I am a union member in the middle of a battle with my employer and working without a contract

[proud2BlibKansan]

And it sucks.

The rules have been thrown out the window.

Most importantly, we have received no raise in pay for 15 months. I don't think I need to explain what the economy has done in the last 15 months and why even a cost of living raise would have been appreciated. Our employer doesn't give us raises out of the goodness of their hearts; our UNION negotiates them for us.

But it isn't just our pay. There are many other consequences to not having a contract.

Public reprimand is now okay. We can be criticized, corrected, disciplined in front of an audience now, since there is no contract forbidding this.

Our employer can make us work overtime WITHOUT PAY any time they want. No notice is required and if we refuse to work, we are written up for insubordination.

Our employer is not required to buy us the supplies we need to do our jobs, and they aren't, so we must purchase them ourselves. And we can't file a grievance or ask to be reimbursed; those actions were in the contract we no longer have.

It is time to negotiate a new contract with our health insurance carrier. And since we have no contract, we have no right to participate in the negotiations. Since we have also received no raise in pay, when our insurance costs go up, (and who believes they won't) our paychecks will be reduced.

Our employer can literally make up new rules every day. I received an email the other day which basically said write this report we are asking for and turn it in immediately. Oh and I had to continue to perform my job duties while I prepared that report.

We are being told there is no money in the budget for raises, supplies or new programs. When we had a contract, our union had a voice in these decisions, Now they don't. So our employer decided to contract out the management of the human resources department. They hired one person (oops I mean contracted with) to run HR and she is being paid $300,000.

No, many of you know I am not an autoworker or a blue collar worker. I am a teacher. It is illegal in my state for teachers to go on strike. So we don't have that option unless we want to go to jail.

I stand in solidarity with auto workers who are being treated with disdain by their employers, our Republican senators and many uninformed Americans. Until you are treated like you have no value as a worker perhaps it is hard to understand how demeaning it is.

[gollygee]

1. I knew you were a teacher after just a few lines

Teachers' striking rights were taken away, and look what happened. It's awful.

[panader0]

2. "Illegal to go on strike"?

Wow, that's a weird one.

[proud2BlibKansan]

4. I believe it is very common in most states

Teachers are barred from striking.

[gollygee]

6. There are various state laws that prohibit public employees from striking

because they provide "essential services". But of course the fact that their services are essential is their best bargaining chip and a good reason why they should be paid decently. So union busters passed laws to make it illegal for them to go on strike.

[Greyhound]

9. Not at all. Like most of the obscenity that the US has become, it was started in

the 80s. Initially it was "essential" positions (remember PATCO?) that were forbidden to strike. Now after 3 decades of apathetic acceptance, city, county and state governments have declared that all kinds of positions are not allowed to strike.

[roguevalley]

36. Alaska dropped that law if I remember back in the day. Say what

you will about some of the dipshits up here, we have powerful unions. IBEW FOREVER!

I am with you, honey. I was frozen in 1985 and never recovered. I am with you in spirit.

RV, union forever.

[Snotcicles]

3. What is your union affiliation? nt

[proud2BlibKansan]

5. AFT

edited to add link: http://www.aft.org/

[Doremus]

7. Good post. I salute you and all union workers. n/t

[JVS]

8. Hopefully you'll get back pay on the raise when a contact is negotiated.

[gollygee]

10. It doesn't look like the employer has much incentive to negotiate though

I bet it'll take a while. Why should the school district bother negotiating a contract? Things are working well for them as it is. :(

[JVS]

12. If management feels too comfy then the union should file the two weeks notice for a work stoppage...

or strike as it is commonly called. Beginning two weeks after that notification a strike can happen at any point and filing these papers is often a good way to exert some pressure to get some negotiating progress. The notification requires approval of a general vote among the members of the bargaining unit, so the very act of taking a vote on that is useful in getting some pressure on management.

[proud2BlibKansan]

14. Unlike most union jobs, our workers are not required to join the union.

So we have (too many) co-workers who are not union members and would not participate in a strike. And since it is illegal, we run the risk of being arrested if we do go on strike.

[JVS]

15. Try to use the worsened working conditions as a recruitment tool.

Remind them that the union is their representative in negotiations and that the more support they are shown, the easier it is for a contract to be made and the better it will be.

[gollygee]

17. They haven't gotten a pay raise in 15 months so they don't have any money

and their union has no teeth as it's illegal for them to go on strike. I think they're not likely to get many new recruits.

What gives unions teeth are two things - no "right to work" laws. Everyone who benefits from the union has to be a part of it. AND no laws against striking. There might as well not be a union without those two things. And the union busters who write and work for these laws know it.

[proud2BlibKansan]

19. It's an ongoing process

but you are right, increasing our numbers would definitely help us win this contract battle.

[knitter4democracy]

31. Work slow down, then.

Don't buy those materials. Stick only to old-contract hours. Don't do a darn thing if it wasn't in the old contract. It works up here in Michigan.

