Contracting Out: Understanding The Impacts

*Daphne T. Greenwood, Ph. D. is professor of economics and director of the Colorado Center for
Policy Studies at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs. In addition to serving in the Colorado
House of Representatives from 1990‐1994, she has been a visiting scholar at the U. S. Treasury
Department and the Institute for Research on Poverty, University of Wisconsin‐Madison, Honors
Professor at the U. S. Naval Academy and a corporate economist with Esmark, Inc. Dr. Greenwood
authored a recent award winning book on local economic development in the United States and has
published widely in the public policy arena.

She authored a study for the Colorado Center forPolicy Studies, adjunct to the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, entitled: “The Decision To Contract out: Undestanding The Full Economic and Social Impacts.” (click for full article)

*Her Key Findings include:

Outsourcing to private corporations undermines principles fundamental to our democratic system by creating conditions such as: 
 Reduced accountability, transparency, and clarity about who’s in charge
 Frequent conflicts of interest and nepotism and fewer whistleblower protections
 Removing control of key public decisions from citizens and their elected officials

Contracting can involve substantially lower wages and benefits for local workers     providing services, siphoning dollars away from local economies. Workers making less will spend less in their own communities. That leads to many direct and indirect economic and social impacts including: 

 Declining retail sales and potential impacts on the housing market
 Higher wage gaps between men and women, and between blacks and whites
 More workers forced to rely on public assistance
 Fewer middle class jobs and wages for everyone
 Reduced ladders of opportunity for workers at the bottom
 Perpetuating low incomes for more female‐headed households
 A larger share of “at risk” children in lower‐income families
 Weakened viability of pension systems for remaining public workers

Private corporations’ profit imperative does not always lead to efficiency or quality 
 Cuts to workers’ wages and benefits deliver short‐term profits to shareholders but . . .
 Reduced staffing levels and lower pay often lead to higher turnover, lower quality of services,
and potential health and safety issues
 Problems with the quality of services provided to citizens cited in 61% of contracts terminated

Outsourcing and contracting are not really “privatization”   
 Responsibility for determining how public tax dollars are spent still lies with public officials
 Public services are funded by public dollars regardless of who provides them, but ..
 Local tax dollars now go to corporate profits, administrative costs and taxes in other jurisdictions

Cost savings of outsourcing vary widely and often diminish over time 
 Average costs may be lower initially (studies show an average of 5‐10%) but often shrink over
time because of reduced competition and other factors
 Governments cited insufficient savings 52% of the time when ending private contracts
 Cost savings are often achieved at the expense of reduced wages and benefits for workers

UNLESS THERE IS REAL INNOVATION THAT LEADS TO GREATER EFFICIENCY OR HIGHER QUALITY
COMMUNITIES WILL SEE A NET NEGATIVE EFFECT ON THE WIDER SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC LEVEL 

Click on any of the links above to read more of this facinating study. 

college-photo_9523.

*used with grateful appreciation from the author, Dr. Daphne T. Greenwood.

Working Without Prosperity

Anyone who works deserves to have some small amount of success, even if that success only consists of the feeling one gets from being a self-supporting and contributing member of society.

West Virginians are in a special circumstance when it comes to work and prosperity. After decades of labor strife, a few coal miners did see a brief period of prosperity from their labor, but with the shrinkage of unionization and the influence of the UMWA, even that small window seems to be closing.

Before the industrial revolution and the discovery of our rich coal reserves, West Virginians were mainly farmers, trappers, and hunters. As our country moved deeper into industrialization, those who would seek to exploit our rich coal supply for their own greed moved into our state. They cheated landowners, bought political influence, and set up shop at the head of many hollows to establish mines and start hauling out West Virginia coal.

West Virginians themselves have not benefited nearly as much as those absentee landlords who owned and operated the mines they worked in. As a matter of fact, West Virginia continues to be one of the poorest states in the nation, an odd happenstance that is in contrast to our rich energy and timber reserves. What workers of this state have reaped are pollution, destruction, and death.

