What we'd do, instead, was worker-coordinated "slow downs" & two-hour lunches.

It's harder to "do nothing" than you might think. We'd make 10-manhour projects take 10 days. Ten grueling days of do-nothing, but we were physically there, present on our assigned job-sites. Eventually "the hall"-'ll listen, but it can sometimes take awhile...

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I don't have a better solution. I went "independent" with my own shingle, which has its own (different PITA) problems. Grass-is-greener.

Most HN readers would do better, blue collar, in a commercial environment (IMHO); residential is too knit-picky, individual homeowners too personally-invested. Union is a great way to start your blue collar adventure, getting paid to learn and fuck up (which you will).