[JVS]

37. Yeah, that's what we try to do when we aren't under contract. Work to rule. But it seems that...

this school is changing the rules of the old contract. Weird.

[gollygee]

16. It is illegal in many places for teachers and other public workers to strike

Which is a big part of the problem in the OP.

[crispini]

11. Sounds kind of like what it's like to be not represented, in a right-to-work job.

Pay raises... when management feels like it. You get a yearly review, and maybe you get a raise if times are good, but maybe you don't. You have nobody to negotiate with management but you.

Salaried employer - Our employer can make us work overtime WITHOUT PAY any time they want - check!

Supplies- now that is one good thing about working for The Man, at least they do give you what you need to do the job.

Contract with health insurance- HR just went and did it, no thanks to us.

Change the rules as you go? Check.

What you're describing is nothing different from what millions of employees who are not represented by unions deal with every day. It's pretty much standard operating procedure in Corporate America today.

[proud2BlibKansan]

13. And do you think that is okay?

I sure don't.

The day I showed up to work I joined the union. (It is voluntary for teachers here.) I knew enough by then, after dealing with the (in)human resources dept to get hired in the first place that I was working for an incompetent employer and would need union protection. And I see no reason to say "Oh well, I was lucky to even have a union all these years so it's no big deal to watch it go down in flames!"

The best way we have to fight AGAINST Corporate America is through our unions. We need many more of them instead of allowing them to die because the workers have been painted as overpaid elitists.

[peace13]

18. When you are making your case it is important to remember that..

some people have not had a raise since '9/11' and health care has been thrown totally out the window. Getting more money every year is not necessarily a given...even in America. I'm not being rude or un-supportive of teachers just reminding you of what the people who pay your salary are going through as well.

[proud2BlibKansan]

20. I wonder how many of them have to buy their own supplies at work

or work in boiler heated non air conditioned facilities.

For that matter, how many of them would we entrust our children with for 5 days a week.

I also think it is important to remember that as more workers all over the country are denied salary increases, the easier it will be for even more employers to decide their workers don't need higher pay.

Rather than dismissing this as not such a big deal cause lots of workers aren't being paid well, we need to be working for better pay for ALL.

[madrchsod]

21. my wifes union sucks

it`s illegal for her to strike but she does get paid overtime. the union is lazy in enforcing work rules and the last contact was the same as the old one. they actually put in a provision if the state funding reaches a 50ct increase per hour the company takes away 25ct......

[KitSileya]

22. I'm a teacher too, but not in a feudal society.

Whenever I contemplate perhaps moving back to the US, I remind myself that I won't like being a serf. I think the most galling thing from those of us on the outside of the US is that it's not the corporations that are keeping the average American in this servitude, nor the politicians. We expect corporations to try to exploit us, and politicians to do as the corporations decree, unless the people oppose it. Since most Americans are unwilling to stand with the unions, are unwilling to risk anything to fight for their rights, it is in essence working America that is keeping the average American in chains at their workplace. That's the harsh truth. As was pointed out in another thread, you don't get unions, you fight for them, and you don't get rights, you bleed for them, as the Founding Fathers so amply demonstrated.

Bloodless or bloody, a revolution is needed in the US - regardless of what Obama might achieve, putting one's hopes on just one man is not the best strategy. The jokes about the Idiot being another George III might be funny, but the reality is that the US is a feudal society. People cannot change jobs because they will lose their health care. They starve, lose their homes, lose their jobs, lose their future, while the CEOs and owners grow richer and richer. How is that not like medieval Europe? History teaches us that the death of millions due to the black death made it possible for the serf to break their chains and start moving to the middle class. Let's not hope the same is necessary for Americans to achieve economic freedom.

[proud2BlibKansan]

24. Outstanding post!

:applause:

[KitSileya]

26. And here I was afraid you'd be offended.

:blush: In fact, I'm a union rep at my school - I represent only a tiny fraction of the people employed there, as my union is specifically for teachers with master's degrees (6 years of college, the equivalent of 7 years of American college.) As it is, I and the other union reps meet with the principal once a month, and discuss issues from budgets to work environment problems. Of course we have our battles, and feel exploited by the county, but nothing like what you describe. We wouldn't stand for it. In fact, we wouldn't stand for it in any other profession either - there'd certainly be sympathy strikes. In fact, unions have great power in Norway. Salary negotiations happen between workers' unions and the employers' unions - that's how entrenched unions are in our society. Considering that we're pretty much always in the top three of the best countries to live in, I'd say unions make for a pretty good society.

The more I see, read and hear here at DU and from my family and friends in the US, it has become increasingly clear to me that not only is the US not a free country, but part of the problem is that Americans have lost their willingness to risk everything to get that freedom. It's only 50 years ago Americans marched, boycotted, risked their lives and livelihoods to gain civil liberties for African Americans. Why are (plural) you not willing to risk the same for everyone's liberties? For everyone's lives? Perhaps it's because I come from a long line of union folks, with communists and people who were willing to fight for workers' rights even tho' they were wiretapped and harassed by the government, that I cannot understand why Americans aren't willing to fight.

