Taking Off The Blinders
Stories
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A New Year's Resolution: Your Union & Community Need You
The December 25th issue of the TIME magazine named YOU the Person of the Year. This is not a new-fangled idea to the Teamsters Union. YOU have always been #1 with us, as we address the needs of our members and workers by fighting for a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work, job security, a safe workplace, good healthcare, a secure retirement, and time to spend with family and friends.
But now your Union calls on YOU to take your place as an active Union member. If every Teamster member gave three days of service each year to the Union, we would be stronger than we have ever been. And it’s not hard.
By walking picket lines, leafleting at jobsites, participating in the political process through Get-Out-The-Vote programs, registering members to vote, or taking an active role in organizing, YOU can make a difference.
When you help to organize an employer, you create protected and well-paying jobs in your community. When you help a Labor-friendly political get elected, you save Union jobs and defend workers’ rights. And when you participate in your Local Union activities, you empower your Union and yourself.
By giving three days back to your Union, you can make a difference for yourself, your community and working people everywhere. It’s worth the effort. NOW is the time and YOU are the person. Make this your New Year’s resolution and keep it! Contact your Local Union today!
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The Real Rosa Parks
by Paul Rogat Loeb, Excerpted from Vision Magazine
As memories of these events disappear, we lose the knowledge of mechanisms that grassroots social movements have successfully used in the past to shift public sentiment and challenge entrenched institutional power. Equally lost are the means by which their participants managed to eventually prevail in circumstances at least as harsh as those we face today. Think again about the different ways one can frame Rosa Parks' historic action. In the prevailing myth, Parks decides to act almost on a whim, in isolation. She's a virgin to politics. The lesson seems to be that if any of us suddenly got the urge to do something equally heroic, it would be great. Of course most of us don't, so we wait our entire lives to find the ideal moment.
In our glorious fight for civil rights, we must guard against being fooled by false slogans, as 'right-to-work'. It provides no 'rights' and no 'works'. Its purpose is to destroy labor unions and the freedom of collective bargaining. We demand this fraud be stopped.
--Martin Luther King, Jr. |
Parks' real story conveys a far more empowering moral. She began with modest steps. She goes to a meeting, and then another, helping build the community that in turn supported her path. Hesitant at first, she gains confidence as she speaks out. She continues on despite a profoundly uncertain context, as she and others act as best they can to challenge deeply entrenched injustices, with little certainty of results. Had she and others given up after her tenth or eleventh year of commitment, we might never have heard of Montgomery.
Parks also reminds us that one person may unknowingly inspire another. Rosa Parks’ husband Raymond convinced her to attend her first NAACP meeting, the initial step on a path that brought her to that fateful day on the bus in Montgomery. But who got Raymond Parks involved? And why did that person take the trouble to do so? What experiences shaped their outlook, and forged their convictions? The links in any chain of influence are too numerous, too complex to trace. But being aware that such chains exist is one of the primary ways to sustain hope, especially when our actions seem too insignificant to amount to anything.
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".of the people,
by the people, for the people."
By Jon L. Rabine, International Representative
The United States stands today as one of the greatest, if not the greatest
Country in the world. From the minds of a few courageous strong-willed
individualists more than two hundred years ago came a radical
new idea for a government ".. of the people, by the people,
for the people ." From this concept of self governance came
the creation of a vibrant new country to be called the United
States of America; a country that would prevail against all odds
in a revolutionary war and go on to survive a civil war, two
world wars, and a world-wide depression to become the most powerful
nation in the world, the reputed land of milk and honey where
freedom reigns and opportunity flourishes. Millions would emigrate
from nations throughout the world risking life and limb to become
a part of this country they now call home. As a consequence,
today ours is a country made up of a vast diversity of cultures;
a homogeneous melting pot of peoples who have come to know and
better understand each other and share their lives together;
a nation whose diversity is one of its greatest strengths as
well as one of its most valuable assets. The rest of the world
has much to gain by our example.
It
was on November 19 th of 1863, just 87 years since the birth of our Nation, that
then President Abraham Lincoln so eloquently spoke those famous words that came
to be best known as the Gettysburg Address. It was an occasion
specifically held to commemorate and pay tribute to the tens
of thousands of lives that were lost just months earlier in a
three day battle at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania where soldiers fought
to preserve those basic freedoms we all enjoy to this very day.
