Do you enjoy weekends off?

Yep absolutely but I want to retain the right to work & earn over the
weekend if I choose.

You missed the point by a mile: How about the right *not* to work on the
weekends if you don't care to? How about getting paid extra per hour when your
employer insists that you work more hours during a week than he or she told you
the job schedule involved when you were hired on?

It's about control so "I"have to conform to "their"
wishes I mean they're about stopping any competition in any manner.

At first I thought you must have speaking about your employer. :-)

Is competition good? Most of us think so.
Collective bargaining allows a wage earner to compete with his employer's
claims to the fruits of his or her labor. When you do an hour's work, some
portion of the wealth you produce is set aside for you, and the rest belongs to
your employer. Naturally, you and your employer both want the larger portion.
Dividing the fruits of you labor is what bargaining with an employer is all
about.

Paid vacation?

Yep absolutely but I want to retain the right to work & earn over them
if I choose. It's about control see above.

Whoosh! The point flies overhead again.
You think anybody got a paid vacation before workers organized and bargained
for it? The very *choice* that you're looking for is only available because you
get a vacation in the first place. And it should be your choice, not your
employers. Imagine the hearing the following conversation:

"Oh, by the way, Smith, we'll need you to come in three hours early next
Monday."

"Monday? Mr. Smith and I are leaving for Hawaii on Friday night! It's my annual
vacation! It's been on the schedule for six months or more!"

"Sorry, Smith. We pay you to produce widgets, not sit on the beach in Hawaii.
Looks like you'll have to cancel the vacation, or if you prefer I'll just hire
somebody else to take your job."

When an employer has *all* the horsepower in a relationship, it's not possible
to negotiate anything.

Health insurance?

Yep absolutely but I want to retain the right to take care of my own if

I choose & be paid the gross amount I'm entitled to.

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh! You sincerely believe that if an employer wasn't
required to fund health insurance for his or her employees that the employer
would pass all of the corresponding savings on to the employees? "Let's see
here- cancelling the company health insurance improved the company bottom line
$275k per year.
What shall I do with that? Invest it in offshore oil drilling futures and hope
for a 90% return, or pass it along to the line workers? Hmmm. Such a dilemna
for most folks!"

I don't need
somebody else making decisions about how or where I spend the money I've
earnt, honestly are you so simple you do???

??? I'm self employed, and don't belong to a union. As far as being simple and
needing decisions made for me....my wife seems to think that'w her role a lot
of times. :-)

Reasonable access to address on-the-job grievances or some avenue of appeal
for

unfair personnel decisions by your employer?

No not really, lots of potential "employers" are funny people so they
don't employ these days because they can't run their business the way
they want to. So sorry if they can hire they can fire, if you don't want
to work there fine ..... don't.

So, two weeks before you've earned your pension (oops, sorry- no union job
probably no pension either) the boss' 21 year old son who gets to play
"manager" in Daddy's plant calls you into his office and says your work is no
longer acceptable. He's hired another person to do your job.
(The other person works for several dollars per hour less, and isn't about to
cost the company big $$$ by becoming fully vested in the retirement fund)
"Smith, I'm really sorry, but since we hired you we have the right to fire you,
and I'm afraid we'll have to let you go."

Since the boss's son represents the employer, whatever he says has to go,
right?

..............(from this point on, most of Karen's post centers around her feud
with Harry. Won't bother to respond).......