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 kilcin wrote:
In the union I was a part of, we took care of our own. A good union builds up a war chest for those people that are living paycheck to paycheck so they don't suffer any major financial loss if they choose to stand with the union and strike. We're most likely striking so those people that are living paycheck to paycheck get better pay and benefits so they don't have to live that way and be able to build up a savings as well as provide opportunities to take personal finance classes.

My only personal experience with a union was in college. The job was part time, they could only hire part time employees and the union chose who got to go full time. After union dues and taxes my first 6 paychecks brought home about $30 each. It was okay as I was in college and living at home. The first night an older man came up to me and asked me what I thought about unions. I explained to him what I just typed above, and that I felt people should get paid by the work they do. He then told me his name was Rich, he was the union shop steward and if I ever needed anything from him I could go myself. Rich drove a car (a very expensive one), which was for by the union, and got to choose his own shifts. My work was noticed by the management (non-union) and they wanted me to go full time as I was extremely capable and fairly flexible around my school schedule. Rich black balled that and pushed a person who couldn't show up for their shifts. Guess who got the full time spot. Not me, but I had gotten a management job someplace else which paid far more.

I am not anti-union. But I have not seen unions work for the little guy. I wish them the best and really hope the safety concerns are dealt with. No one should work in an unsafe environment.

Patriarch wrote:
Strongly disagree: you are in a union to share in the collective benefits of their negotiating power, not let your fellows make all the sacrifices whilst you get to carry on working for "financial" reasons. You disagree strongly enough with the union to ignore a strike, leave the union and give up on the benefits it offers. Morally of course; no doubt legally it's very different.

I'm neither Spanish or in a union, but morally I won't buy Vallejo products (what tiny difference that makes) until this is resolved.

Being in a union doesn't mean you suspend rational thinking. As it happens, I haven't been in a union for over a decade because my particular one decided it would be a good idea to attempt to negotiate a massive pay rise right as the financial collapse was really starting to hit my particular sector, which directly led to redundancies across the sector a few years later. That said, you always have the choice to support union action or not while a part of the union. I may agree with the union on almost everything except the one specific reason they have chosen to strike. I'm entirely free to not join that strike. Unions are not monolithic entities and there are nuances to every situation.

Theophony wrote:
My only personal experience with a union was in college. The job was part time, they could only hire part time employees and the union chose who got to go full time. After union dues and taxes my first 6 paychecks brought home about $30 each. It was okay as I was in college and living at home. The first night an older man came up to me and asked me what I thought about unions. I explained to him what I just typed above, and that I felt people should get paid by the work they do. He then told me his name was Rich, he was the union shop steward and if I ever needed anything from him I could go myself. Rich drove a car (a very expensive one), which was for by the union, and got to choose his own shifts. My work was noticed by the management (non-union) and they wanted me to go full time as I was extremely capable and fairly flexible around my school schedule. Rich black balled that and pushed a person who couldn't show up for their shifts. Guess who got the full time spot. Not me, but I had gotten a management job someplace else which paid far more.

I am not anti-union. But I have not seen unions work for the little guy. I wish them the best and really hope the safety concerns are dealt with. No one should work in an unsafe environment.

This may be a US-specific thing. At least in the UK, unions don't have that sort of power on a day-to-day basis and don't really interfere with the general running of a business to that extent. In any given workplace the union representative will have very little authority to get involved at the level you're talking about.

 Theophony wrote:

 kilcin wrote:
In the union I was a part of, we took care of our own. A good union builds up a war chest for those people that are living paycheck to paycheck so they don't suffer any major financial loss if they choose to stand with the union and strike. We're most likely striking so those people that are living paycheck to paycheck get better pay and benefits so they don't have to live that way and be able to build up a savings as well as provide opportunities to take personal finance classes.

