BA> Replying to a message of Bob Klahn to Bob Ackley:

 BA>>> 'scuse me.  It is flatly illegal for a company to do that.
 BA>>> It is *not* illegal for union organizers to do it.

 BK>>  Yeah, AAMOF it is.

 BA> Then that particular law hasn't been enforced for decades.

 Neither has the law forbidding the employer from leaning on the
 employees to keep them from unionizing. Nor the one forbidding
 them from firing people for union organizing.

 BK>>  However, law enforcement on that has been in republican hands
 BK>>  for all but 8 years from 1981 to 2009.

 BK>>  ...

 BK>>>>  And many vote against the union because the company threatens to
 BK>>>> shut down the shop, or fire them. They prove it by firing any
 BK>>>> union organizers they can get away with.

 BA>>> Which is none of them.  Most union organizers are not
 BA>>> company employees, they are employed by the union.

 BK>>  Nope. Most union organizers are inside the company. The unions
 BK>>  can't hire enough organizers to do the job, the workers won't
 BK>>  listen to them anyway, and the employer won't let union
 BK>>  employees in the door without the checkoff cards signed.

 BA> Way back in 1996 when Alegent Health was busy ruining the
 BA> hospital I worked in, I even went down to the union hall to
 BA> talk to the SEIU people there - SEIU was then supposedly
 BA> attempting to organize health care workers.  SEIU wasn't
 BA> interested, but they probably would have won an election at
 BA> that hospital hands down.

 Which is where you needed to be the union organizer.

 A local UAW leader is retiring, and the newspaper article about
 it gives a bit of insight on how running the union works. The
 people who work for the union work with the workers in the
 company. The union simply cannot have enough employees to do the
 job the in the plant workers can do, but they can train and
 support the plant workers in doing it.

 **************************************************************************
 Article published April 3, 2009

 UAW's Lloyd MaHaffey Regional director to step down after 10
 years in office

 Lloyd Mahaffey plans to retire on April 30 as regional director
 for the United Auto Workers before his term ends in summer,
 2010. He says he chose to step down early to make way for his
 successor.

 Bruce Baumhower remembers vividly how, as "just a 29-year-old
 kid" in 1983, Lloyd Mahaffey would pick him up for lunch from
 his job at Toledo Jeep, drive him over to Inky's Italian Foods,
 and school the young man in how to be a labor leader.

 "He was my mentor," said Mr. Baumhower, who has been president
 of United Auto Workers Local 12 for 16 years. "We would sit
 there at lunch and he would explain arbitration, and how to
 file a grievance, and how to be a labor leader, really. He was
 like a walking encyclopedia."

 ...

 Mr. Mahaffey got his start working on the line of a Tecumseh
 Products plant in Marion, Ohio, before taking a staff job with
 the union in 1973. He moved to the Ohio Region in 1982, and
 became its assistant director under Regional Director Jack
 Sizemore in 1986. When Mr. Sizemore retired in 1998, Mr.
 Mahaffey was elected to replace him.

 ...
 **************************************************************************

 BA> In the 15 months between the time Alegent was invented and
 BA> I left about sixty percent of the hospital staff - across
 BA> all departments - had already left;

 ...

 BA> board promoted the Immanuel staff to run the whole
 BA> operation.  Note that many Bergan Mercy employees
 BA> were refugees from Immanuel and one of them noted to me
 BA> before the merger that "Nobody retires from Immanuel,"  his
 BA> point being that they eventually make your life miserable
 BA> enough that you quit - or if you develop some seniority they
 BA> find a way to get rid of you.

 IOW, this is a case where a union would have been better for the
 patients as well as the workers.

 BA> I also note that a week or two ago Alegent fired 300
 BA> employees.  Much was made of the fact that Alegent was
 BA> paying for a number of its physicians to attend a
 BA> conference - which just happened to be held in Hawaii - at
 BA> the time.  Note also that Alegent's multizillion dollar
 BA> data processing center is still under construction.

 And I'll bet that conference had seminars dedicated to union
 avoicance.

 ...

 BA>>> organizing my company I'd call a meeting of all employees,
 BA>>> explain that I thought I'd been treating them well and was
 BA>>> disappointed that they felt that I was not and that a union
 BA>>> was necessary.

 BK>>  Before you do that you should find out why the union is
 BK>>  necessary. Workers don't form unions for the fun of it. Nobody
 BK>>  is going to pay union dues if there isn't a reason for it.

 BA> And nobody should have to pay union dues in order to keep
 BA> his/her job if they don't want to.

 And nobody should have to deal with less than middle class
 conditions and a whole lotta other things, but it does happen.
 If the union is responsible for decent working conditions, then
 those who benefit should help pay the price.

 BA>>> Because the employees feel that I am not
 BA>>> treating them well I would have no choice but to close down
 BA>>> the business immediately with employees to be paid their
 BA>>> full salary/wages through end of the current month.  All

 BK>>  Right... sure you would. If you really were treating the workers
 BK>> well you wouldn't have a union.

 BA>>> employees would then paid a reasonable and maybe even
 BA>>> generous severance.  If anyone has a

 BK>>  I really doubt that. If you thought that way you would have
 BK>>  already found out why they wanted a union in the first place.

 BA>>> problem with the situation they should take it up with
 BA>>> their union stewards. No further comment or discussion on
 BA>>> the subject would be entertained.

 BK>>  And that is the attitude that leads to a union in the first
 BK>>  place. The "no further discussion" attitude is a lead in to my
 BK>>  way or the highway.

 BA> I didn't say anything about employees' problems or whether
 BA> or not I'd refused to talk to them.  Had they brought their
 BA> concerns/problems to my attention *before* the election I
 BA> certainly would have addressed those concerns/problems.

 They have always already brought their concerns to management.
 Forming a union is not something they do over a weekend on a
 whim.

 BA> *After* that election the union is a done deal and there's
 BA> no point in any further discussion.

 BK>>  And would you really shut down maybe a $100 mill factory because
 BK>> your employees found a reason to vote in a union?

 BA> Assuming that I owned the company outright and didn't have
 BA> stockholders to worry about, yes.  In a New York second.

 That's not a business decision, that's a religion. If your
 workers form a union you better understand you *DID* do
 something to cause it.



BOB KLAHN bob.klahn{at}sev.org   http://home.toltbbs.com/bobklahn

... A soft word never yet broke a tooth.  Irish Proverb *
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