A
unique feature of this freedom we hold so dear is our constitutional right to
select our own leaders. Our government is made up of three branches of ruling
authority; the legislative branch that makes the law; the judicial branch that
interprets the law; and the executive branch that administers and enforces the
law. Each and every one of these three branches of ruling authority is
headed up by someone who is either elected to office or is appointed
by someone who is elected to office. This holds true for every
level of our government be it Municipal, County, State or Federal.
Those elected are there to represent our interests, and if we
don't like how they fulfill their responsibilities, it is we
the citizens of this Country who have the right to elect others
we believe will be more responsive to our needs.
And yet, despite
all its greatness and notwithstanding our good fortune to call this Country our
own, all things are not as they should be, nor as they could be. In examining
the makeup of our Country's populace it's not all that difficult
to see that the number of those considered to be in the "working class" category
far exceed those of the multi-millionaire and/or corporate boardroom
status. As a consequence, were it all to work as this Country's
founding fathers intended, the preferences of the common man,
or in other words "working people" would almost always prevail
in the election process.
Unfortunately,
we need not look far to see that democracy does not work as it should without
the participation of those it is intended to serve. Each month we see unemployment
figures linger at unacceptable levels due to the ongoing exportation
of thousands of job opportunities to third world nations where
wages and benefits are but a mere fraction of those here at home;
we see healthcare and prescription drug costs rise to unaffordable
levels; environmental protections no longer enforced; work safety
standards compromised; Social Security benefits threatened; tax
relief advantaging the wealthy; and an unprecedented federal
deficit.
When the decision-making process is left to
others, we most often get, not what we want, but what others
want. Thomas Paine, an active statesman and political writer
of his time during the late 1700's once wrote, "Those who expect
to reap the blessings of freedom must undergo the fatigue of
supporting it."
Without labor unions involvement in this Country's
political process there is little question that laws would
be enacted, interpreted, and administered in an indiscriminate
fashion exclusively favoring the wealthy minority at the expense
of the working class majority. However, labor unions' role
in the political process is for the most part limited to the
education of its membership, and the endorsement and financial
support of candidates, issues, and legislation favorable to
working people. It is important to note that it is not the
labor unions that have the right to vote. It is the labor unions'
members that have that privilege; a privilege of which many
union members do not always take advantage. As a consequence
when looking for who is at fault for where we are today, famed
cartoonist Walt Kelly's Pogo may have said it best. "We
have met the enemy and he us."
In
contrast to the tens of thousands who gave their lives at Gettysburg in support
of the freedoms we inherited, as well as the hundreds of thousands who were to
follow, it seems little to ask of ourselves that we do our part to make democracy
work as it should. We can accomplish this by doing more than what
we have done in the past; by getting fully absorbed in the political
process; by thoroughly researching the candidates and the issues
to become better informed; by discussing the candidates and issues
with family members, friends and neighbors; by doing volunteer
work such as leafleting, doorbelling, and phone banking; by contributing
money to those issues and candidates we support; and by voting
each and every chance we are given the opportunity to do so.
As
the bells of democracy ring, good things happen when we all chime in.
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THE FLIM-FLAM PRETEND UNION SCAM
By Jon L. Rabine
Most everyone has
heard the word "Flim-Flam." It's
a term said to be coined by an East Coast newspaper back in the
1890's used to describe some of the scams of that day being used
by con artists to separate honest working people from their hard-earned
dollars. "The more things change, the more things seem to stay
the same," is an adage that certainly has relevance to the scam.
As the world continues it's never-ending process of change, the
ever-so-subtle, "I'm here to help you" approach of the conniving
scam artist remains to this day pretty much the same as it was
in days of olde; and every now and again some unsuspecting soul
takes the bait.
One of the newer more innovative
scams of recent day is that being laid out by certain so-called lawyer shyster-types
offering cheap Union representation to certain public sector
bargaining units. This "flim-flam pretend Union scam" approach to representation
is driven by the hopeful expectation that big savings of the
almighty dues dollar might be had by doing a good part of the
representation in house. These wanna-be pretend union sales reps
creep out from under their rocks with briefcase in hand offering
to do the job of a Union with little or no exposure to themselves
personally. They come with absolutely no financial resources
and offer to serve as an agent of an "Association" they propose
to create as the new representing entity complete with Bylaws
and Constitution.
