The union was quite effective in many ways. Sometimes, they went too far, but they have to take the worker's side, regardless of fault it seems. Some of the things they fought for, and won, were really inappropriate for an animal shelter, but I think if they hadn't, management would have treated people even more poorly than they did, as they did the non-unionized workers. Non-unionized staff really was treated poorly, it made me grateful to have the backup of the union.

The union was big on seniority, so much so that it's hard for anyone without any seniority to get a break in scheduling of any sort of holiday or shifts.

My negative impressions from that time were that blame was never assigned to the worker, even if they'd been 'caught', and that standing against a fellow worker was unforgiveable, even if it were a case of ethics.

But, my lasting impressions were that if you had an issue, they stood up for you, but we also had pretty good union reps, which I think makes or breaks the situation.

On a side note, before I started working there, (but had friends in their employ), the workers went on strike. The funniest memory I have of that time is when the busful of Teamsters came to the picket line. Oddly enough, they did kinda look like extras from the Sopranos, and it wouldn't have seemed out of place if they'd had violin cases with them or something. But all of them were good guys, there wasn't any violence, just support.

[ 30 July 2006: Message edited by: Jenny ]

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Bill Little: ... there was no advantage to being in a unionized store. And it was impossible to transfer out of a union store to a nonunion one, so people lost out on promotions that way.
I'm just hoping that the other drivers see it the same way.

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Originally posted by N.Beltov:
It comes out at last. So what are you doing here if you're antagonistic to unions in your workplace?

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Wow, that seemed fairly harsh. He asked for opinions, then explained his point of view a bit more. But it seems he's not allowed to be anti-union? He's already explained how his place of employment has good benefits, and treats the workers fairly, and how he can't see that it would improve it in any way.... It's not like he's running a sweatshop and is fighting unionization!

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B_L: Any concessions that the union did get, and they were pretty minor, were passed on to all the nonunion stores and departments anyway,so there was no advantage to being in a unionized store.

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It is a well known tactic of employers to make concessions, when they are facing a union organizing drive, and then claim credit for the concessions as though the union was never there. It's not all that different from governments that change direction on a policy in the face of massive protest and then pretend that the protests have nothing to do with the change in direction. It's a convenient lie.

I'm forming the conclusion that our questioner knows fuck all about unions or organizing drives. Hence his questions. Fair enough so far.

So, if he is unprejudiced, as he should be, why is he lumping himself as follows:

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I haven't been apprised of any of the meetings with the union reps, nor have most of the people I know that would vote, or argue against the union.

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Why would he lump himself with anti-union employees unless he was anti-union himself? By accident? And why no remark, whatsoever, about his own, initial, unknowledgeable experience with a union? Why should babblers help someone who's anti-union? Don't employers have enough help already?

There's another possibility here. When an organizing drive is on, the union tries to keep it secret from the employer as long as possible. That way, there is less time and opportunity for reprisals against organizers and likely supporters of a union. Such reprisals are routine and typical from employers, whoever the unions is and whatever province of Canada it is in. Anyway, the union might form the opinion, based on the view of pro-union workers in the plant, that so-and-so is likely to be anti-union and so on. The first task is to win the certification vote and at that stage it is number crunching mostly. You just go around the few people who are likely to be reporting union activity to the boss, for obvious reasons.

Our questioner could be excluded because someone has formed such an opinion of him.

[ 31 July 2006: Message edited by: Bill Little ]

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Originally posted by N.Beltov:
It comes out at last. So what are you doing here if you're antagonistic to unions in your workplace?

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I wonder what any of us are doing here if this is how we respond to workers who have pretty standard questions about why they should organize instead of trying to convince them of the benefits of organizing.

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Originally posted by Bill Little:
Last, I'm not anti-union, I know that the reason we have our benefits and wages and everything else that I enjoy about this job, is that the company doesn't want us to organise, and their fear of that has lead to us having union-like benefits.
My questions were, what could I expect if the union came in, would I keep what I have, or lose it, and what it would cost me.

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bill, while i share N.Beltov's suspicions of your naive line of questioning, particularly given your observations on the other stores you mention (if you didn't know anything how do you know about unions coming and going and de-certification efforts?) i will give you the benefit of the doubt for a moment and give you an obseration regarding your above comments that you know why you have the current wages and benefits that you do.

you are absolutely correct that the reason you are likely fine with your wages and benefits is due to the efforts of unions everywhere to elevate workplace standards and wages and as N.Beltov pointed out it is quite common for companies to try to avoid being unionised by offering similar compensation to their employees.

The difference is that in a union shop, these wages, benefits and working conditions are guaranteed by labour and contract law, during collective bargaining, and cannot be arbitrarily taken away or reduced outside of that process. In a non-union shop, while you may enjoy parity with a union shop, there is nothing in the law to prevent your employer from walking in to work one day and changing everything. nothing at all. you have absolutely no guarantee in law that the current standard of employment you now enjoy will continue beyond tomorrow.

finally, otter has said it best...get involved, call the reps, contact the teamsters directly and ask why you seem to be getting "worked around" and kept out of the loop. If you are a senior person and have been there 25 years, you would be a valuable person to speak with in my opinion.

