has anybody ever been on "strike" before?

[RaginRabbi]

Never been in a Union, but have a bit of experience around guys who are.
I went strait from the Military to being an HVAC controls tech/engineer in a non-union company. We subcontract all our install work to union electrical shops, though. I have gotten the odd look and the "are you guys union?" question at more than a few construction sites while walking around with a tweaker (small tech screwdiver) and a multimeter. I've gotten pretty good at having an explanation after I tell them no. I've gotten a few speeches and one time someone started complaining but that usually goes away when it tell them I'm an engineer doing startup and not install work. Then I pull out my laptop and plug into the controllers to load programming and they usually leave me alone. I have heard stroies about other companies workers walking off a site because our company was not union.
The one time a guy started complaining, it was an electrican for the High Voltage (Div 16) electrical contractor and he started complaining to his foreman, not realizing that our company had subcontacted (hired out) our install work to the low voltage division of the same electrical contractor company. The shut-the-hell-up look the guy got from the foreman was priceless.