Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Being on strike sucks,butthis is worse!

I have only been involved in one campaign against the Teamsters and that was decades ago in a big northern city, and very short, as the pro-union malcontents switched to a different union. Your mileage in 2004 probably varies.

The best way to predict what would happen would be to find another similar chicken processing plant which the Teamsters organized a few years ago and check into what happened.

In our case, the Teamsters bribed a fork lift driver at a nearby plant to give them the names of all the workers. Then they went to the workers' homes over a weekend, informed them (falsely) that the plant had been unionized, and that they would be fired if they didn't sign a union card. On Monday they walked into the owner's office, presented him the cards, and demanded he recognize the union without any NLRB election. Very stupidly, he did that.

The first contract gave the workers just enough raise to pay the Teamster dues, which of course was mandatory for them. Later contracts got more onerous as the owner was an incompetent patsy. Later his sons took over the business and moved it away.

Then the Teamsters tried to organize our plant which was bigger. They of course tried to get cards signed in secret, but we found out about it, called a meeting of the employees, and explained why we were against unions. Only about 4 or 5 cards were ever signed, and after a brief flirtation with another union (which went away when they figured out they could not make the sale), everything settled down. The four or five malcontents left the company on their own.

An NLRB election tends to polarize the work place, irrespective of who wins, because each side declares itself during the campaign, and tempers flare. Afterwards, the union is not allowed to try for another election until a year later.

The union can ask for an NLRB election if 30% sign cards, but generally tries to get over 50%. It tries to do this in secret so management does not start campaigning against it. Incredible as it may seem, many workers do not realize that management would oppose a union--until they say so. Once the campaign becomes public, the union knows it will lose some support, which is why it tries to start over 50%.

Everything I say refers to fairly well managed industrial facilities. It is almost impossible to unionize such a facility. The union has nothing to offer such workers but elevaton of the incompetent and risk of layoffs. But chicken workers--I don't know. there may be some desperation factor.

The Teamsters have motives a little different than some other unions. They take in more money. For instance, the union, not each company, has a pension fund, and the head goombahs have used this as a slush fund to invest in various things. As a result, they are now under federal supervision, which makes stealing the pension fund harder, although every national president except the present incumbent, for the last 30 years or so, has been sent to prison. Incidentally, they provide medical care for retirees but last year raised the copay from $100 per month to something like $1200 per month. If Enron had tried that, you would have heard more about it.