On December 06, 1907, the Fairmont Coal Company mine in Monongha blew up, creating the worse mine disaster on record in the United States before or since. Official numbers set the count at 361 dead, but this was an era of child labor and the flood of immigrants who worked, undocumented, beside family members who were paid by the short ton for all the coal they loaded each shift. Many old timers claim that the count was far higher, possibly as many as 600, when taking these factors into account.

Then there is the 38 miners lost in the Boissevain Mine explosion in 1932, or the Consol #9 mine explosion in Farmington in 1968 that claimed 78 miners(the third such explosion in the mine formerly known as Jamison #9), or Holden, Nellis, Robinson-Ferrell, or Eccles #5 and #6, or the Clinchfield Coal Company’s Compass Mine at Dola, just up Route 20 from Lumberport that killed 22 men. Sago and Upper Big Branch are names of West Virginia mines added to the list of disasters visited upon the people of our state and that have become synonymous with tragedy and loss.

Lest anyone thinking that the plight of West Virginia workers lie only in the dark coal mines of our state, there is also the collapse of a scaffold in a cooling tower, known as the Willow Island disaster, that killed 51 workers in 1978.

In fact, the worst industrial “accident” that ever occurred had nothing to do with coal mining, but happened in the New River Gorge area of West Virginia. This was the Hawks Nest Tunnel tragedy. This project of Union Carbide sought to divert the New River for power production to feed the plant in Alloy, West Virginia. Began at the height of The Great Depression, workers dug the 3 mile tunnel in record time, completing it 10 weeks ahead of schedule. The workers, desperate for gainful employment, either did not know or understand that they were digging through Silica, a substance that causes silicosis in the lungs and is very damaging and even fatal. Many people have stated that it is impossible to quantify what a workers life is worth, but after years of lawsuits against the tunnel’s contractor, the settlement ranged from $400.00 for an unmarried black man to a $1000.00 for a married white man. In typical West Virginia fashion, the offending company settled $4 Million dollars in lawsuits for a paltry $130,000 dollars. Half of that settlement was claimed by the attorneys representing clients, who also recieved an added secret sum of $20K in the settlement insuring against any further lawsuits, and, on the demand of the defendants, turned over all plaintiff files to them. In total it has been claimed that almost 500 workers died from exposure to silica dust. This number cannot be certified since tuberculosis was rampant throughout the country at the time and many may have died and been classified as victims of TB. What is known that death by overexposure to silica is a painful and miserable way to die, with one family member claiming that an affected relative actually kicked the bed they were dying in to pieces when in the throes of a fit of spasmodic coughing and gasping for air.

Families of West Virginia workers also suffered indirectly, through the loss of the bread winner and patriarch of the family, but also suffered directly from those who came to our state to rape the land, reap the resouces, and then leave like thieves in the night. Each incident described above represents grieving widows, orphaned children, heartbroken parents, and all the social and economic woes such conditions cause.

Earthen dams had been simple and easy contructs for coal companies to capture coal wastes. That was until the Buffalo Creek Disaster in 1972. Pittston Coal had a dam at the head of a hollow on Buffalo Creek, WV. In a torrent of several days of rain, the dam became sodden and soft. On the morning of February 26th, the dam burst. Many residents were still asleep when a wall of muddy coal waste laid waste to everything in it’s path  An estimated 132 million gallons of water came roaring down the valley, killing 125 men, women, and children. 1,100 people were injured and 4,000 homes were destroyed. An emergency shelter was set up at the Man High School and survivors combed the wreckage looking for loved ones and lost possessions.

Pittston later claimed the disaster to be an, “act of God”.

An elderly female resident replied, “I never saw God drive the first slate truck up the holler.”

Again, in actions so typical of our state, one of the last acts of departing West Virginia Governor Arch Moore was a settlement of the multi-million dollar lawsuits against Pittston for the insulting sum of $1 million dollars.

Stories of the children who survived the disaster recall how anxious and nervous they would get  everytime it rained.

Why is all this worth recounting?

It’s because this is a history of labor in West Virginia. Despite the Mine Wars which shed some light on workers issues. West Virginians have, by and large, been poorly represented by local, state, and federal leaders, and exploited by ruthless corporations. It has been West Virginia workers blood that have purchased many of the country’s safety and health reforms, and it is those reforms that are under attack that we have to continue to fight for everyday.

