If you're glad your employer can't make you work 10 to 16 hour days, 6 days a week, thank a union.
Unless you work in the transportation industry, because you're under the Railway Labor Act and basically are the company's bitch. :/ Maybe not 6 days a week, but they can make you work indefinitely on any shift so long as it's claimed as "operational need" to keep the airline running. I see it happen nightly.
I'm beginning to believe airline unionization is dead. The Northwest ramp union is going to implode soon, with the Delta merger coming to full bloom. Delta, a rather notoriously non-union company, merging with Northwest, a company known for its union? Needless to say they're not going to get the votes they need, and this will lead to absolute chaos amongst the workers. I'm seeing it now in Detroit, where the IAM has taken Delta to court because they've been trying to work a "con" on the union from what I can see. Granted, I'm not horribly "in the know" because I work for the regional airline, which has never had a union.
Not that we didn't try. God knows we have. Corporate pulled the same crap that you read all the time. They had the hiring staff scare the new hires that their jobs would be on the line if there was a union, that they couldn't shift swap, that life would be horrible. The new hires bought it, class after class. The last union to try and take us was the IAM, and I think there was only a 45% vote across the board so it failed.
Then they did a mass "restructuring" and cut 50% of our workforce right after the vote failed.
The whole situation revolving around my area of employment just puts a bad taste in my mouth. We fight for things we shouldn't have to while management gets to sit back and say "if you don't like it there's the door, we're not fixing it." I shouldn't have to spend six months fighting a write-up over a missed timeclock punch (first missed punch in four years? Six other people claiming that timeclock isn't working properly? Don't spout to me "must be operator error," DO something to pretend to give a shit!), I shouldn't have to email the CEO of the company to get paid the per-diem that they owe me from three months ago, I shouldn't have to pull corporate HR into a simple matter of getting a date changed because on-site HR tells me to go fuck a duck. Yet I do.
I am so outta this industry the moment I have an escape route.
no subject
Date: 16 Jan 2009 06:04 pm (UTC)Unless you work in the transportation industry, because you're under the Railway Labor Act and basically are the company's bitch. :/ Maybe not 6 days a week, but they can make you work indefinitely on any shift so long as it's claimed as "operational need" to keep the airline running. I see it happen nightly.
I'm beginning to believe airline unionization is dead. The Northwest ramp union is going to implode soon, with the Delta merger coming to full bloom. Delta, a rather notoriously non-union company, merging with Northwest, a company known for its union? Needless to say they're not going to get the votes they need, and this will lead to absolute chaos amongst the workers. I'm seeing it now in Detroit, where the IAM has taken Delta to court because they've been trying to work a "con" on the union from what I can see. Granted, I'm not horribly "in the know" because I work for the regional airline, which has never had a union.
Not that we didn't try. God knows we have. Corporate pulled the same crap that you read all the time. They had the hiring staff scare the new hires that their jobs would be on the line if there was a union, that they couldn't shift swap, that life would be horrible. The new hires bought it, class after class. The last union to try and take us was the IAM, and I think there was only a 45% vote across the board so it failed.
Then they did a mass "restructuring" and cut 50% of our workforce right after the vote failed.
The whole situation revolving around my area of employment just puts a bad taste in my mouth. We fight for things we shouldn't have to while management gets to sit back and say "if you don't like it there's the door, we're not fixing it." I shouldn't have to spend six months fighting a write-up over a missed timeclock punch (first missed punch in four years? Six other people claiming that timeclock isn't working properly? Don't spout to me "must be operator error," DO something to pretend to give a shit!), I shouldn't have to email the CEO of the company to get paid the per-diem that they owe me from three months ago, I shouldn't have to pull corporate HR into a simple matter of getting a date changed because on-site HR tells me to go fuck a duck. Yet I do.
I am so outta this industry the moment I have an escape route.