The usual process involves the scammer first
approaching a small group usually comprised of a few longer-tenured
more influential individuals within a given group of workers.
These individuals are persuaded that they should represent
the bargaining unit themselves as the designated officers of
the new "Association" and
as such be afforded a pre-determined amount of compensation to
be paid to each of them in the form of a regular monthly stipend
once decertification of the existing Union is complete. The so-called
lawyer then agrees that he will sign a contract with the Association's
officers obligating him to do some of the more difficult parts
of negotiating the open labor agreement in exchange for a set
dollar amount to be paid to him each month from each person in
the bargaining unit; and for an additional hourly fee, process
any grievances during the life of the labor agreement. Under
this arrangement, the monthly dues normally otherwise paid to
the decertified Union are then usually reduced by some minimal
amount to give the appearance of a savings to each bargaining
unit member. The difference between the amount collected by the
new Association and the amount paid to the so-called lawyer is
then used to pay the newly established officers of the Association
with any remaining amount set aside for use as determined by
these same officers of the Association.
The long-term net effect
of this type of representation is not all that obvious at first
glance, but it can have some very serious adverse consequences
to the bargaining unit member.
Costs associated with any interest
arbitration process when available and exercised under State Law are above and
beyond those already mentioned, and in such instances members are normally
assessed monies above and beyond their monthly dues to pay for
such costs.
Partially governing any decision
the Association's officers might make to pursue or not pursue a particular dispute
or grievance brought by a bargaining unit member, is the amount or lack thereof,
of financial reserves readily available in the Association's
treasury for such purposes. Costs for one single grievance arbitration
can easily reach $5,000 to $20,000 in attorney and arbitrator
expenses. Should an assessment of the membership become necessary
to pursue a grievance, the Association's officers are not unmindful
of the potential political consequence of assessing the membership
for arbitration of a dispute that may not necessarily be favorably
endorsed by some of those very same members. Bottom line is that
with an Association, legitimate grievances are at times not pursued
for other than legitimate reasons, and the members are cheated
out of the representation they have every right to expect from
their representative.
An often overlooked factor is the potential
consequence facing the Association and its members should a grievance
not be pursued. An example of this is a termination that is left
to stand and not grieved by the Association. The terminated and
now-unemployed member eventually files a "failure to represent" lawsuit
against the Association claiming all lost wages and benefits.
As a result, the Association's officers then have a change of
heart and approach the employer with a request to grieve the
termination, but the employer now legitimately refuses because
the dispute is no longer timely under terms of the contract.
The unemployed member can't find work and the potential liability
to the Association continues to grow with little or no end in
sight.
In such cases, any resultant court
judgment against the Association becomes the ultimate responsibility of the Association's
individual members. State and Federal laws protect an individual's right
not to become a member of an Association as long as he/she agrees
to continue payment of the equivalent amount of the one time
initiation fee and regular monthly dues. This commitment does
not legally require payment of special assessments. Should every
bargaining unit member refuse to become an Association member
to avoid payment of special assessments, it leaves the remaining
six or seven Association officers holding office who must be
members, holding the bag for those costs associated with any
and all remaining representation responsibilities as well as
any and all resultant liability damages.
Another aspect of Union
representation lost in representation through an Association, is the effective
use of the political process. Negotiations at the bargaining table can at times
be a very frustrating experience when a recalcitrant employer insists
upon being unreasonable. In such cases, and particularly with
a public employer, sometimes the only other effective recourse
is use of the political process to alleviate the problem. That
means endorsing and supporting those in positions of power who
support those things that are important and beneficial to the
workers the labor organization represents. An Association is
ill-equipped to provide both adequate financial support and meaningful
political endorsements at a value level equal to that of an international
labor organization. What is not always obvious is that many times
the mere fact that a labor organization has such resources at
its disposal is sufficient to favorably influence the outcome
of decisions made by those representing the employer who are
in a position to make a difference.
There will always be skimmers
and scammers, flimmers and flammers, shysters and swindlers, and con artists
of any and all types offering to sell something for near nothing just to make
a fast buck at your expense. Be wary.