[proud2BlibKansan]

27. It's very frustrating

Too many teachers here are willing to go along to get along.

[KitSileya]

28. Yeah, we have the same problem here.

We feel our loyalty is to our students, not to our employer, s when things get tough, we get torn between the two. Basically, our employer uses the students to pressure us into accepting things we wouldn't accept if we were simply working in an office. I think that is the situation for teachers everywhere.

[proud2BlibKansan]

29. But when teachers aren't treated fairly it DOES affect the kids

The teachers in my district went on strike in the 70s over planning time. They weren't getting any. How can you possibly be effective in the classroom without planning time?

How does low pay and no contract help attract new teachers? I think we have around 100 teaching vacancies in this district.

Teachers need to connect the impact on the students to understand why a contract and union representation is so important.

[KitSileya]

32. To be honest, I don't think the admin cares as much about the kids.

They don't see them as individuals as we do, they don't know them as we do, they just see numbers on paper. Budget numbers, result numbers, numbers that either makes them lauded or dismissed with their peers. That's what they care about.

If I had my wish, it would be that everyone higher up in the food chain than teachers - principals, and more importantly, those above them (school boards in the US, country school admin in Norway) had to work one year out of every 5-7 years as an ordinary teacher, just so he or she kept in touch with school reality.

In Norway, we'll have a really hard time getting enough people to fill teaching jobs in a couple of years. The political ideology of the left has pretty much destroyed what respect people had for teachers by insisting on levelling the playing field for all students to the degree the pupils no longer have to play to pass. (OK, so that's an exaggeration, but not far from it.) Unfortunately, they lowered the gpa needed to enter teaching school so much, many teachers, especially in elementary school, no longer master their subjects to the degree necessary to be good teachers. This was partly caused by the main teacher union pushing for higher salary for the less educated teachers rather than those with master's degrees, in some belief that teacher were supposed to be mentors rather than teachers. As a result, people think anyone can be a teacher. They also gave away a lot in negotiations - agreed to teach more hours for more pay (which isn't a pay rise, really) so that a lot of younger teachers were made superfluous because their classes were given to those with more seniority. This means that we have a really high average age of teachers - there's practically no teachers between 35 and 50 at many schools. That will leave a big gap when the those over 62 start retiring. My union was started in protest of the decisions made by the main teacher's union.

I think unions are important in any profession. A friend of mine, who joined the union of the civil engineers when she got her degree (it's traditional to do so) started working in the financial sector, where not many are unionized. When she came home from vacation one year, she discovered her company had fired her and several others. Since she was the only one who was a member of a union, she was the only one that could contact her rep, and go back and demand to be reinstated. She didn't want to work for a company that could treat her like that, tho', so as she had discovered she was pregnant she negotiated pay during her pregnancy, and a full year's worth of maternity leave (as is her right in Norway.) Otherwise, she'd have had to go searching for a job while pregnant. The others didn't have that recourse. So I think pretty much every worker, regardless of whether they are blue collar or white collar workers (or pink, or teal, or whatever,) would benefit from organizing in unions.

[lumberjack_jeff]

23. Illegal to strike?

What's the point of a union, if not collective action?

[proud2BlibKansan]

25. Bargaining our contract, negotiationing our salaries, protecting the workers

There are lots of reasons we need a union. They aren't just about going on strike.

[knitter4democracy]

30. It's illegal here in Michigan, too. There are other ways.

When my mom's union was without a contract, they did a work slow-down instead. They stuck to the old contract and only came in at contract time and left at contract time, refused to buy materials to cover for the school district, and stopped doing anything not expressly in the old contract. It wasn't a strike, but it sure threw a massive wrench into the works and made the administration sit down at the bargaining table when they realized how many unpaid hours teachers had been putting in and weren't going to do anymore.

[Thothmes]

34. In England that is called "working by the rule"

the British unions will call for a work by the rule action if the feel striking is not to their advantage. In the case of the railway unions, working by the rule generally brings the entire rail system to a halt. Management soon throws in the towel.

[knitter4democracy]

35. It really does work.

Especially in education, considering all of the additional hours we all put in all the time. I may have been out of the classroom for 8.5 years, but I well remember all those extra hours that I was expected to work but wasn't paid for in any way. Cut those, and you have a problem.

[earth mom]

33. They are obviously working to crush your union and it sounds like they are succeeding. nt

[Geek_Girl]

38. sounds like just about every job my husband and I have had

Welcome to the South

:hi:

[Bill McBlueState]

39. wow

The union I was in at my old job was also not allowed to go on strike, and we had a similar problem with never having a new contract in place when the old one expired. But for us, the old contract remained in effect until a new one replaced it. I never really thought about the importance of that clause until I read about your situation.

[Skittles]

40. welcome to the real world

I've been working under these conditions for years