"My Pro-Union story" (Buddyblazon)

[Tess Anderson]

link

Some of the worst dialogue I've ever read, and is he in a union or not?:

Buddyblazon (1000+ posts)      Sat Jan-01-11 01:26 PM
Original message
My Pro-Union story
 Edited on Sat Jan-01-11 01:30 PM by Buddyblazon
A little back story. The venue I am stage manager at was unionized back in the early 2000's. I was living with one of the main instigators for the union move at the time. Though I was not a part of their stage hand crew, I was a PA and runner at the venue. I sat around with all of those stage hands in our living room. I must've been the biggest cheerleader, even though a couple pointed out (even though we tried to get it included) that my position was not part of the deal.

"I don't care. They've ****ed me for the last few years too. At least you guys will be taken care of."

I had little idea that years later, I would be the stage manager of the very same crew.

Fast forward to two nights ago:

The head sound guy at the venue around the corner sent me a text in the middle of the show two nights ago:

"Do you have a minute to talk?"

I told him sure. He was in our back alley in 5 minutes and I met him to ask him if everything was okay.

Looking around nervously, in a hushed voice, he says, "We want to know how you like dealing with your Union crew?".

Me: "Are you kidding me? These people are my family. I love working with them. I wish this country had exponentially more people in Unions. It's important to me that they are taken care of...and if they never unionized...they'd still be making the same wages from 7 years ago."

Him: "Good. That's great to hear. We wanted your opinion because we have a meeting tomorrow with the Union on our final decision to Unionize. We wanted to know what you think we should do?"

Me: "Why are you even hesitating? Your theater, like ours, is owned by a massive corporation, and they haven't given you guys raises in years? **** them. Unionize. Tell the Union 'absolutely' tomorrow."

Him: "Thanks, man. Have a good show."


I go back into my venue. He goes back to his.

After about 10 minutes, positive text messages start coming in from their crew (yes...I'm friends with all of their crew as well). These guys and gals are pumped, and I'm pumped for them.



I wonder what their management will say if they ever found out they talked to me the night before the big decision and I was a vehement, "abso-****ing-lutely"? Quite frankly if anybody in our city and in our industry were to read this post, it would take them ten seconds to figure out who I am. It would probably spell trouble for me as I am not lucky enough to be a Union member. But I just don't ****ing care because if we don't start building back up our Union membership in this country, it may be the death of us all.


My first good deed of the New Year. Now if I could only figure out a way to Unionize my position.

**** these greedy, corporate, cocksuckers!

[GOBUCKS]

link

Some of the worst dialogue I've ever read, and is he in a union or not?

In the bouncy story, he's not. In real life, he doesn't work. He is a DUmmy.

[DLR Pyro]

A few years ago at Disneyland, the Pyro dept almost became unionized because of 2 employees who felt they were getting an unfair deal in regards to hours and treatment from management.  They circulated cards to all of us in the dept (about 28 at the time) explaining that signing these cards was merely expressing interest in hearing the union's sales pitch and that once the union gave their speil, we would be able to vote on whether we wanted to go union or not.  

Some signed the cards, some didn't but we didnt hear anything until about 7 months after the cards circulated thru the department.  We were told of a meeting to take place on July 6.  It was not a mandatory meeting but it was suggested that we all attend.  When the meeting started, this one union boss stood up and told us that he represented IATSE International and welcomed us into the union.  The majority of us were dumbstruck and rather than express the joy the union boss felt we should have for being a proud union brother, we immediately asked how this happened and how we can get rid of them.  The union boss then lost some of his shine and said because they had a majority of the dept sign the cards, they now have the right to represent us.  We protested saying that we were told these were only cards of interest, but this union boss said that they were actual cards for us to vote on becoming members.  The meeting degenerated in to a bitch session then and after about an hour the union boss said that he has sat and listened to us for an hour and that didn’t change the fact that we were now union and we had better get used to it.

One of our dept members contacted the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and filed a suit claiming fraudulent soliciting by the union.  Several of us including myself went to the NLRB office in Los Angeles to give our deposition about how the card check fraud went down.  In the end, we were successful in getting the union to back down and decide that it was in “everybody’s best interest if we terminated our agreement”.  Turns out that the NLRB found merit in our claim and was kicking this up to Washington D.C. with a recommendation for possible criminal charges against the union for fraud which was why the union backed away.  It was a very sweet victory for the department and we have been union free ever since.

[GOBUCKS]

One of our dept members contacted the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and filed a suit claiming fraudulent soliciting by the union.  

Try that with the jug-eared Kenyan's NLRB appointments.

[jukin]

I have a union story.  A friend had a very successful contracting firm. He was making good money and plowing it right back into the company buying equipment and hiring more people. As the company got bigger and was doing more large jobs it got noticed by the union thugs. They went in and pulled their usual lies about making more money, better conditions, more free stuff, and turned it into a union shop. Within a year and a half the company was losing a large enough percentage of bids to have to start laying people off. In the next two year he started going through savings and credit lines to keep the much smaller workforce paid. Then he sold equipment, mostly at a loss, moved into a smaller building, and was still not competitive with non-union shops even losing money on bids. He is now out of business. Did the downturn in the economy play a part? Sure. But his non-union competitors are still in business and even slightly growing. He pegs the decline solely to the unionization of his company. The higher wages, extended benefits, and most importantly the ridiculous work rules made him uncompetitive.

To recap, successful company growing, hiring new employees, and buying equipment gets unionized. Within four years the union sucked all the capital the company had earned out and the company has gone out of business. That was close to forty pretty well paid employees that no longer had jobs. The union killed his company, killed their members jobs, and moved a significant percentage of those productive people on to the government rolls.

I defy anyone to name one single action that a union does to help a company stay in business.  Hell name one thing that is not purposefully designed to kill the company.

[true_blood]

For the DUmmie's bouncy, I give a bouncy idiot inexperienced community organizer.
 

[Randy]

I have a union story.  A friend had a very successful contracting firm. He was making good money and plowing it right back into the company buying equipment and hiring more people. As the company got bigger and was doing more large jobs it got noticed by the union thugs. They went in and pulled their usual lies about making more money, better conditions, more free stuff, and turned it into a union shop. Within a year and a half the company was losing a large enough percentage of bids to have to start laying people off. In the next two year he started going through savings and credit lines to keep the much smaller workforce paid. Then he sold equipment, mostly at a loss, moved into a smaller building, and was still not competitive with non-union shops even losing money on bids. He is now out of business. Did the downturn in the economy play a part? Sure. But his non-union competitors are still in business and even slightly growing. He pegs the decline solely to the unionization of his company. The higher wages, extended benefits, and most importantly the ridiculous work rules made him uncompetitive.

To recap, successful company growing, hiring new employees, and buying equipment gets unionized. Within four years the union sucked all the capital the company had earned out and the company has gone out of business. That was close to forty pretty well paid employees that no longer had jobs. The union killed his company, killed their members jobs, and moved a significant percentage of those productive people on to the government rolls.

I defy anyone to name one single action that a union does to help a company stay in business.  Hell name one thing that is not purposefully designed to kill the company.

The moral of the story? Close down, lay off everyone and reopen a week later with a new name and non-union crew.