The UMWA is one of the few unions to have any real success in this area. Those intrepid organizers for the UMWA braved the remote and rugged geography, faced down hired gun thugs, and brought a little social justice to exploited and abused workers in this state.

Another union that helped open the door for West Virginia workers is the Railroad Workers United, who represent railroad workers across North America, and fight the same issues as the rest of us.

It is this lack of representation that should inspire every worker in West Virginia to seek out a union of their choice and actively pursue joining. Unions are the purest forms of democracy in our country because they are ran by the workers, not politicians or absentee corporations. They are also an important source of vital information on issues affecting the industries they represent, giving workers information that is hard, if not impossible, to find anywhere else.

Unions that are organized and active act as checks and balances for people who work for a living and seem to be the ones largely ignored when political parties develop grand platforms promising prosperity and reform, but deliver more of the same year after year. Healthy and active unions hold these people to account for promises made in the heat of campaigns.

The West Virginia AFL-CIO, with whom we are affiliated with, represents over 575 affiliated unions who fight for all West Virginia workers, whether they are union or not. Unions set the bar for wages, benefits, and working conditions for all workers. UWUA Local 304 would like to wish departing longtime President Kenny Purdue a happy retirement and welcome his replacement, Josh Sword, to the top job at the helm of West Virginia’s labor movement.

 

Josh Sword                       Kenneth Purdue

(CLICK ON THE LINKS HIGHLIGHTED IN THE ARTICLE FOR MORE INFORMATION)

 

 

 

We Love Our Teachers!

” We are living history,” was the sentiment of Greg Phillips, Harrison County Education Association Vice-President at our last union meeting. He’s certainly qualified to male that call, being a history teacher at Robert C. Byrd High School, as well as holding a Masters Degree.

Big Elm teachers holding the line

Greg came to our meeting to lay out the facts that have West Virginia Public State Workers up in arms. Lack of meaningful raises, loss of seniority protections, and changes to PEIA that will send health insurance premiums into the stratosphere, and possibly out of reach for many teachers. He lamented the fact that while West Virginia teachers are unionized, many other of our Public Employees aren’t. Without a union in place, all employers are “employees at will”, meaning they can be fired without cause and very little legal protection. Like all union members, it’s up to them to stand and fight for those who don’t dare stand or fight for themselves. They include the State Police, Department of Highways, Corrections Officers, Department of Health and Human Resources, Child Protective Services, as well as many other public employees.

   How bad is the teacher situation in our state?

Teacher pay in West Virginia ranks 48th in comparison to other states (inversely, our PART TIME State Legislature’s pay ranks 5th in the nation compared to other states).

Many traveling Rt. 19 stopped in support

There are over 700 open teaching positions in West Virginia Public Schools.

Last year, WVU and Marshall graduated over 1500 teachers, and only about 400 stayed in this state. Others went to neighboring states where they can earn 20K-30K more for doing the same job.

80% of all West Virginians live within 2 hours of a state border (Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio, and Pennsylvania).

The National Education Association and American Federation of Teachers have, for the FIRST TIME, united under one banner in this fight!

 

Lincoln High and Middle out in full force

One big difference in the job of teaching as compared to other professions, the people who elect to become teachers feel a calling to that work. It’s common to hear such things like that when it comes to the clergy or medical professions, but often overlooked when it comes to teaching. The people who teach don’t do it for the money. Offsetting the mediocre pay was the fact that teachers have enjoyed good health insurance and a collegial working environment.

PEIA introduced something called “Go 365”. It’s a wellness program component added to PEIA, much like our own Health and Wellness program. Unlike our program, which is incentive based, PEIA’s is a penalizing program. What this means is that if you do not participate, you will be penalized with higher health insurance premiums. As an example of how intrusive and unreasonable this is, Go 356 requires teachers to sign up at a gym or fitness center, BUT, it must be an “approved” site. One teacher learned that his closest eligible fitness center was over three hours away!

