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[USIC1]

It would only work if all locating companies were union. If there were some that were not they would have an unfair advantage come bid time!

The consolidation is already occuring BUT NOT BENEFITTING those at the locator level...

All the more reason to avoid a wally-locating-world (lowest locate prices offset by greater volume)...You see how there labor fairs...

Only difference, who cares about a drone labor force at a wallys where the turnover is through the roof...

In locating to great an attrition brought on by nickel and diming would create BIG NEGATIVE ISSUES!!!

Nevertheless I believe our industry will consolidate in tandem with the utility companys, we will also be squeezed as the wally framework evolves...

Ill only have to worry about it 20 more yrs at most so who cares anyway...

[headcipher]

Maybe the unions work better where you guys are, but here all I see is unions screwing over people.

My Dad, in the carpenters union. My brother in the airlines. My buddy in the sheetmetal union. Another friend in the electrical union. Another friend in the drywallers union. My wife with the supermarkets. Half of the people I knew in Pueblo who worked for the steel mill.

In fact I know only a handfull of people who've had a union that did them any good. The IBEW is the only union I've ever seen really benefit anyone in my experience. That happened only when someone had been in the union for more than 5 years.

I've had union reps aproach me, did they have anything to offer me? No. Only dues and the possibility of missing work.

If organizing would force more locates in house, that would be the best benefit that I could see.

Seniority does not always equal either quality or ability. It does however at times make union workers look just like some city crews: lazy, inefficient and wastefull.

Perhaps the unions are different where all of you are, but that has been the experience of me, my family and many of my friends and aquaintances.

If someone out there can send me a benefits package that trumps my non-union one, I'm willing to consider that I'm wrong.