Home
Forums
New posts
Search forums
What's new
New posts
Latest activity
Members
Current visitors
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
New posts
Search forums
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Home
Forums
The Competition
FedEx Discussions
Who Is Serious About Unionizing?
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Ricochet1a" data-source="post: 1163883" data-attributes="member: 22880"><p>Short answer, the law...</p><p></p><p>Longer answer - the law is crafted by a consensus of lawmakers acting on the advice and pressure from interest groups. The requirement is deliberately in place to make it as difficult as possible to get the task accomplished. To be fair, technology has advanced considerably since the law was written. However, groups that serve the interest of large corporations are in no hurry for lawmakers to 'update' the law just to make it easier for labor to organize. </p><p></p><p>An old story about how bureaucratic inertia works...</p><p></p><p>France way back had a de facto restriction on the number of VCRs that could be imported from Asian countries (this is way back). They didn't restrict the number of imports with quotas or even high tariffs. They had a requirement that each and every machine had to be taken out of its box, hooked up and put through a 'test' to ensure its function before it could be released into the French consumer market (done under the guise of 'consumer protection').</p><p></p><p>OK... just have a lot of 'testers', and pass the cost of the 'testing' to the purchasers, right???</p><p></p><p>No... by bureaucratic procedure (DELIBERATELY established), there were only (if memory serves correctly), THREE testers for the entire nation of France. The bureaucracy was DELIBERATELY set up to restrict the flow of foreign produced VCRs into France, since these few testers could only 'certify' a small number of machines in a day (working French business hours). France was able to state it had 'open trade' and had no tariffs placed on foreign products to discourage their purchase by French consumers. By the REALITY was that only a handful of machines made it into the French market each day - therefore imposing a de facto trade barrier (while giving the French government 'clean hands' in trade negotiations). </p><p></p><p>The same sort of things go on in our laws and regulations. The ability for labor to organize is codified and the procedure is well known. The procedure ISN'T intended to facilitate easy organization by labor - to change the procedure requires a consensus of lawmakers and there are many who don't want to change the status quo. The RLA is DELIBERATELY intended to make it more difficult for labor in certain industries to successfully organize - which corporations utilize to discourage if not outright inhibit successful organization attempts. </p><p></p><p>The deck is stacked against you as an Express employee - and the hurdle to successfully organize has been raised so high by a combination of law and bureaucratic procedure, that the labor organization that would serve as the representative union (the IBT), has walked away from the task - believing that the cost to them to overcome all of these hurdles aren't worth its time, effort, capital and potential loss of political prestige for themselves.</p><p></p><p>So where does that leave the Express wage employee?</p><p></p><p>If they really want to organize, they need to do what I've been saying they need to do for quite some time now - build their OWN grassroots organization and get enough cards in (getting those organizers in each station is MORE important than just a few here and there signing cards at this stage - the ORGANIZATION must come first), then have the IBT realize that the 'heavy lifting' has already been done by the Couriers themselves. It would be left to the IBT to merely petition for an election (presuming a majority of Couriers have signed cards), and the rest would merely be procedural. </p><p></p><p>At this point, I can safely state that the Couriers will <u>never</u> go to the effort to organize themselves; they are waiting for someone else to do it for them. Technology has made it actually quite simple to build nationwide organization (internet and social networking), but the Couriers won't go to the trouble to learn about the procedure needed to change their situation, come together and create a national network, then have some leadership in that network advise on procedure to get out amateur produced literature and get rep cards out to be signed and sent in... all in accordance with the law covering labor organizing.</p><p></p><p>So the practical question facing the Express wage employee at this stage ISN'T, "When is a union going to come it?" It will never happen as long as the status quo exists. For the Express wage employee at this point, the relevant question is, "How long am I going to put up with this until I find other work?"</p><p></p><p>Since the Express wage employees won't come together and help themselves, the options left for the individual Express employee are Leave or Bendover - simple logic exercise at this point. Organize is simply not within the realm of remote possibilities at this point.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Ricochet1a, post: 1163883, member: 22880"] Short answer, the law... Longer answer - the law is crafted by a consensus of lawmakers acting on the advice and pressure from interest groups. The requirement is deliberately in place to make it as difficult as possible to get the task accomplished. To be fair, technology has advanced considerably since the law was written. However, groups that serve the interest of large corporations are in no hurry for lawmakers to 'update' the law just to make it easier for labor to organize. An old story about how bureaucratic inertia works... France way back had a de facto restriction on the number of VCRs that could be imported from Asian countries (this is way back). They didn't restrict the number of imports with quotas or even high tariffs. They had a requirement that each and every machine had to be taken out of its box, hooked up and put through a 'test' to ensure its function before it could be released into the French consumer market (done under the guise of 'consumer protection'). OK... just have a lot of 'testers', and pass the cost of the 'testing' to the purchasers, right??? No... by bureaucratic procedure (DELIBERATELY established), there were only (if memory serves correctly), THREE testers for the entire nation of France. The bureaucracy was DELIBERATELY set up to restrict the flow of foreign produced VCRs into France, since these few testers could only 'certify' a small number of machines in a day (working French business hours). France was able to state it had 'open trade' and had no tariffs placed on foreign products to discourage their purchase by French consumers. By the REALITY was that only a handful of machines made it into the French market each day - therefore imposing a de facto trade barrier (while giving the French government 'clean hands' in trade negotiations). The same sort of things go on in our laws and regulations. The ability for labor to organize is codified and the procedure is well known. The procedure ISN'T intended to facilitate easy organization by labor - to change the procedure requires a consensus of lawmakers and there are many who don't want to change the status quo. The RLA is DELIBERATELY intended to make it more difficult for labor in certain industries to successfully organize - which corporations utilize to discourage if not outright inhibit successful organization attempts. The deck is stacked against you as an Express employee - and the hurdle to successfully organize has been raised so high by a combination of law and bureaucratic procedure, that the labor organization that would serve as the representative union (the IBT), has walked away from the task - believing that the cost to them to overcome all of these hurdles aren't worth its time, effort, capital and potential loss of political prestige for themselves. So where does that leave the Express wage employee? If they really want to organize, they need to do what I've been saying they need to do for quite some time now - build their OWN grassroots organization and get enough cards in (getting those organizers in each station is MORE important than just a few here and there signing cards at this stage - the ORGANIZATION must come first), then have the IBT realize that the 'heavy lifting' has already been done by the Couriers themselves. It would be left to the IBT to merely petition for an election (presuming a majority of Couriers have signed cards), and the rest would merely be procedural. At this point, I can safely state that the Couriers will [U]never[/U] go to the effort to organize themselves; they are waiting for someone else to do it for them. Technology has made it actually quite simple to build nationwide organization (internet and social networking), but the Couriers won't go to the trouble to learn about the procedure needed to change their situation, come together and create a national network, then have some leadership in that network advise on procedure to get out amateur produced literature and get rep cards out to be signed and sent in... all in accordance with the law covering labor organizing. So the practical question facing the Express wage employee at this stage ISN'T, "When is a union going to come it?" It will never happen as long as the status quo exists. For the Express wage employee at this point, the relevant question is, "How long am I going to put up with this until I find other work?" Since the Express wage employees won't come together and help themselves, the options left for the individual Express employee are Leave or Bendover - simple logic exercise at this point. Organize is simply not within the realm of remote possibilities at this point. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Home
Forums
The Competition
FedEx Discussions
Who Is Serious About Unionizing?
Top