren’t just bullshit where you’re not allowed to get anything done and you wind up making less money due to union dues and with no new benefits to show for it? We already make good money and have good benefits and mostly have it pretty easy, but we lack support in terms of training and managers and coverage personnel. I don’t think they’re aware that it could be a lot better. I for one am not a fan of frequently rotating 12 hour shift work in addition to the hour commute each way, and that commute length is par for the course because of the cost of living any closer to the plant. They don’t want a union because they “already know that a union is a scam” and will tune out if I try to explain that some unions are really great, some are meh, but there is a propaganda campaign run by companies that stand to lose a lot from unions winning good contracts for their labor force, and that propaganda exists to convince people like them to cede power to these companies.
I’ve tried to explain lots of progressive and innovative ideas, but they’re stuck in chasing how great shit was in the 80s and 90s. They don’t even want to learn how to use a computer, despite some of these guys literally sitting in front of computers for those entire aforementioned 12 hour shifts. I’ve even automated populating in a solid chunk of our shift reports, and they just whine that I changed it. But it takes two mouse clicks.
There so goddamn frustrating.