Roughly 2-2500 take home pay a month. Realistically that boat doesn't float in today's way of wage earning. Poverty wages at best. And people wonder why they all crowd into one house for living reasons to save on the bills...
The MAJORITY of businesses in the United States are Non-Union. There is more waste in a union shop than ever in a non-union.
3 watch 1 works...that's what I recall. A man with 20 more credentials than another doesn't even get wage benefit for his ability to multi-task, create a personal wealth? Once you hit a scheduled point in those shops, eeeeeeeeeeverybody makes the same and some pull their weight, others do the bare minimum which makes it difficult to work at achieving a positive work attitude when somebody next to you is making the same, but brings home more because he's got 3 more kids than you.
Remember, it's the water down theory in a union; keeps you learning new stuff all the time, putting you in different scenarios or "unknown" territories because this keeps you from getting an edge. Most times you can't do what you want to do.....you're put where they need you.
Wanna work and can't travel? You can be screwed quite quickly with that attitude. Now you're imposing stipulations to the place that employs you.
When you're in the union, you have blinders on and can't see outside of that focus. I was there, numerous times and didn't like to listen to others, complaining about why they are NOT in the union anymore.
I saw a guy that was a top dog foreman that was making $2 more than anyone else for being a supervisor, could handle the most difficult tasks (from the ground up on hospitals) and had a slight heart attack in the results of stress) and had to remove himself from the position.
They was so pissed at this guy that they refused to employ him, had him sit on the bench indefinitely. He wanted a less stress job and they wanted all or nothing.
Starved him right out of the union by doing skip-overs on the bench. Guy had a family of 5 and was a great worker until luck ran out.
Some of the best non-union companies prove that another intermediate association is not required to produce a comfortable and reliable reputation both in staffing and end product reliability.
Toyota