My only personal experience with a union was in college. The job was part time, they could only hire part time employees and the union chose who got to go full time. After union dues and taxes my first 6 paychecks brought home about $30 each. It was okay as I was in college and living at home. The first night an older man came up to me and asked me what I thought about unions. I explained to him what I just typed above, and that I felt people should get paid by the work they do. He then told me his name was Rich, he was the union shop steward and if I ever needed anything from him I could go myself. Rich drove a car (a very expensive one), which was for by the union, and got to choose his own shifts. My work was noticed by the management (non-union) and they wanted me to go full time as I was extremely capable and fairly flexible around my school schedule. Rich black balled that and pushed a person who couldn't show up for their shifts. Guess who got the full time spot. Not me, but I had gotten a management job someplace else which paid far more.

I am not anti-union. But I have not seen unions work for the little guy. I wish them the best and really hope the safety concerns are dealt with. No one should work in an unsafe environment.

I acknowledge not every one has had the same union experience as me and it sucks how you were treated. It's why I said "A good union" and not just "The union". My local branch had no union vehicles, the union steward worked his regular union job on top of the steward duties that they had and I've seen the union protect a member that was being railroaded by management (non-union) as well as give money to family of union members when a union member died unexpectedly. By the sounds of it, we worked in different industries, so that can explain the differences in our individual union experiences.

I am pro-union but know that not every union is good and some get too big and powerful to be a benefit anymore.

Slipspace wrote:

deano2099 wrote:

Maybe not legally, but morally you have that obligation if you join an organisation that employs strikes as part of its collective bargaining power. Otherwise the whole thing falls apart.

Not really. There are a multitude of reasons someone may not want to strike, from financial to ethical to simply not agreeing with the reason for the strike action. Anybody striking should respect those reasons. Each individual needs to make their own decision about whether to support strike action. The point of unions is organising people to try to create a critical mass and central point of organisation, not to force members to take actions they don't want to.

I mean, that's what a lot of the modern unions in the UK are like, especially the non-specific ones like Unison. But it's certainly not where the movement started. Where do you think the idea of picket lines came from? In terms of being something you couldn't cross?

It's also not really how a lot of the few remaining truly effective unions in the UK function (eg. the RMT)

The idea of a union is you have a democratic system for deciding what do to: including debate, voting and so on, but then you all abide by the result. Indeed, you might not agree with the reason for the strike action, but you strike anyway. Why? Because the next time you might agree with the strike action but some of your colleagues might not, and you want everyone else to support you. That's the notion of solidarity (upon which the union movement was founded).

I think it's also worth noting most unions seem to exist in areas that are either funded by the government, or effectively in terminal decline. I wouldn't be surprised if the end result of this is the plant in Spain closes and the company moves production elsewhere with cheaper labour.

Any updates? Their model air paints are pretty good, but I'm not buying from them while they deal with their labor issues.

https://www.polygon.com/tabletop-games/500869/acrylicos-vallejo-workers-win-agreement


Seems it's over.

Yay! My favorite green is safe!

Early days yet and it remains to be seen what the actual numbers are, because both the management and CGT will want to be presenting it as an unqualified victory, (I should know, I've been on my local's negotiating before) but initial impressions from that article seem like a decent package has been agreed.

This discussion in general has been really interesting to me, so I'd like to take a moment to thank everyone for sharing their perspectives. Despite having been in the UK for a few years some time ago and having a basic understanding of the breaking of organized labour there, it seems to have been internalized amongst workers in somewhat different ways than it has in the US.

Fingers crossed its a good result all round for the workers! We likely won't hear anything for a good while (esp as we've christmas round the corner)

happy to hear this. was worried this would mean shutting the factory down and making a new one elsewhere, but it sounds like they more or less got what they wanted

At first glance at least it looks like good news, even though some of those "wins" should have been mandatory fixes if Vallejo wanted to keep production, given that now the authorities have been alerted to them.

The rest seems like pretty good news, so I'm very glad to hear it

Well, its been about couple years since they released the new revised line and still no paint set deals to be seen in the UK.

Meaning I think Im done waiting to be honest.

Theres a couple of companies that seem to have picked up the torch AK with 200+ paints deals and also the more recent one Pro acryl with a growing steady range.

I mean if you want to lose decade long clients do what Vallejo did, redo all their range, create hype with influencers and then don't deliver the new range.