Lumberport Elementary covered Jones Run

Teachers are so important to our society. Just last week, three teachers gave their lives in the Florida school shooting protecting students. Other teachers do less heralded, but equally heroic things to protect children. Teachers are another major part of our nation’s social safety net. They do so much more than just teach. They monitor, counsel, and even worry about their students, much like surrogate parents. In some cases, teachers may be one of the few positive examples of adult authority figures in some kids lives. There are personal costs, even after the financial ones teachers encounter when they spend their own money for classroom supplies. There are horror stories that teachers carry with them long after the student moves on, worthy of any battlefield action that causes PTSD in many of our country’s vets. These are offset by other stories of a child who succeeds against all the odds stacked against them to become a very wonderful and special person.

Both sides of Jones Run were covered

Unions too often are equated with politics. This is especially true for public sector unions when a political majority takes control that has an anti-worker philosophy. In this, it’s public sector unions who are usually the first to sound the alarm when they start seeing union-busting and worker punishing legislation being offered in statehouses all over the country. It’s no wonder that unions find themselves in the crosshairs of those who use their elected positions to benefit themselves and their cronies.

Teachers fall into that unique category  of public sector jobs that are being demonized by some lawmakers and their stealth PACS ( along with police, firefighters, postal employees, and many other groups). These folks would have YOU to believe that public schools are an antique anachronism left over by the previous century and teachers are in the business of indoctrinating your kids in all things evil in the world and brainwashing them into accepting that’s the way it should be. They want you to see teachers as an enemy, and the campaign against them has intensified by some claiming teachers don’t care about parents having to make sitting arrangements or children being without school provided meals. What’s NOT being talked about is the work teachers have done, working through churches and other civic organizations, to provide meals and childcare during the walkout.

                       Teachers signs say it all

Of course, parents that are dedicated and engaged in their children’s education know better. To them, teachers are partners and assets in building their kids into well rounded adults. Teachers are also union members, and they would much rather be in the classroom than on the picket line!

There’s a reason why unions are called “locals”. That’s because the membership is made up of your friends, family, and neighbors. It takes a breakdown of community for these folks to quit talking to each other, opening the door for them to fall prey to the decisiveness of special interests propaganda designed to divide us in every possible way.

A good example is what recently happened to Oprah (yes, that Oprah) when her name was half-heartedly floated as a possible 2018 challenger of President Trump. Not very long afterward, you could see memes being floated attacking Oprah Winfrey on every conceivable level. Oprah has never acknowledged, much less announced that she has any interest in being the President of the United States.

Bottom line is that West Virginia’s entire future starts with our being able to attract and keep the best, brightest, and qualified teachers. To do this, teachers need a decent wage, good health insurance, and protections and respect for their seniority earned over years of educating students.  The enemies of teachers are pushing for Charter schools, or a voucher program .This is the privatization of education into private, for profit, hands. This turns education into a pay to play scheme designed to funnel tax money out of public schools and directly in the hands of privateers. The winners are the Charter school owners and the rich kids who can afford the tuition. The losers are the teachers, the poor kids, the special needs kids, and disabled kids, whom the charter schools do not have to accept.

This is why we MUST support our teachers in this epic struggle.Even the cold wet weather could dampen the fire of our local teachers. There were horn blasts, shouts of encouragement, and a general outpouring of support as they waved signs and cheered in the rain. The struggle they are in is for the benefit of all West Virginians, and as for those who work against West Virginia’s workers; WE WILL REMEMBER IN NOVEMBER!

 

Lincoln Middle at the lower end
Lincoln High at the upper end

 

Why Union Jobs Matter!

There can be no doubt that there were more than the candidates taking center stage in the 2016 Election.  Ahead of all the candidates and issues was a force greater than the accumulated individual parts and pieces. That force was anger.

Though almost 50% of Americans stayed home on Election Day, either due to apathy caused by the belief that their choice didn’t matter, or a fundamental feeling that they don’t matter; the rest of the voting public battled openly and advocated loudly for their choice of candidate.

The candidates themselves seemed fatally flawed. One candidate, a product of the ultra-rich elite who rode the back of political maverick and outsider; the other a well known face and political powerhouse whose service in her many posts and positions left a polarizing effect in the minds of the electorate.

