Over the past few months a few friends have asked me what I thought about the Employee Free Choice Act, now wending its way through the Congress. These friends are people I’ve known for many years, most of them involved, like me, in some aspect of the labor movement. Most of the time I try to keep my answer to a few generalities about the process rather than any prediction of outcome or analysis of the bill—this last being the most difficult thing because I am by nature and employment an analyst of labor matters. Silence is harder than comment.
Another difficulty is that labor people, though a particularly discursive lot, are not in the way of suffering apostasy—and they draw the line quite close to prevailing doctrine. Such doctrines as exist tend to emanate from the leadership of unions and from larger organizations like the AFL-CIO.
The current stance on the Employee Free Choice Act, held by practically all the unions in the country, is that the Act would make organizing a much quicker and fairer process. The bill’s authors claim is that workers who have tried to organize have failed because of the unconscionable delaying tactics and anti-union animus of employers.
I don’t think that EFCA in its present state will ever see a President’s signature. And I think that if it did pass, that it would not have nearly the effect claimed by its supporters. Simply put, the difficulty in organizing private firms won’t be greatly eased by any provision in the current legislation.
What I do think is that EFCA is a rather poor piece of legislation thrown at a problem whose essence is really the inability of private-sector unions to win over workers—even and perhaps especially workers in the sort of industries wherein unions used to prevail.
What labor wants to achieve through EFCA is a reversal of fate through a transformation of process. Labor spokesmen will tell you that what they are after is simply the effect that followed the passage of the National Labor Relations Act in 1935. EFCA would require the substitution of card check approval for the present scheme and schedule of elections, thus eliminating the long spell of time during which employers have communicated their own version of events, which messages often enough include promises to cease operations or move the facility. Unionists consider these to be unfair threats; companies consider them the exercise of free speech. What both sides agree upon is that the tactic has been remarkably effective, especially when organized by outside firms specializing in these affairs.
And the reason that the company message has been so effective is that it has the ring, or perhaps the stink, of truth: private firms do close and certainly do move overseas because of union organizing. And they also take other measures, such as cutting hours to eliminate full-time employees and their more costly benefits.
In any organizing campaign the worker hears three messages: that of the union, that of the company, and the voice of common sense, that song of experience and hard-won knowledge. An organizer’s traditional burden has always been overcoming the employer’s claims. In the past, the voice of common sense told workers that a union shop was preferable to the alternative, making the argument two-against-one in favor of the union from the start. Now the shoe is on the other foot. Though every poll shows that workers believe unions to be a good thing, when push comes to secret ballot, many vote the other way. Unionists insult the intelligence of their prospective members by suggesting that the company has frightened the bargaining unit with false claims. The truth is, those who vote against a union are generally pretty well informed about the state and nature of employment conditions and outcomes in America. Nobody in the HR department has to tell them that they are fortunate to have jobs, especially jobs with decent benefits, and nobody has to warn them that all of this can disappear in the wink of an eye. When management puts out bad vibes about moving or closing shop it is only adding volume to the warning voice of common sense.
The present generation of unionists seems shocked at this sort of thing, as though they didn’t realize that a deal their forefathers cut with Capital a long time ago ensured a constant struggle with an enterprising foe. The advantage in the long run goes to the private firms, which can shift shape, combine, and when necessary, vanish. They own both the plant and the job. Workers possess only their own labor, an article whose current value is measured in world markets against all comers. That much any worker knows, and he balances that knowledge against the argument of the union organizer.
Most of the 20th Century success of trade unionism came about because enough elements of a scheme found acceptable to the Congress and the representatives of labor at the time of the Great Depression survived attack to remain in operation for a couple of decades after passage of the law. That, as they say, was yesterday. Today’s worker needs a job more than he wishes a union, and he feels it is unlikely he can have both. The unionists have thrown EFCA at the problem, a bill that does nothing to silence the harsh song of common sense, and which has no remedy for its causes.
Michael McGrorty
Friday, May 29, 2009
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Union Rep Toolbox
Not long ago a novice union representative asked me if I knew of anything he might study in order to do a better job representing the membership of his local. After asking the question he sort of settled into his seat as though he were expecting a long lecture. Instead I said what I always say:
“Learn to type.”
When I was in junior high school my aunt delivered a stern lecture to me about responsibility. She did this every time one of my report cards came through in the mail. She took it upon herself to correct my academic and personal shortcomings, addressing the two in a single diatribe to save time.
I believe I’d received a ‘D’ grade in math. Somehow this led to the demand that I learn to type. My aunt was a typist by profession; everything led to or from the typewriter in her universe. And so it was that I took a typing course the summer before high school. I’d promised after all, and there was no way of getting out of it.
And I promptly flunked the class. The reason I got an ‘F’ was because mine was the only typewriter in the room that had letters on the keys. I never got over the habit of looking down to find the right key, which slowed my typing rate down below the passing level. Besides, it was summer and there were a lot of girls in the room wearing shorts. The girls looked a lot better than the bail of a manual typewriter.
My aunt did not receive the news about my typing failure well. You’d have thought I’d murdered the Lindbergh baby. She made me promise to take another typing class. I promised and was not sorry. The typing classes in high school were almost entirely attended by girls. Unfortunately my teacher was a sour old gent who insisted that I actually learn the typewriter keyboard, and moreover, type text without error. I got a respectable grade in that course and in the one following. By the time I graduated I could make a manual Royal sound like a machine gun.
