Seeking to unseal a union's records Antiunion privacy suit fuels a debate

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/business/15873191.htm

Seeking to unseal a union's records
Antiunion privacy suit fuels a debate.
By Jane M. Von Bergen
Inquirer Staff Writer

Elizabeth "Penny" Pichler could never be counted as a fan of unions.

But what really bothered the 65-year-old receptionist at Cintas Corp.'s Emmaus plant was a knock on the door of her Bethlehem, Pa., townhouse in February 2004.

The union organizer from Unite-Here, a national labor union, was polite, but unwelcome. He wanted her to help unionize Cintas, the nation's largest laundry company.

"How the heck did someone know I worked at Cintas and get my address and show up at my front door?" Pichler said in an interview Friday. "I thought it was very unnerving."

FULL story at link above.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

1. I live very near that area.

What's surely in play here are several things:

1. That is a very repuke area. They buy the repuke anti-union drivel lock, stock and barrel around here, even if it means sub-standard wages and shitty working conditions.

2. You can take it to the bank that illegal anti-organizing scare tactics are being used. Around here, when a organizing movement takes place, companies have no compunction about pulling out the stops, no matter how illegal. Why> They never, ever face enforcement. Ever. M&M Mars, in Hackettstown NJ, is not unionized. They have been screwing the line workers for years. Several unions have tried to organize. The company comes right out and says that if they do, they will shut the plant. They say this openly. Nothing ever happens. Now, it is largely staffed with temps.

These companies bank on getting away with breaking the law and the fact that their workers are too stupid to see that a union will only make their lives better.

Oh, and one more thing: In the places that are unionized, there are too many shop stewards and BA's that will sell out their brothers and sisters in negotiations and grievances. I have seen that as well, such as right now, in one social service agency that is terribly understaffed and overworked. People working 16 hour days to just cover the action, with no commensurate pay. The union reps are doing nothing.

People notice that, and it gives them a bad taste.

Note: I am a foursquare believer in unions, when they work for the rank and file. When they don't? Well...it's just a waste of time and money.

[mopinko]

3. mars

the family that owns this company is one of the 18(?) families that has pushed the end of the estate tax.

[Yupster]

8. Cintas is a corporation

owned by stockholders.

There are currently over 160 million shares owned. You can buy one yourself fo $ 41.35 per share.

Between 14-15 % of the shares are owned by insiders.

[Solo_in_MD]

2. I am surpised at this...its black letter law and the union should have known better

That said, was there really any harm done (compensory damages) and how severe a penalty should be levied to insure future compliance by this union and others? Minimal IMO on both, should the union indeed lose.

When I was active in a union environment, the union had access to contact information for all of us. Is doing the license plate thing really required? Serious question as I have no idea what the rules are.

[Gman]

5. The union did nothing wrong

You do whatever it takes to organize.

[Solo_in_MD]

6. So the end justifies the means? Very progressive viewpoint

The union movement is too important to have it sullied. Wasn't there another way to get the data? A legitimate one?

[Yupster]

9. I get it

You're joking.

I like your Jethro Tull quote too. Here's a similar one.

"Once in Royal David's city.
Stood a lonely cattleshed.
There a mother held her baby.
You'd do well to remember the things he later said."

[Gman]

4. Scabs are disgusting

they will sell everyone else out in a moment if they thought they would get ahead.

[Occulus]

7. I used to think that as well.

Then I realized something: in a bad economy, bad employers are cheerful. They like the economy to be bad, because it means they can treat their workers however they like and nobody will do anything because those workers have no other job to go to.

But further, it's doubly true for temps- or, as we in the USPS call them, "casuals". Versus APWU/NALC/NPMHU members, casuals receive no vacation time or sick leave, can be made to work any shift up to the legal hours limit, do the exact same work union members do, do not get trained- ever- and make about half the houly wage.

The USPS is trying to break its unions. Casuals are the direct result, and you know what? It's postal managers capitalizing on a bad economy in which jobs are scarce; they know this, they revel in it, and they treat the casuals like absolute shit into the bargain. The fact that "casuals-in-leiu-of" grievances have been won, and won big (in PA, I think, to the tune of $14 or $15 Million for one local), doesn't bother them, because as I said in another union-related thread up right now, the fines- or, in this case, grievance settlements- are treated as a cost of doing business.

That needs to end. The fines for violating workers' rights or laws or whatever need to be made truly onerous, a real fright, a true and company-crushing burden. ALL corporate fines ought to be in the tens of millions of dollars, if not higher; it really should be a sliding scale based upon a percentage of company value. And no, I don't care that this might drive Company X out of business, because if they're abusing their workers or breaking the laws to the extent that the fines do force their doors closed, those doors clearly deserve to be closed or at the least the entire management and supervisory structure summarily terminated and a new group put in.

This all ties into my black, utter, absolute hatred for the concept of corporate personhood, which of course is what makes all of this possible in the first place. Take away their "right" to "run their business the way they want" and you take away their power to inflict harm on the public and the individual worker.

edit: I don't blame scabs anymore. I was lucky to get into the USPS as a full-timer, right at the very very end of their willingness to hire such. We desperately need the help in our plant, and if all the- as you put it- scabs were to walk en masse, there would be a fresh new group there only a few days later. Oh, but there's a "hiring freeze" right now; the USPS can't "hire" anybody.

They hire casuals up the ass, though- but that's a management fuckover. The casuals themselves have nothing to do with it, and (if they couldn't be fired at any time) could organize themselves if they had a mind, and in fact I've advocated as much to them, and will continue to do so.

It'll never happen, but it tends to inspire people who make half what I do and have to work twelve hours a day, every day, without a day off.