I'm probably way out of line here. I have not been a member of these boards very long and probably haven't earned enough whiskers to be starting a new thread. But I have read many different threads and have noticed a couple of things.

Over in the non-union forums, a lot of posters are absolutely horrified of having their identities revealed for fear of losing their jobs. They come home from another lousy day on the job with a lot of pent up frustration because they have no way to let off some steam at work. They cannot complain to their boss for fear of reprisal, and they are afraid to say anything to their fellow workers because they don't know who might rat them out. Fortunately they have these boards as a place to vent. But they have to be very careful not to be discovered. There are a lot of spies and deceivers over there trying to flush out the malcontents.

Conversely over here in the union forums, members are ripping the union and their respective companies constantly. At first it was really starting to piss me off, then I realized I was wrong, I was looking at the picture wrong. This is good. Because union members have FREEDOM, freedom to complain all they want with no fear of reprisal. And there are many different reasons for the negativity over here. As stldude44 has pointed out in other threads, some people love to be miserable. And these people never will rise up to your level, they always want to drag you down to theirs. Then there are other people over here who are just trying to stir up controversy whenever they can, you know, divide and conquer. I've noticed that some of the worst b***hers are very secretive about their identities. I wonder why that is? But for the most part, I think these union posters are just trying to make things better.

My only concern is that I fear some of the non-union members who come over here misinterpret the complaining like I did. They come over here looking for some help and they leave thinking things are no better at the union companies than at theirs. But in the end, I know it is, because we don't live in fear of losing our jobs every time we make the smallest mistake or saying what is on our mind.