Anyone who’s ever been involved in a union organizing campaign knows that all your efforts have to take place below the company’s radar, at least initially, to build a coalition of people who will take up the task of representing and defending what a union can do to improve their workplace. Once the company gets wind of an organized effort to unionize, they will start their own anti-union campaign. Companies have shown a willingness to spend millions of dollars to stave off and deny employees their lawful right to form a union. They will hire strategists to teach and guide management in the tactics and strategies to defeat unionization.
If you’re lucky enough to survive and win your unionizing effort, that’s when the work really begins. Getting a first contract in itself is a marathon of aggravation and frustration. Once you get a contract that the membership ratifies, you have to police it and begin the process and implementing it into the workplace. This is a process of the CBA being further defined by MOUs, grievances, and arbitrations to make sure what was bargained and agreed to is being administered in the way it was meant and not in an arbitrary, capricious, or punitive manner.
That’s why your union stresses that the membership IS the union because it takes all of us pulling in the same direction to make the union work.
One of the most divisive things ever to happen to organized labor is “Right-To-Work”. In allowing members to simply decide to quit paying dues to the organization that protects and defends them has forced unions to do more with less. This means less resources, less support, and notably less bargaining power.
The reasons members give, if any, to stop paying dues are often presented as religious, political, or even personal. People elect to stop paying dues because they associate the union with a particular pro-union co-worker that they strongly identify with being or representing the union. Of course, they ignore members who they may respect or admire who are active pro-union members in good standing and even become forgiving of those non-union malcontents that nobody should admire.
On the political side, many stereo-typically view unions with certain political parties or core political beliefs. Some have even accused unions of trying to tell them how and for whom to vote for. UWUA Local 304 has never done that, but the National UWUA will always back candidates who show a willingness and awareness to make the job or representing workers and improving workers lives easier, no matter what party they are in.
The hardest thing for a union to understand and counter is when members drop dues for reasons unknown. It’s like trying to fight a ghost.
UWUA Local 304 dues are a bargain compared to other craft union’s dues, which can run in the hundreds of dollars per paycheck. Don’t believe this? Ask a Boilermaker, Pipefitter, or Electrician about their union’s dues structure. You will be surprised.
When we have members dropping dues, it makes us, as a union, wonder what we are doing wrong?
If we are doing our job as a union of representing our members against unfair discipline, pursuing grievances, and prosecuting arbitrations then what are we missing?
We are also the only source for industry news that is not filtered through the company’s legal and public relations machine. All in an effort for our membership to get information they may otherwise miss in the mainstream media that affects their work life, and families and we let our members make up their own mind.
While we asa union work to refine and improve our own processes, we also must consider another external and deceitful possibility. That possibility is that someone, either within the membership, or management, or both have captured our members ears and used that influence to plant the seeds of discontent within our union. The union can only guess what it is being said to these folks, what they are being promised, or the utopian vision of a union-less workplace might be.
There are always going to be a few co-workers who find unions objectionable under any circumstances, but when we start seeing younger workers dropping dues, it’s of a grave concern since that’s the group who stands to gain and benefit from being union the most.
If the union found out that a member, or members of management are the ones behind the effort to get members to forgo their dues obligations, that would mean instant charges being files against our employer with the National Labor Relations Board. Sadly, those co-opted aren’t talking.
In the meantime, your union will keep working for our membership and exorcize these ghosts that haunt our efforts. We will soon be offering a way back in for all members who’ve opted out and hope they will avail themselves of this opportunity what it presents itself.