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One of the anti-union organisations is an outfit that pretends to be a "different" kind of union. This outfit calls itself the Christian Labour Association of Canada, but in fact is a company union.

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Have any of the labour relations boards in Canada ever stated that CLAC is a company union?

[ 16 August 2006: Message edited by: CUPE_Reformer ]

CLAC is undemocratic, in that they trade long term crap contracts for voluntary recognition, so that the workers don't even get to vote on anything. And they then 'get along' with the company so much that the poor worker winds up with jack. Also, they are notorious (as in I have talked to many CLAC 'members' who have said this to me) for never filing grievances until ordered to do so by the labour board after a DFR complaint (Duty to Fairly Represent) has been heard, adding potentially years on to the grievance procedure.

I have been involved in many organizing drives, Bill, and can tell you from experience that the organizers are looking to talk to EVERYONE. However, your employer isn't going to turn over a list of names, addresses and phone numbers to the organizer, are they? So, they ask the people that they talk to to refer them to someone else, hence the impression that they are talking to a specific group, probably because that group knows each other and they are setting up contacts with their friends.

You could always talk to one of the 'known Union supporters' and say you want to talk to an organizer, or you could call the Union, I am sure that they have a phone number.

Well sorry to join this discussion so late. I hope can contribute some info that can be useful.

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I've been a reader here for a long while, but don't think I've posted before. I work for a furniture retail company as a delivery driver. It's never been unionized, but we have above average wages, great benefits, and pretty good management, IMO.
But there are a lot of younger guys and newer employees who think they're getting a bad deal, and have contacted, or been contacted by the Teamsters, who have filed a notice to take a vote on joining the union.

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Hey Bill. Hope this isn't too late to make a difference. But keep in mind one thing; despite all the anti-union BS you hear out there, the fact is there is never anything wrong with joining or forming a union.

This is simply a fundamental freedom and an expression by workers to gain a greater democratic say in their working conditions and the business they work in and other matters related to their lives.

A union is basically a democratic cooperative association of workers who come together or join a larger group of workers to gain more democratic rights and hopefully a better economic deal.

The fact that the boss you're working for now is relatively pleasant and the conditions are fairly good is great for you and I'm glad you have this. You're luckier than most non-union workers.

However, these mean little in terms of security and stability since they can be taken away from you at the whim of the boss. There's no contract, no defense mechanism and no larger group to rely on for help if you need it.

Your boss might be comparatively OK now. But if the firm changes ownership or merges with a larger firm with lousier policies, that will change and there's nothing you currently can do about it.

So go ahead and join the union. It's your right and in your interest to do so.

Ultimately, it is up to the workers in the union to democratically decide what are the most important issues to focus on. If, as you say, the wages are relatively good, then perhaps seniority, job security, safety, training, discrimination, etc, are matters of more concern.

It's up to you folks to figure out. The union you join has representatives that you vote for and support staff to assist you as a group.

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there was no advantage to being in a unionized store. And it was impossible to transfer out of a union store to a nonunion one, so people lost out on promotions that way.
I'm just hoping that the other drivers see it the same way.

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These are horror stories you hear about quite often, but then unfortunately used by anti-union forces to blame workers for the problems and discourage them from organizing.

Keep in mind that corporate run workplaces, unlike worker co-ops or labour-sponsored or community ventures, are in fact one of the most established forms of dictatorship in our economy. They are run by un-elected elite bureaucracies that are accountable only to themselves and the key major owners or shareholders, not the workers or the public.

What you're describing sounds like a standard practice of bosses to derailed unionized operations by pitting against the non-union ones. The around this is, first, to try to get legal contract language that stops bosses from offering discriminatory perks to non-union sites and denying access to things like promotions to union members; and, second, ultimately, to do your best to organize the remaining non-union operations in the firm. That makes such practices impossible.

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From what a friend told me who works at Purolator, the Teamsters screwed them large but settling for some awful raise like 25 cents an hour for the next 3 years. Nothing more

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Be careful about statements like this, Bill. While I don't doubt Stargazer's claim is true that the workers got stuck with a lousy contract, the fact is it isn't the Teamsters as a whole that "screwed" them.

Remember, as said, a union by historic factual definition is a cooperative association of workers. They elect their representatives and negotiating committees and stewards, including those who recommend whether to accept or reject and tentative deal. The members then discuss and then vote on it.

Those Purolator workers didn't get screwed by the union. Rather, whoever they elected probably urged them to accept a compromised offer they thought was acceptable at the time, but now realize, or at least feel, afterward they could have done much better.

In that case, they can vote out whoever made that recommendation and go for a better deal in the next round of talk, if they think' it's the right thing to do at the time.

It's not perfect situation, but it is infinitely superior to having no say at all in your working conditions or having to rely on the whim of the boss.

