The Wage Enslavers 2
Sam and the crew talk with an ex-Starbucks employee* about Starbucks’s union-busting tactics.
Aside:
When I worked for the railroad, I worked in a union shop and, for the first few years, in a union job. I know from personal experience that when employers and unions work together in good faith, it benefits everyone.
I can attest that nobody disliked bad employees more than their union reps. Even though the reps might be obligated to defend them in disciplinary hearings under the terms of union membership, the reps do not want the extra headaches that bad employees give them. (I could go on, but I doubt that my two or three regular readers would be interested in the arcane intricacies of railroad disciplinary procedures; I will just mention that one of the classes I taught as a trainer schooled supervisors in how to do discipline correctly.)
Even when I was no longer in a union job, I proudly paid my union dues until I left the railroad.
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*He’s an ex-employee because he got fed up with the union-busting and quit, which may well be what Starbucks would like to see happen more often.
September 26, 2022 at 7:42 pm
The problem with Police Unions is some of the Reps aggressively defend the most outrageous criminal actions of dirty Officers. And they do this to the detriment of the Good Cops who are besmirched and harmed by these actions. Many will say this defense is both necessary and vital to protecting the Union but, then the “Bad Apples” become more of a focus than the the rest. And then they spoil the rest of us.
September 26, 2022 at 9:17 pm
As regards police unions, I agree. Too often, protecting bad apples is what they do.
Not all unions are good; the Teamsters under Jimmy Hoffa is a prime example.
And unions can suffer from the same inefficiencies and internal contradictions that other large organizations suffer from. But most of them I think try to get it right.
As one very high union official I happened to know (he was the father of a co-worker of mine many years ago) often pointed out, a labor contract works both ways. Management has obligations, and so do workerss (the emphasis was his).