Union for F1 workers?

[Richard]

Just the other week I was discussing with a colleague that a week off isn't an effective holiday. You need a week to unwind and catch up on sleep, then the second week to actually enjoy the holiday!

[strad]

Just the other week I was discussing with a colleague that a week off isn't an effective holiday. You need a week to unwind and catch up on sleep, then the second week to actually enjoy the holiday!

Fer sure

[Lurk]

Hi JT - In our experience US engineers are paid more than UK. It makes it very hard with transferring staff between the US and UK. A US engineer on secondment from NY to London might be paid more than his line manager in London.

Are you talking about income before or after taxes?

I'm not sure how it is in the UK, but I'm pretty sure taxes on work are much higher in Belgium, France, Germany, ... than in the USA (due to various reasons, including health insurance and stuff like that).

Yep, in France an employee get at most half of what the company initialy paid, bonus excepted. e.g. last month I got 2300€ + 400€ bonus. My employer had to pay a total of 4900€ : 2300€ for my salary + 400€ of bonus + 2200€ for taxes.

But against that: free health care (even it is worst than before and you need a complementary health care, which is often freely provided by your company), you get something like 75% of your salary if you become unemployed, at least 25 days holiday, 35 or 39 working hours a week, 16 weeks (paid) maternity leave, etc...

Of course if you are manager or engineer, you don't really count your hours and just does the job, no matter how long it takes. For exemple my brother often works 45-50 hours (up to 70 when we was on a race team) a week and is paid 39.

[conni]

last year a HRT engineer fell asleep whilst walking down the stairs at a race as he hadnt slept for 72 hours

By the way, I thought mechanic hours were limited at race weekends for this very reason?

they are now because of this incident

conni

[conni]

welcome to racing.

Do you really think that if the car is not running these guys are just going to go back to there hotel room after 8hr? With the waiting list of people who would kill to be on an F1 team I doubt a union would last to long.

THANKS FOR THE WELCOME but you are 20 years too late

I know that most of you on here are here because you are fans of F1 but a few of us are actually in it and although its great watching my car on a sunday im not sure its worth the effort anymore

my day is get up at 4am start work at 6am get home at 8.30pm shower bite to eat and straight to bed but never straight to sleep as im always thinking about tomorow i class 5 hours sleep as a good night and all this for a salary based on 40hrs

DONT get me wrong i love my job i really do but id like to have some time for myself and my family but the resource restrictions are making it worse as there is still the same amount of work to be done but less people to share the burden with so the days just get longer and longer

conni

[flynfrog]

welcome to racing.

Do you really think that if the car is not running these guys are just going to go back to there hotel room after 8hr? With the waiting list of people who would kill to be on an F1 team I doubt a union would last to long.

THANKS FOR THE WELCOME but you are 20 years too late

I know that most of you on here are here because you are fans of F1 but a few of us are actually in it and although its great watching my car on a sunday im not sure its worth the effort anymore

my day is get up at 4am start work at 6am get home at 8.30pm shower bite to eat and straight to bed but never straight to sleep as im always thinking about tomorow i class 5 hours sleep as a good night and all this for a salary based on 40hrs

DONT get me wrong i love my job i really do but id like to have some time for myself and my family but the resource restrictions are making it worse as there is still the same amount of work to be done but less people to share the burden with so the days just get longer and longer

conni

so quit no one is holding a gun to your head making you work there.

[Pierce89]

Anyone stupid enough to still believe in unions is way too dumb to be currently employed in a position of responsibility with any 21st-century F1 team.

So with nothing more than the gleaming power of pure logic, we see your question promptly answers itself.

+1 unions these days serve the interests of their executives and exploit the lower people as much as any other corporation these days( google Richard Trumka)

[Pierce89]

feynman - I'm not sure where you are located, but unions have a valid role to play to ensure people are fairly treated.

And that's exactly the groundless assertion contained in the original post that should be challenged.

This whole union malarkey is nothing more than the noisy exhaust gas from the real engine of progress: modern, post-enlightenment, industrial-age prosperity.
That prosperity, the creation of a brand-new middle-class, the skilled taskwork that creates massive surplus wealth in free markets, all conspired to provide the fiscal and psychological elbow-room, the necessary climate for late 19th century western societies to facilitate improved working conditions.
Having unions trying to horn in and take credit for something they were only impotent witness to, and sometimes opponents of, is unsightly.


