I've been seeing meetings like these for years now. A little cheer leading is understandable but these meetings are all about distracting from actual issues etc.
r1a said more need to stand up and call them on the BS. Well I did that a few times and those fellow drivers who agreed with me I private sat on their hands and left me out on the limb.
Well... I've said that more need to recognize the B.S., then do the only logical thing to fight back - sign those damn rep cards.
Getting into senior management's face occasionally won't hurt (it does let them know the crap sandwich isn't going down smoothly, and they may decide to kick out a few extra bucks to keep you interested in the crap sandwich); however, getting into an all out shouting match isn't going to do you a thing - it will just put you on the radar for your station management to start building documentation against you in order to get rid of you.
What you experienced here, is what I wrote about in the analogy of my childhood 'confrontation' with Greg. Everyone wanted to bash his head in, but when the time came to actually do it, everyone else found an excuse to run away and I was left standing having to decide whether to do it by myself (and get my head bashed in), or to walk away. It was a lesson learned...
know who your true friends are BEFORE you get into a fight
At this point, I've come to the conclusion that the Couriers aren't ever going to organize, NOT due to the RLA (the RLA just makes it a bit more difficult), but due to their own FEAR. They want to bash Fred's head in, but they won't take a stand and actually do it - they'll walk away every time.
About the only thing I can figure, is that it come down to this: the Couriers know they're worth more than what they are getting, but
they are too damn AFRAID of losing what they have, in order to try to get what they are worth.
Simple as that...
In most organizing drives, the employees need to be pushed to the point where they don't feel they have much to lose - they HAVE TO be placed into that corner to get them to begin to stand shoulder-to-shoulder and to fight back. Express Couriers simply aren't there yet - if they ever will be. One hundred years ago, labor drives had the employers using hired thugs to beat and in some instances murder a few of the striking workers in order to instill fear into them to abandon their drive and return to work in the same atrocious conditions they began their strike over.
There just isn't enough disgust at Fred over the subpar conditions, to get a majority of Couriers to stand shoulder-to-shoulder to do something. So the status quo continues. The fear of losing what you have surpasses your disgust at Fred over what you should be getting - so the Couriers take no action and continue getting Fred's volume moved.
There is plenty of discontent out there, but the discontent isn't enough to overcome the fear that is also out there. Everyone has been talking about the poor SFA scores this year - doesn't mean a damn thing and Express management knows it.
Everyone out there is pissed off about what they are being compensated (especially compared to UPS), but they won't commit to getting together and building organization to actually do something about it. Oh, everyone talks tough (even here), but when it comes right down to it, I haven't heard of more than a HANDFUL of instances of a poster here stating that they've reached out to another station to begin to build network to get an organization drive off the ground. It has been 2 months now since the latest installment of crap sandwich (no pay raise) - and other than a couple of weeks of bitching about it - NOTHING of substance has happened.
Hell, I saw a completely USELESS debate with the Ground contractors over the legitimacy of their business models occur yesterday.
What in the hell does that get you as an Express Courier?
For my final postings, I'm writing up a series of posts, detailing how an organizing drive is much like a military operation - and for it to succeed, certain principles MUST be adhered to in order to achieve success. To date, I've seen NOTHING even remotely resembling what is needed in order to achieve success in this 'war' (taking on a multi-billion dollar corporation is war, make no mistake about it). Virtually EVERYONE here has made it clear that they don't have the time or inclination to do what is really needed to make a drive in the face of the RLA succeed - that is establish NETWORK and get organizers in 400+ stations.
When Couriers state they don't have the time or inclination to do what is really needed to change the situation - what they are saying is that they are waiting for someone else to do the heavy work, then they'll join in once the objective is in sight.
Everyone has lamented about how difficult it is (it would indeed take work), then has taken the line of thought that they'll join in a drive if SOMEONE ELSE gets the ball rolling and does all the hard work.
Doesn't work like that, everyone is standing around saying they'll join in once the critical momentum is established, but none of those standing around is willing to actually put their shoulder to the ball and begin the process of moving it towards the objective (an organized Express). So the same ol' same ol' occurs here - lots of talk about the need to get to the objective, but no COORDINATED working together in actually getting that ball moving.
Fifty cats running in different directions not getting anywhere...
There's lots of beating the drums of discontent, marching in a circle and shouting about how bad things are, BUT no progress in actually moving towards the objective and achieving success.
Well, maybe next time everyone thinks to themselves..... and it goes on and on and on and on....