To many, even of her own party, Hillary Clinton was the same as having no choice at all. Surprisingly, many in the other party viewed Donald Trump’s candidacy with the same ire and misgivings. Both Presidential hopefuls burned away the long standing colors associated with either party, colors thoroughly bleached out by the white hot anger of the voting public.

So why are Americans so angry?

Of all the issues broached during the 2016, income inequality was the one that resonated the most. The messenger, an old time radical and self described Democratic Socialist, became the lightening rod that energized his adopted party’s message. As the Democratic campaign wore on, Clinton’s rhetoric slowly began to change to the point of her trying to sound like Bernie Sanders.

Regardless of party affiliation, the message of income inequality was one that cut across those hard drawn party lines. The bottom line for almost all voters was that the American public is tired of paying high taxes to a government that seems to takes them for granted.

It’s a fact that unions built middle class America. Unions gave workers a voice, and that voice demanded that the people actually doing the work, while not getting rich, should at least be able to live decent lives and provide adequately for their families.

However, the attack on those wages and benefits that combine to make up a job that makes work pay are relentless. Americans were warned back during Bill Clinton’s Presidency about so called “Free Trade” (NAFTA, CAFTA, …) agreements, that the intent of exporting American economic success would open the door to importing third world wages and working conditions by trying to compete in markets that exploited workers and regimes that did not respect the rules of business, human rights, or the rule of law, in general.

Falling wages and decreased opportunities have hit the middle class hard. In households that are lucky enough to have one breadwinner with a good job, there is a drain on that family’s income in supporting immediate family who can’t find work that provides a decent living.

Forget the toys and hobbies many adults indulge in, more and more it’s taking both parents working full time to earn enough just to survive. Parents are juggling mortgages, bills, tuition, taxes, and everything else that takes cash to plug the holes that seems to always crop up. It seems that everything in our society is geared at squeezing more out of those who contribute the most.

This brings us back to the original problem, income inequality. This is where we see the great chasm that form up the two competing political philosophies.

One side blames social programs and handouts for our ballooning deficit, a situation promoted by the advocates of a progressive agenda.

The other side says corporate welfare and greed is to blame for the woes facing us as a nation.

One side wants to double down on trickle-down economics with yet even more tax breaks for the rich, while the other wants to return us to a system that punishes the successful with an aggressive tax hike. Neither side wants to compromise, so our country limps along in “safe mode” with no end in sight.

Unions are more relevant than ever. We are the frontline that fights for all workers. We fight for wages, working conditions, pensions, and most of all, safety.

UWUA Local 304   Whether you realize it or not, unions affected your employment at Harrison long before 304 certified as a union in 2010. Before 304, we had UWUA System Local 102 to our north, and Rivesville was union.          These facts directly contributed to what wages and benefits would be set for Harrison. Rivesville’s union succumbed to fear of plant closure and a slick campaign that undermined the union and the company was able to bust that union. This left only System Local 102 as the gatekeeper protecting wages and benefits for Harrison. Since 2010, we’ve seen System Local 102 almost reduced to a lineman’s union with the closure of all the plants in their jurisdiction.

This is why UNION JOBS MATTER!

304 has been pushed into the position of being the primary defenders of what wages and benefits will be for plants in our geographical area. We’ve had a lot of help, from an embattled System Local 102, our longest and most loyal ally. As we’ve grown, we’ve also found new allies, such as UGWU Local 69 at Dominion and UWUA Local 537 representing employees of West Virginia American Water. We’ve also formed bonds with other unions within our merged company, most notably UWUA Local 270, as well as other trade unions.

304 is able to form these relationships because when we talk to other unions it’s blatantly obvious that we are not alone in the challenges and issues we all face. We have more in common than we do differences, making it clear that we can only face these challenges effectively as a united front and by looking out for each other.

Bargaining power comes from SOLIDARITY!

How many people have YOU, as a union member, helped, or are helping, because of the financial resources of having a good UNION job allows you? How many in your family depend on those wages and benefits you are able to provide them?

This why it is so important that you are UNION!

