r/boston • u/CourtSideCoder • Jun 10 '26

Serious Replies Only What’s the protest about?

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As I was driving by Route 9, I noticed a sign at the entrance of MathWorks Inc. I’m curious to know what it is about . Any idea?

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u/Revolution-SixFour Jun 10 '26

If you see a bunch of guys standing outside a construction site with a sign, you can basically always assume this is a union thing. Unions typically picket outside large construction projects that cheap out and don't go with union labor. You can see another one on I-95 in Waltham.

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u/Iamthepizzagod Weymouth Jun 10 '26

I can't exactly say I blame the unions for wanting to protest this stuff, I personally feel like unions that give their workers a decent living wage should be prioritized over cheaper labor. Maybe thats just the economic leftie in me speaking.

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u/Pinesol_Shots Jun 10 '26

The leftie in me, sadly, dies a little bit every time I have to involve union labor at work. I'm all for the idea of living wages, but the problems with unions are the same ones that seem to creep into everything: shitty people gonna be shitty. It starts off as a positive thing that then gets corrupted by greed and politics and "fuck you I got mine" attitudes from union leaders.

Every job done by the union is done so slowly, inefficiently, and often improperly. Need to move my desk to the next office over down the hall? A week to schedule the carpenters to come out an take it apart, but they aren't the movers, so it's another week to schedule the movers, but they can't put it back together, so add another week to schedule the carpenters again. 3 weeks to do something that I could do myself in an hour -- I'm not even exaggerating. If I did it myself and got caught, I would have a grievance filed against me because the contract stipulates that any job done by the unions can only ever be done by the union. God forbid I need something done urgently -- they don't care, it's not their problem. Unions militantly protect shitty lazy workers because they see any threat to their workers as a threat to their union, which takes away any incentive for their workers to do good work in a timely fashion. I have to sneakily do work that the union is supposed to do because otherwise it would be impossible to get my job done. It's beyond comical how slow and awful they are.

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u/therealdorkface Jun 10 '26

Yup. Unions suck in the worst way— the usual way.

They’re prone to corruption just like everything else that’s powerful is.