Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Save Our Trade: Board decision to grant review
by Ronnie Pineda
Many of you have seen the notice generated by the same National Right to Work Foundation that represents Lee Carey. This publication is bias and erroneous in it's entirety for implying that the "Officers", (dramatically referred to by the NRTW's Stephan Gleason as "Union Bosses") are attempting to force Lee Carey and others to join our union and force them to pay dues.
The information the NRTW people present is FALSE for the fact that our contract does not make membership in the union a "condition of employment" to work in our shops, nor can we request termination of a bargaining unit employee for refusing to join the union, or refusing to pay dues.
Also, anyone not interested in joining the union is given an opportunity to apply for "Agency Fee Payer" status with the International and under the law, would only be required to pay dues germane to collective bargaining and representation, that amount was determined to be $48.04 or 80.06% based on members dues of $60.00.
We have not made "threats" as Lee and the NRTW people accuse our local of doing, our Secretary Treasurer mailed what we consider a standard notice of arrears similar to those sent by many institutions that is owed monies. None of the notices sent to bargaining unit employees seeking to collect dues made any reference to joining the union.
NLRB Regional Director Smalls understood the union security language in our contract and "instantly dismissed", not "bizarrely" dismissed Lee's petition for a de-authorization election based on the facts I stated. The officers of Local 140-N expect the board in Washington to reach the same conclusion.The NRTW people are tooting their own horn in this notice and is making this appear as if this story was reported by an uninterested party all the while attempting to smear the union for taking action against "free riders" that refuse to pay dues.
This decision could take some time, so we need to realistically look at the ramifications of what advantages the company would gain if Lee's attempt to de-authorize the union security language in the contract is successful and how that would effect the local's ability to take action against the company should it violate the contract in the future. Instead of trying to vilify the Union for all that is wrong currently, one needs only look where the decisions come from and the ones making those decisions.
As I said a million times before "a union is only as strong as it's members" and in order to have any chance in resolving the shortcomings of the contract, we must focus on unity.In short we must focus on what we need to accomplish in order to convince management to accept our proposals when we return to the table in April 2011, because if we don't, and the union is removed as representatives, pressroom employees must be willing to put their faith, trust and financial future back in the hands of the same people who refused to continue to pay shift differential and equal severance while asking the bankruptcy court for tens of millions of dollars to deposit into their accounts in order to empty the cookie Jar before the creditors slam it shut and Zell runs off with it!
Senior mgt. and middle mgt. have perfected the art of taking care of themselves, when will we learn to conduct ourselves in the same beneficial manner? As Keith once said, "when did we stop becoming our brothers keeper?"Don't support this effort by Lee and others that are ignorant to the concept of a brotherhood allowing them to cripple our local financially, He has his interests in mind only and needs others to help him achieve his objective in avoiding payment of dues. Lee could care less if you all paid dues as long as he doesn't have to. That takes cajones to ask the same people he steals money from in the form of overtime to rally behind his cause, but they ignorantly do. When Lee has gotten what he wants from them, he will resume screwing them over as history has proven.
Get involved and become a willing member in order to attend local meetings where your concerns can be address and resolved, as opposed to expressing anger towards the union. As a member you can vote on the direction of this local and the decisions made by it's officers. Lastly, as a member you can run for office if you feel you possess the skills and abilities to lead this local in a direction the members agree with. I recommend you don't get angry, but rather, get involved! If you must express your anger, direct it to those that are truly responsible........and ask yourself, have I done all that I could to make this union succeed? Am I willing and capable of doing more?
If you've done nothing but resist the union and complain every step of the way, never attending meetings, never asking questions, unwilling to seek and obtain the union provided information, then you've done absolutely nothing on your own behalf, and in my opinion, have no right to be angry at the Union, it's Officers or the company for that matter.
Ronnie Pineda
President
GCC/IBT Local 140-N
Save Our Trade: Board decision to grant review
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3 comments:
The main problem here is that the union security language in the contract with the LA Times is improperly written. Joining the union and paying dues or even refraining from joining the union and paying agency fees is not mandatory. If one cannot be terminated for failure to pay dues or agency fees then there is no mechanism to force the payment of dues. A properly worded union security agreement is achieved by forcing the employee to pay dues/ agency fees as a condition of employment or be terminated for failure to pay. Since we cannot be terminated for not paying dues or agency fees it is not a condition of employment.We all know that if we violate conditions of employment we are terminated! This is the reason regional director Smalls did not grant an election. Our jobs are not at risk so paying dues or agency fees is not mandatory and the union security clause is not binding. The appeals board of the NLRB will probably clarify this because either the clause is non binding or they will have to grant a deauthorization vote. You cannot have it both ways.The best thing to do is for the union to acknowledge this fact and move on. Maybe in the next contract we can get the person(s) that wrote the well worded union bylaws to do our contract and we can all be happy and you may even get some of us non payers to want to join.
MTUB4,
You are correct in your interpretation of the situation with the exception of the security language being binding. The Board will have to make sense of what the condition of employment boils down to based on the language in the contract.
When in negotiations, it was perfectly clear that union membership was not a condition of employment, and you cannot be terminated for not joining, but we had also discussed the Local's ability to collect dues that are germane to representation and collective bargaining.
The reason being, everyone in the shops is represented under this contract and our Officer's have a Duty of Fair Representation regarding all bargaining unit employees whether members or not.
That is also why everyone receives the annual Lump Sum payment and not just members of the Local.
The boards decision will indeed determine whether we can or cannot collect dues. That decision may also have a bearing on whether a deauthorization election is valid or not under our union security language.
I'm glad to read that you speak of the "next contract" because there were things lost in negotiations that we must focus on regaining when this contract expires.
That is why I recommend full membership in order to nominate, elect or run for office.
There are two mechanisms in the National Labor Relations Act that protect workers from forced unionism in the workplace - deathorization and decertification.
There are many coworkers that have chosen to not support the union effort and as such, shouldn't be forced to pay union dues - deauthorization is the vehicle to accomplish this. Yes - notices threatening to sue you in court are threats. The notices don't say please pay us if you want.
The national appeals board of the NLRB has deemed that the case filed by the NRTW lawyers has merit and is reviewing the case.
The union president states that there were things lost in negotiations - why were they lost?
He speaks of a chance at negotiating a second contract - why wouldn't more be lost?
The lump sum payments don't come close to compensating us for what was lost at the bargaining table.
The personal attacks, scare tactics, villifying the company/ management and accusing anyone that doesn't agree with the union "brotherhood" of being ignorant are becoming a common theme with the union.
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