Why Everyone Should Be in a Union [View all]

[louis c]

Last edited Sun Sep 2, 2012, 06:54 PM - Edit history (1)

I represent IBEW workers at a racetrack in Boston. We needed legislation to expand gambling in Massachusetts in order to survive. The company and the union joined forces in this effort to secure legislation. It took nearly 10 years to accomplish. It was in both parties best interest. The legislation passed last year in a Democratic controlled legislature and was signed into law by a Democratic Governor and one of President Obama's strongest supporters, Deval Patrick. On Labor Day, the best contract we ever bargained goes into affect. Pay raises, over 3 years, (2012 is retroactive) that range from 10% to 22%. Increases in employer contribution to health and dental care, extra vacation and sick days and time and half on holidays for not only full-time workers, but also for part-time workers. There's much more, but you get the point. I have been asked to speak about this success at a union forum in Vermont at the end of the month. Here's what I intend to say:

When people watch Sean Hannity on TV, listen to Rush limbaugh on the radio, or read Howie Carr in the newspaper, here's what you have to keep in mind. Not one of them would work a single day without a contract. A contract that spells out their responsibilities and their wages. Their benefits, their working conditions. Not one of them, or people like them, would work a single day without that written agreement. Yet each of them will rail against labor unions. I represent Mutuel Clerks, Bartenders, Waitresses and Waiters. Dishwashers and cooks, laborers and racing personnel. If one of us walked into a place to get a job in our professions and asked for a contract, on our own, we would be laughed at and shown the door. The only way we can negotiate a contract is collectively. By pooling our limited resources and banding together, we can accomplish what we would be unable to accomplish separately. None of us, individually, can provide a service, or withhold it, with any leverage. After all, we are just average workers. But united, we can accomplish a great deal, both for ourselves and for the company we work for. I, and the people I represent, have no particular special talent. We are just your everyday service employees. We are not great celebrities or exceptional athletes. We are not well known public figures. We are just workers. We, and all those like us, are the backbone of America and we deserve the same rights as all those I have mentioned. We need to bargain collectively in order to accomplish the receiving of a living wage and to provide health care to our families.

I personally take being called a "union boss" as an insult when those that I have mentioned use that phrase so readily and with such disdain. Each one of them has an agent, who finds them work, represents them in negotiations, works with a lawyer to finalize a contract and advocates for them as a client. I do the same thing. I am not a "boss" but a business agent, representing the workers who chose me by free and fair election, to speak in their behalf. So when we hear these windbags denigrate our institution that provides a voice for workers in the workplace, the same voice that they themselves demand for themselves, they should be called out for exactly what they are, self-serving hypocrites with no interest in the hard working members of the middle-class.