There are few things I dislike more than going to a Quaker Meeting where you are supposed to sit in silence unless moved by the Spirit only to experience the non-stop preaching of bleeding hearts. One thing, however, I dislike even more is a unionization campaign that lives up to every bad, right-wing cliché Rush Limbaugh could come up with. A Union is meant to bring workers together so that they can negotiate situations where they are being oppressed. I don't use this term lightly. I mean situations where, in the old days, workers were in danger of dying in horrible working conditions or, these days, where workers are robbed by corporations making huge profits while they are paid peanuts.
Somewhere in between meeting the very real needs of people and bringing them together has developed the pitiful practice of too-educated, paid union "organizers" who have absolutely no idea of what working people want or where unionization is needed. Enter my Local branch of the New York State Teacher's Union and their attempt to organize a handful of disgruntled employees at the school where I work.
Thus far the Union has aligned itself with employees who have sent anonymous hate emails to fellow workers, made ridiculously untrue statements and tried to pass them off as "facts," and whose organizing attempts have been so easily diffused with simple, logical arguments that it makes even the most committed radical long to stay underground. Who the Union has aligned with is only outdone by the Local's organizing ineptitude. After numerous meetings and a real opportunity to educate people, no employee can articulate what they actually want from the administration. It's almost as if Winnie The Pooh got the animals of the 100 acre Wood together and then forgot what he wanted to tell them. What, then, has surfaced in this vacuum is an Eyesore-like pessimism. Apparently no one has taken a moment to stop and ask themselves "What do I want?"
Solidarity just for unity's sake may feel good... but it won't win you a good contract.
Somewhere in between meeting the very real needs of people and bringing them together has developed the pitiful practice of too-educated, paid union "organizers" who have absolutely no idea of what working people want or where unionization is needed. Enter my Local branch of the New York State Teacher's Union and their attempt to organize a handful of disgruntled employees at the school where I work.
Thus far the Union has aligned itself with employees who have sent anonymous hate emails to fellow workers, made ridiculously untrue statements and tried to pass them off as "facts," and whose organizing attempts have been so easily diffused with simple, logical arguments that it makes even the most committed radical long to stay underground. Who the Union has aligned with is only outdone by the Local's organizing ineptitude. After numerous meetings and a real opportunity to educate people, no employee can articulate what they actually want from the administration. It's almost as if Winnie The Pooh got the animals of the 100 acre Wood together and then forgot what he wanted to tell them. What, then, has surfaced in this vacuum is an Eyesore-like pessimism. Apparently no one has taken a moment to stop and ask themselves "What do I want?"
Solidarity just for unity's sake may feel good... but it won't win you a good contract.
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