As a member of the UWUA, you take your place among other serious professionals who are our union Brothers and Sisters, whether they be teachers, firefighters, machinists, laborers, carpenters, pipefitters, ironworkers, steelworkers, electricians, auto workers, painters and plasters, and many others who long ago realized that as workers we have to band together to protect each other from those business forces that seek to make all of us economic wage slaves.

UNION JOBS MATTER!

Union is a union is a union…

You may have noticed, especially on our Facebook page, that when UWUA Local 304 reports union news, it may not be a UWUA union.

Confused?

This is because the one guiding principal behind EVERY union is workers standing together for the betterment of all. Sure, many unions have their own unique ways they handle administrative details, have their own take on organizing and showing action, but each one, at it’s core, are just working people taking a direct hand in protecting and serving each other.

We are all familiar with the Boilermakers, Ironworkers,  Pipefitters, Carpenters, Laborers, Millrights, Operating Enigineers, Miners,  and Electricians we work with everyday, but there are many other unions that represent the people in their own professions. Teachers, nurses, firefighters, police, railroad workers, machinists, Food and Commercial workers, Service Employees, Office Professionals, Autoworkers, and many many others who do their part in their respective fields.

Being union, and having that special legal status, tells the world that you are a seious professional who knows how to the job right and safe. Being union means you value training and professional development, but it also means that you take pride in your role as a American worker and citizen.

As much as employers try to tear down unions, you’d think there’s nothing about unions they like, but that’s not true. Employers look to hire people out of unions because they are a known quantity. Union workers, as a whole, are well trained, drug-free, and have the work ethic that they want in their organizations. Fact of the matter is, employers recognize and appreciate the talents union and former union workers bring with them right up to the point it’s time to talk pay and benefits.

So don’t let the fact that we mention other unions when we talk about issues. That’s one of the greatest strengths of being union is the sharing of knowledge within our union family. If you need proof of this, just click on any of the links above for other National Union’s webpages. You’ll see that they fight for and against many of the same things as we do.

When it comes to the question of should you stay union, remember, “If You Don’t Know, Don’t Go.”

We’re all in this together!

Lessons For Effective Management, Issue #1

Issue #1- Love Your Hell Raisers

There are a lot of books, articles, even whole magazines that are devoted to teaching managers how to be effective leaders so they can maximize their human performance for greater efficiency and profit. You have heard many of them mentioned on this site.  Books by multi-millionaire CEOs that light the way for other CEOs, like “Jack Welch and the GE Way, or Al Dunlap’s “Mean Business.”  These books are so powerful that they spawned books about them and the authors, like Chainsaw: The Notorious Career of Al Dunlap in the Era of Profit-at-Any-Price,” and, “The Billionaire Shell Game”.

Before the era of “GREED” and the philosophy of “ME”, management training focused on building relationships between management and employees through the values important to most of us, like decency, respect, forgiveness, and the lessons we learned about The Golden Rule; ““So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets” (Holy Bible, Mathew 7:12).

These principles were ingrained into us as Americans, and business and industry adopted them from lessons learned over decades of violent labor uprisings, work stoppages, and bloody strikes. Through concessions won through unionization, the American workplace evolved into an extension that reflected our society. The ideals of fairness, justice, and equality found their way to the shop floors and became the expected standard rather than the exception.

So what happened?

What happened was that working people mistakenly thought the war was over. We thought, wrongly, we had earned the right to simply go to work, do our job, collect our pay, and go home in peace. Meanwhile, the corporate masters were plotting, and then – BOOM– they launched their attack!

They didn’t aim their guns at the workers, who had been lulled to sleep by decades of labor bliss. So soundly we slept that we quit paying attention to politics and business trends. We didn’t go to our union meetings, and pretty soon our elected political representatives, as well as union officers,  started looking out more for themselves and not us.

Still, we slept.

Then, a little at a time and after the corporatists put their political lapdogs to work to change the laws to justify it, wages and benefits started falling. Two-Tier contracts and concessions became the new norm. For those unions that were left, promises were made that these were temporary emergency measures to help workers keep their jobs and be competitive. Companies claimed that much of the cuts would not be necessary if they didn’t have to comply with the restrictive and outdated notions of collective bargaining agreements, so union membership fell more.