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Any concessions that the union did get, and they were pretty minor, were passed on to all the nonunion stores and departments anyway, so there was no advantage to being in a unionized store.

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But actually there was. Even those minor improvements the non-union stores got was based on what the union stores had won. It's the classic old "gilded cage" scenario bosses try to use in order to discourage workers from joining the union: give them whatever the union workers win, just do everything to stop them from gaining the freedom to negotiate their working conditions like the union workers have.

You find that in any industry where there is a strong union presence, the non-union firms tend to pay fairly well and even may have some benefits, in order to discourage their employees from organizing. Gladly, it doesn't always work and employees are often willing to take the risk of suffering the boss' brutality to join the union.

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I do know that the company will fight the union every step of the way. In years past, several of our stores have unionized, I don't know with whom, but eventually they all voted to decertify, as they weren't getting what they thought they would.

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This shows that your boss isn't anywhere near as good as s/he wants you to believe. The fact they have responded to workers trying to gain a say in the business by managing to beat them into submission shows that a unionized workforce is exactly what is needed at your firm.

If the bosses are as good as they pretend to be, what do they have to fear from their workers forming a union? What do they have against some degree of democracy in their firm? What is wrong with them sharing at least a bit of the decision-making power with the workers? And finally what’s wrong with sharing the firm's wealth with the workers on a mutually agreed-upon basis?

These questions show the difference between a "good" employer and one that just wants a "gilded cage."

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But it seems he's not allowed to be anti-union? He's already explained how his place of employment has good benefits, and treats the workers fairly, and how he can't see that it would improve it in any way.... It's not like he's running a sweatshop and is fighting unionization!

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Also be careful of these victim-playing excuses you might hear from people, Bill. The fact is in our corporate-dominated undemocratic capitalist economy, people are more than just allowed to be anti-union; they are encouraged every day via the corporate media and governments to fight each other as workers while being humbly and blindly loyal to the boss. We are constantly and wrongly told that basically the "suck-up" attitude is the key to success. The very examples you give about what's gone on at times in your own work place prove it's not.

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One of the anti-union organizations is an outfit that pretends to be a "different" kind of union. This outfit calls itself the Christian Labour Association of Canada, but in fact is a company union

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This is so true. Watch out for this fraudulent outfit. Chances are if your bosses see they can't bully, frighten or bribe the workers out of joining a union, they may try to push you into this racket.

I have direct experience in successfully helping workers get of this fraud and joining real unions.

The way CLAC gets around being condemned as an "organization of convenience," as labour codes generally call it, or "boss controlled," is that it is not dominated by any specific employer or group of employers.

Rather it is labour-brokerage racket set up and largely controlled by the far-right anti-union Dutch Reformed Church of Canada (which, BTW, sets up its own companies to help raise money for itself).

CLAC's official claim is that it "is based on Christian social principles. In practical terms, this means we deal with people and labour relations constructively, with policies that stress integrity, respect, partnership, fairness, and community."--which sounds like a lot of legitimate unions.

But the truth, according to numerous government, labour and individual worker accounts,

http://www.afl.org/campaigns-issues/Phony_Unions/default.cfm

http://edmonton.iww.ca/clac.html

http://www.vivelecanada.ca/index.php?topic=labour&page=4

as well as my own experiences, it is a fraudulent clique of brokers and lawyers that approach corporate bosses and persuade them to sign agreements without any worker input in order to block them from joining real unions to gain those real freedoms mentioned above.

Less than 20 per cent of CLAC members got vote for its "leaders" (most of those who can vote are Dutch Reform Church people).

Almost all of CLAC's contracts are signed by non-elected negotiators without any mandate or ratification vote of the workers affected.

Of the 13 CLAC contracts I have seen, 11 of them call for shop stewards and safety reps to be appointed by the boss! And eight of them specifically provided no protection for any worker who honours another union's picket line. In other words CLAC "members" are forced to scab on other workers.

None of the contracts have contracting-out protections, meaning CLAC "members" have practically no job security.

CLAC refuses to work with legitimate unions on established common mutually beneficial standards for workers in any specific industry, as works diligently to undermine existing standards.

In BC, CLAC "leaders" have openly endorsed and funded the viciously anti-union BC Liberals and the anti-union leaky-condo-building sweatshop ICBA ("Independent" Contractors and Business Association).

If you haven't been called for any meetings, go ahead and call the Teamsters local yourself to see if there are any happening and, if so, when. Hopefully, you will want to join.

But if you notice CLAC "representatives" wandering freely around your work place chatting up folks, you know the boss has brought them in to derail and real union drive.
Whatever you do, stay away from them. They are poison.

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Hey Bill. Hope this isn't too late to make a difference. But keep in mind one thing; despite all the anti-union BS you hear out there, the fact is there is never anything wrong with joining or forming a union.

This is simply a fundamental freedom and an expression by workers to gain a greater democratic say in their working conditions and the business they work in and other matters related to their lives.

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