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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThis Is What It's Like To Sit Through An Anti-Union Meeting At Work
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/03/captive-audience-meetings-anti-union_n_5754330.html?utm_hp_ref=tw
Dave Jamieson
Posted: 09/03/2014 11:19 am EDT Updated: 09/03/2014 11:59 am EDT
One day last fall, employees of Iron Mountain, a Boston-based records management company, were subjected to what union organizers like to call a captive audience meeting.
Employers hold these anti-union meetings once they've gotten wind of an organizing campaign in their midst. Whether the meeting is led by in-house managers or outside consultants, the gist is usually the same: Joining a union is totally your call. But it's a really bad idea, and we're disappointed it's come to this.
The spiel at an Iron Mountain facility near Atlanta, where the Teamsters were trying to organize truck drivers, wasn't unlike the anti-union speeches commonly delivered at other companies. What made this meeting different was that a pro-union worker in attendance was surreptitiously recording it.
"We have the right to educate you," the Iron Mountain manager lectured his employees. "And we're going to exercise that right."
FULL story and audios of meetings at link.
CaliforniaPeggy
(149,762 posts)They don't have any new or good ideas, so they trot out the old canards.
Fuck them.
Wellstone ruled
(34,661 posts)intimidation/threaten your friends and family informational meetings. Each time I made sure I was wearing mu Union Now Tee-shirt under my Uniform. When is came to Q&A time,out came the Tee. Got threatened many a time,but,they never were able to can my ass. Always flash my Teamster withdrawal Card showing withdrawal in good standing. Want to see these so called Union Busters shit a brick,this worked for me,just stand up for any Union and if you are or were a Teamster,this gets their attention. How did we hire that ass hole,huh,he is our number one sales person nationally. Duh!!!!
arcane1
(38,613 posts)I have a masochistic fascination with internal corporate PR
jwirr
(39,215 posts)Union helped him find a new job where they would not harrass us anymore.
RadicalGeek
(344 posts)Little did they know, I was taking mental notes and passing them along to a USW rep.
Fred Drum
(293 posts)The United Steel, Paper and Forestry, Rubber, Manufacturing, Energy, Allied Industrial and Service Workers International Union (United Steelworkers or USW)
i proudly give them their 1.3%
VA_Jill
(10,041 posts)for my first nursing job, I was *explicitly* told that if I was ever caught in any kind of union organizing or promoting activity at that facility, I would be summarily fired. "We think we treat our employees well enough that there is no need for a union," was what I was told. I never had to sit through this kind of talk at an employee meeting, and I never thought to ask any of the other new grads if they had been told the same thing. I'm guessing they were, however. Tennessee is a right to work, or as my late ex liked to say, a right to slave state. There is only one hospital that I know of in east Tennessee where the nurses have a union, and that's in .surprise Oak Ridge, which is something of an anomaly any way you cut it. However, I worked in number of other hospitals in that part of the state, and only in that one was I ever warned against any kind of union activity or told I'd be fired if I participated in it. I suspect that kind of intimidation may actually be illegal, even in Tennessee.
Jim Lane
(11,175 posts)The National Labor Relations Act protects the right of workers to join a union. Tennessee can't override that.
Most union-busting employers are savvy enough not to make the kind of explicit threat that you heard. They just give union organizers bad reviews or do whatever else will help give a pretext for the firing.
"Right to work" laws cover a different subject. In states that have them, they prohibit employers and unions from including certain types of clauses in collective bargaining agreements.
Incidentally, if you want to see a libertarian squirm, bring up "right to work" laws. Libertarians tend to be pro-business and anti-union. They also espouse freedom of contract -- for example, minimum wage laws are unjust because they prevent people from entering into mutually acceptable contracts. Well, "right to work" laws hurt unions and help businesses, but they also prevent people from entering into mutually acceptable contracts. When it comes to hurting unions, libertarians suddenly understand the idea that the government might prohibit certain types of contracts because of the broader social consequences.
VA_Jill
(10,041 posts)(1986) I did not know that. I did know that if I said anything, it would of course be my word against the HR person's, since of course there was no record of any such conversation and he could lie his ass off. There were no cell phones to record such conversations in those days, either. And as I said, I was too intimidated, or perhaps too naive, to ask any of the other new hires if they'd been told the same thing. I'm much smarter now.
Laelth
(32,017 posts)-Laelth
MindPilot
(12,693 posts)In the locker room at a car dealer where I worked. The address would always be bogus, like a vacant lot. It was fun to watch the managers freak out and try to infiltrate the "meeting". It actually worked like three times before management figured out we, the workers, were fucking with them.
Doctor_J
(36,392 posts)Fred Drum
(293 posts)i can add nothing