 NAVARRO wrote:
Well, its been about couple years since they released the new revised line and still no paint set deals to be seen in the UK.

You mean like this one?

https://www.hobbyworkshop.co.uk/av-vallejo-game-color-set-foundation-80-cols-case.html?srsltid=AfmBOopA0wtctCRGRF6294VBsLVhdwV7oVPp3auvayH6LxURVMGZGittoCg&gQT=1

 NAVARRO wrote:
Well, its been about couple years since they released the new revised line and still no paint set deals to be seen in the UK.

The new Game Color paints came out in 2022, while the new Model Color paints came out this year.

As for availability of the big paint sets, I can get both the Basic Model Color paint set and the Military Model Color paint set at my online retailer of choice.

thanks, Yeah both my main and biggest UK stores stores dont carry that and I also searched for those sets on all other retailers at salute at the time, and all with the same answer.

"You can only buy individual pots and not all pots are available at the same time" Because I even considered actually getting all the individual pots. 2 years later and the game colour first set still not there. ( I expect the more recent model colour to have same kind of delay)

Never used the Hobby workshop store before, is it a reliable one? I say that because I have seen old Vallejo box sets being sold as the new ones in the UK. Same with Old paint pots being sold as the new ones. Almost like some places updated the product thumbnails but thats it.

Thanks for links Ghaz but Im UK based.

Wayland does note on their paint sets that you might get the old set and they only hold one or two of those from my quick googling. I'd figure if there were reliable UK supply then a big retailer like them would have a good supply chain of modern paints.

#solidarity

Now for Amazon...

I've used them for stuff before with no issues, but would have to check if any of it was paint. I've found more the issue the other way (And that was over a year ago) when I was trying to find an old bottle of paint and places were selling new ones still claiming to be 17ml. (New ones are 18ml). I'd say a fair part of the blame is on the retailers themselves, if I went in person to shop at Entoyment in Bournemouth and they had a rack full of the new ones when Leviathan was released, retailers should have sorted out their respective shops by now...

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
#solidarity

Now for Amazon...

Also Starbucks, which is honestly more of a struggle for me due to my crippling coffee milkshake addiction.

 Overread wrote:
Wayland does note on their paint sets that you might get the old set and they only hold one or two of those from my quick googling. I'd figure if there were reliable UK supply then a big retailer like them would have a good supply chain of modern paints.

I don't know if they hold as much stock as you might think. I know they stick to 20% on GW more than Element, but Element often seems to have stock at 15% when Wayland are sold out. I figure there are too many compulsive buyers to account for small stock differences.

 Dawnbringer wrote:

 Overread wrote:
Wayland does note on their paint sets that you might get the old set and they only hold one or two of those from my quick googling. I'd figure if there were reliable UK supply then a big retailer like them would have a good supply chain of modern paints.

I don't know if they hold as much stock as you might think. I know they stick to 20% on GW more than Element, but Element often seems to have stock at 15% when Wayland are sold out. I figure there are too many compulsive buyers to account for small stock differences.

The thing is I don't expect Wayland to hold lots of stock on everything (in these days that would be nuts); but I would expect their stock on lines that sell/are popular to sell through fairly swiftly.
On their own it could just be their own sales, but if you glance at the rest of the market of other store also being in a similar position then it suggests there is a likely valid supply issue.

Laughing Man wrote:

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
#solidarity

Now for Amazon...

Also Starbucks, which is honestly more of a struggle for me due to my crippling coffee milkshake addiction.

I instantly cured any desire I might have had to purchase Starbucks coffee by looking at the price list.

I got my game colour set from Hobby Workshop a while ago with no issues. Was going to link it when it was first mentioned but checked and they didn't have any in stock!

From the Acrylicos Vallejo Facebook page:

New factory is a very encouraging development

This is great news. Their paint range and quality is too good to lose to the wargaming and model making community.

Good, hopefully, everyone's happy with the outcome

For the paint must flow!

Paints for the paint god, acrylics for the acrylic throne