Posted by Marty on Friday, February 21, 2003 at 1:10PM :
In Reply to: Re: Bad Day at the Office Today.... posted by Todd Wilson on Friday, February 21, 2003 at 12:17PM :
The Grove suffered only minor damage to the boom. Batteries are toast & a few minor things, but after we got it upright & looked after a few details, we jumped the batteries & started it up. It seemed to run & operate fine. We couldn't truck it out for inspection until we got the boom retracted & the one outrigger up.
I guess they ex-ray all the welds in the boom before it can go back to work. As you can imagine, there was a huge impact on the boom & turn-table when it came to rest. I'd be very surprised if there wasn't damage to something in there.
Crane operator #1 is still here & operating our other crane as we speak. Union Shipyard...you know how that goes....warning letters, suspensions, progressive discipline etc before any termination. Last time we did that we ended up paying the guy a $90,000 settlement. Very difficult to fire someone here. It's a very unfair system when you think about it. Most hard workers have way too much pride to even want to continue working for someone that doesn't appreciate their services. It's the lazy bastards that the unions help & breed.
Unions have been an important part of the past 50 or so years, but unfortunately they've gone too far the wrong direction as of late. I'm really just not sure how USA & Canada are going to compete in a Global market with free trade & all.
That's my management rant for the day!