Head Banger, It's sad to hear what happened. I can and will speak only of my experiences. I am close to the end of my 3 year term, and it's the first time I've held a union position. Aside from that, I have been a union member for a total of 12 years. I, like yourself, have witnessed injustices in the workplace such as the one you wrote about. To me, the union's credibility lies with the elected representatives, who's job it is to protect the innocent victims. If you have officers who lack moral conviction and a sense of responsibility and obligation to the workers they represent, then they are the worst types of people there are. I run an honest union. I make no excuses for the violators of workplace conduct. If they (and a few have tried) want to file a DFR (Duty to Fair Representation) charge, so be it. That is not why I do this job or take my responsibilities lightly. It's hard enough having to deal with bad management without dealing with situations like we're discussing here. It is my responsibility, as the Chairman, to co-ordinate the Committee persons (grievers/stewards) and collectively we decide whether to file grievances or not. In the case in your workplace, that injustice had to be a co-ordinated effort by the entire board, and they should have ALL been held accountable, that is why you attend union meetings. The collective group of all the workers is the union, not the elected officers, we are subject to the workforce, that is who we, as officers, answer to. Something like that has not happened in my workplace under my watch, and it never will!!! Hold your officers accountable!!!
[Show/Hide Quoted Message] (Quoting Message by Head banger from Tuesday, September 30, 2008 8:29:15 AM)| |  | Head banger wrote: | | sorry, I am late with a reply, got busy and forgot. anyway, if the union was only ever protecting the ones discriminated against, fine and well, but if a union employee harasses a union employee, the company fires the harasser, the union defends them, attacking their own member who was harassed. happened at my work, and the girl who was harassed ended up quiting, and spending some time in treatment, because of the way her union defended her attacker.
| | | ronhartsell wrote: | | If there were no bias or clicks or favorites or discrimination or sexual harassment or many, many other things that go on in the workplace then no, there wouldn't be a need. BUT THERE IS!!! Always have been, always will be. If you can put an end to all of that and leave it only up to an individuals' production, then there wouldn't be a need for protection. How many women have been fired for filing a sexual harassment charge? Or even worse, how many women don't file a charge out of fear of being terminated (or worse)?
| | | Head banger wrote: | | if your a good worker, why do you need protection? who would fire a good worker?
| | | ronhartsell wrote: | | Not true. In the Right to Work states, as the one I live in, employers do not even have to have a reason to terminate an employee. So, no, the worker does not have the right to say what he/she wants, there is no standing up for yourself without the risk of being terminated. How just is that?
| | | BLOOD SUCKER Esquire wrote: | | Why does your worker need you to speak for him? Can he not speak for himself through his own work? That's what counts.....the work. We speak of downsizing larger governenments in the betterment of the process. And yet, the unions need to maintain their control over the worker. We complain of the government pulling our strings. And yet allow unions to pull the strings of the employee to slow down progress and upward mobility.
You know what brings a worker to the same level as his employer? Hard work and production. THAT is power.
a. Hammerstein 
| | | ronhartsell wrote: | | Do we actually read posts before posting. I wrote that I vote based on the candidates past voting record. What did I post that makes you post that the union buys this or tells you to do that. It's nowhere in my postings.
I do what I do in my union because I believe in workers rights, fair representation, and having a say in my working conditions. Unions allow workers to do that. A business? As long as there's an IRS, everything is a business. There are costs involved in forming a union. There's rental of space for meetings, travel and training expenses. Let's not kid ourselves here, nothing is free, my friends.
I posted some facts and quotes to support my position, and I have plenty more. All this generalizing just leads me to believe that some postings on this issue is just the same old rhetoric I hear from my bosses.
Please, if we're going to discuss things, then let's just do that.  |
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