It makes little sense to suggest that brutal working environments or child-labour or all the rest of the exploitations were somehow considered acceptable or desirable in any of the centuries prior to the 19th. Apparently in all that time, from pyramid building till steam engine, the penny never dropped, no-one thought to simply form a union and bring about modern working conditions.
Contemporary sub-Saharan African doesn't need more unions, it needs more prosperity, which powers social mobility, fairness, equality and liberty.


F1 engineers and mechanics have highly salable skills on the open market, highly regarded knowledge and easily transferable behaviours.
As self-actualised individuals at or near the pinnacle of their chosen career, self-motivated and independent, they have all they require to make their own decisions, their own career choices, for themselves, and posses the ability to communicate any dissatisfaction to their respective employers in a constructive fashion.
If the F1 lifestyle becomes too arduous, they can freely decide what remedy to take. If teams even begin to sense a potential risk of losing valued staff, working conditions will self-correct exactly as required.
None of this requires some ludicrously re-animated collectivist cloth-capped bollocks from the 1970s. "Everybody out!"

wow +1 again. I love to see someone kick political correctness squarely in the balls.

[bhall]

It's not just political correctness he's kicking squarely in the balls. He's giving a pretty decent beating to both logic and reason.

I don't intend to cast any aspersions on the author of the post, but I have a hard time putting stock in the thoughts of someone who believes that working conditions would "self-correct" in response to employee unrest, especially in F1. That's nothing but naive.

For every engineer, mechanic, janitor, etc., employed by an F1 team, there are likely dozens of qualified candidates who would eagerly take his/her place should the opportunity arise, no matter the circumstances. I think any employee, save for the known "stars" of their fields, would find himself reminded of that fact upon voicing strong concerns about working conditions.

Unions give a voice to those who would otherwise be voiceless.

I think F1, in particular, owes maybe more than a little gratitude to unions. After all, it was unions who fought for, and won, that little perk we call the weekend.

[beelsebob]

It's not just political correctness he's kicking squarely in the balls. He's giving a pretty decent beating to both logic and reason.

I don't intend to cast any aspersions on the author of the post, but I have a hard time putting stock in the thoughts of someone who believes that working conditions would "self-correct" in response to employee unrest, especially in F1. That's nothing but naive.

For every engineer, mechanic, janitor, etc., employed by an F1 team, there are likely dozens of qualified candidates who would eagerly take his/her place should the opportunity arise, no matter the circumstances. I think any employee, save for the known "stars" of their fields, would find himself reminded of that fact upon voicing strong concerns about working conditions.

Which is exactly why a union wouldn't do anything – because there's always going to be a large enough supply of workers who are willing to work outside the union.

Unions give a voice to those who would otherwise be voiceless.

Iff there's a shortage of non-unionised workforce.

I think F1, in particular, owes maybe more than a little gratitude to unions. After all, it was unions who fought for, and won, that little perk we call the weekend.

And yet the engineers still have to work them... Evil bastard F1 teams!

[bhall]

I have no idea if or how this correlates with the practices of other nations, but here in the States, if a union shop hires "scabs," management will quickly find themselves answering to the National Labor Relations Board and potentially liable for considerable compensatory and punitive damages to the union.

Every system must have checks and balances. Unions balance management.

And my little jab about weekends was mostly tongue-in-cheek. That said, I think it would be very difficult to stage a grand prix if no one could watch or attend because everyone had to work.

[strad]

I have a hard time putting stock in the thoughts of someone who believes that working conditions would "self-correct" in response to employee unrest, especially in F1. That's nothing but naive.

[victorsaver]

I wonder if the mechanics are union members their usual engineering? However, do not receive much benefit because the unions are very focused on employers who cut corners threatening conditions of workers. In F1, which is in the interests of the owners do not cut corners as errors and result in lower quality.

[Jersey Tom]

I have no love for unions.

[Richard]

if a union shop hires "scabs," management will quickly find themselves answering to the National Labor Relations Board and potentially liable for considerable compensatory and punitive damages to the union.

I think that is illegal in the UK.

Yes, as far as I can gather from my US colleagues, the unions in the US are like something from a bygone age to UK eyes.

We had a project with unusual composite steel and concrete columns. In Europe, the steel worker erects a steel tube, the concrete worker fills it with concrete. You'd have thought that easy wouldn't you?

We used the same detail on 2 projects in the US, both jobs stopped for a few days. The steel and concrete unions were arguing if was a steel column or a concrete column. In their eyes the two couldn't mix. It had to be one or the other.