We were assured that our industrial base didn’t matter because we would all have high paying jobs in technology. Then the tech jobs followed our manufacturing out of our country and to those countries who have enslaved citizens who work for less than sustanance wages and live in abject poverty at the hands of their oppressive leaders.

Now, here we are.

Companies have been bought out or merged and then gutted  for their usable parts and for mega-profit, irregardless of communities, workers, and jobs. CEOs are raking in huge sums of money, even when they bankrupt the business they run, as wages for those who do the actual work are in incremental retreat.

While we were told to worry about flag burners, abortionists, gays, and our guns; prevailing wage was killed, and “Right To Work” became the law of the land before we could even blink.

We are told to blame the welfare fraudsters, and that we should drug test the malingerers. In the meantime, the ones who unleashed the jackals of deregulation, greed, and reckless capitalism upon all of us are sitting in far away locales, via their  private jets, where their money lays untaxed and hidden while laughing among themselves that we are so easily duped.

There are a few of us who woke up out of our coma early, looked around, and then sounded the alarm. We were labled “radicals,” “troublemakers’, and “hell-raisers.”

We prefer being called, “UNION THUGS”.

It used to be that innovativeness was an asset, creativity a positive, and self assuredness a virtue; now they are viewed as threats. When standing up was once admired, now it is feared. Those who dare, are labeled, targeted, and made examples of as a warning to others.

A lesson business needs to learn over is that they have a duty to treat their workers with dignity and respect. They can preach about it, codify it in long winded wordy corporate policies and guidelines written in eloquent legal-eze, and stop the war on wages, benefits, and working conditions.

To do this, they are going to have to do something that seems unthinkable to business leaders, and that is to embrace their hell-raisers, These folks are their conscience and they are passionate and fully invested in their jobs.

It’s the trouble makers, the radicals, and the hell-raisers that have moved this country forward for well over 200 years. They forced change when faced with injustice, they innovated when facing life’s challenges, and they found a better way to do things that were more productive, safer, and easier.

Together, working people created everything that America stands for and makes our country the beacon of hope it is seen as in the world. Without the radicals, we cease to be America. It’s a part of our identity, our culture, and our heritage.

 

A Concerned Member

I saw something on our local’s web site that bothered me a little bit. It insinuated that somehow things are getting back to Plant Management from our meetings. Now, I am no one special and really don’t have much to say most of the time, but I couldn’t believe what I was reading.

I attend our monthly meetings when I can and I think of them as a place where I can express myself, with whatever tone or way that I want, without it leaving those four walls. I am not saying we should go to the meetings to yell, scream, and carry on like animals with impunity. I am simply saying that I treat the meetings as a sounding board or “rough draft”. A place where I can get other opinions, feedback, and direction when needed. One day I may even be able to help someone else in this way.

Having said all of that, I usually try to look for the good in everything and I have a hard time believing that someone in our midst is an actual turncoat. I am going to hope that whatever information got out and however it got out was an accident. Maybe someone else over heard something said and it slipped out that way, I am not sure.

I would just like to remind my fellow Union Members that loose lips sink ships. While whatever is said at the meetings is not something we are trying to hide, it could be used against other members when it was not intended to be. Remember some things are “rough drafts” and still need a little fine tuning before it is presented in an official capacity.

I know it is tough to get the information out from the meetings when we don’t see each other outside of work or meetings very often. Somethings that take place at work are hard not to talk about and I get that. I hate to sound like a broken record, but these are the reasons we need our members at our meetings. The members that do attend our meetings can’t give you all the information you are looking for. It is hard to remember what is said and why when we cover so many topics. Also, you never know the intent of someone listening close by or if you got all of the facts right to begin with.

I just want everyone to remember that we are all in this together. Unfortunately, lines have been drawn. While we didn’t draw these lines and hope they will disappear soon, we have to stay together. Remember that true progress takes time and it takes even longer if we don’t stay focused on the task at hand. Our task at hand is to make a better and safer work place for everyone.