Knowing how to type got me a clerk’s job in the navy, which is to say that it kept me out of the engine room and scullery. Typing of course makes college work much easier. When the computer went from a toy to a tool I was ready.
The problem is, many of the business agents I’ve known aren’t ready for the nineteenth century, much less this one. You can find them at their desks, hunting for a letter that has migrated from its remembered place rather than finishing off the work they have to do. And union reps have a lot of work that requires typing skill. The ones who can’t or won’t type will try to push the work off onto a clerk or secretary, but that’s just a delaying tactic and it won’t wash.
Nowadays nearly everything of significance in the labor movement has some connection with the computer. The computer is practically useless unless its operator can send commands via the keyboard. Strange how so many union reps, who hail from the ranks of machinists, mechanics and other operatives, head into a job without being able to utilize its most important tool. The result is that they can’t function as true journeymen.
Even stranger is that typing is seldom listed as a job requirement for union representatives. It may take another generation before the skill becomes universal among that bunch. I expect the last holdouts to be among the gentlemen of the building trades, those experts with hand tools.
Michael McGrorty
“Learn to type.”
When I was in junior high school my aunt delivered a stern lecture to me about responsibility. She did this every time one of my report cards came through in the mail. She took it upon herself to correct my academic and personal shortcomings, addressing the two in a single diatribe to save time.
I believe I’d received a ‘D’ grade in math. Somehow this led to the demand that I learn to type. My aunt was a typist by profession; everything led to or from the typewriter in her universe. And so it was that I took a typing course the summer before high school. I’d promised after all, and there was no way of getting out of it.
And I promptly flunked the class. The reason I got an ‘F’ was because mine was the only typewriter in the room that had letters on the keys. I never got over the habit of looking down to find the right key, which slowed my typing rate down below the passing level. Besides, it was summer and there were a lot of girls in the room wearing shorts. The girls looked a lot better than the bail of a manual typewriter.
My aunt did not receive the news about my typing failure well. You’d have thought I’d murdered the Lindbergh baby. She made me promise to take another typing class. I promised and was not sorry. The typing classes in high school were almost entirely attended by girls. Unfortunately my teacher was a sour old gent who insisted that I actually learn the typewriter keyboard, and moreover, type text without error. I got a respectable grade in that course and in the one following. By the time I graduated I could make a manual Royal sound like a machine gun.
Knowing how to type got me a clerk’s job in the navy, which is to say that it kept me out of the engine room and scullery. Typing of course makes college work much easier. When the computer went from a toy to a tool I was ready.
The problem is, many of the business agents I’ve known aren’t ready for the nineteenth century, much less this one. You can find them at their desks, hunting for a letter that has migrated from its remembered place rather than finishing off the work they have to do. And union reps have a lot of work that requires typing skill. The ones who can’t or won’t type will try to push the work off onto a clerk or secretary, but that’s just a delaying tactic and it won’t wash.
Nowadays nearly everything of significance in the labor movement has some connection with the computer. The computer is practically useless unless its operator can send commands via the keyboard. Strange how so many union reps, who hail from the ranks of machinists, mechanics and other operatives, head into a job without being able to utilize its most important tool. The result is that they can’t function as true journeymen.
Even stranger is that typing is seldom listed as a job requirement for union representatives. It may take another generation before the skill becomes universal among that bunch. I expect the last holdouts to be among the gentlemen of the building trades, those experts with hand tools.
Michael McGrorty
Grievance Preparation
One of the problems that union stewards face is that most cases are open and shut. And of course that most of the disciplinary grievants have put themselves into situations that can’t be helped. The union representative may be forgiven if he occasionally wishes he could deliver a blow to the head of every member who whimpers about being docked for attending the third funeral of the same grandmother.
My old friend Pete used to deal with this problem in a way that will help to illustrate the steps of the grievance process and the options available therein.
Many a time I sat in the desk behind Pete and watched how he handled grievances. Pete got around the plant a lot and usually knew what was going on before anybody came around to see him. Our agreement had a three-step grievance process. Step One involved interviewing the affected employees and filling out a form to be sent to management via the HR department. The form called for a description of the alleged violation and the correction sought. At the first step the resolutions possible were to cease the practice, adhere to the conditions of the agreement and make employee(s) whole for the losses incurred. The steward had only to jot down a few particulars and check some boxes, obtain a signature and turn in the form.
The second step procedure was a bit more complex, calling for more details, higher level signatures and the record of what had been discussed and decided at the first-step proceeding.
The third step included a request for information from the company, meaning records of previous discipline for the grievant and perhaps others, and quite a bit of other stuff; this was because the third step was reached only when the parties could not come to agreement over the matter and the item was intended for arbitration under the terms of the agreement.
As we have seen, Pete was a very poor writer. This being true, he tried to avoid doing paperwork at all if possible, and managed to achieve this goal in most cases. He did this by disposing of grievances at the first step—and in his own unique fashion.
Let’s say you the company docked you an hour’s pay because you didn’t clock out for lunch. And let’s also say that the actual circumstances were that your supervisor told you to pick up some parts at a vendor’s shop, which prevented you from clocking out. Definitely a legitimate subject and issue for a grievance by the employee. Pete would have heard your complaint, scribbled a few doodles on the first-step form and then told you, “I’ll look into this.” ‘Looking into this’ consisted of having a very brief chat, usually by phone, with the supervisor of the affected area, and then informing the grievant that the matter had reached the end of its course.
Pete knew that the only obligation he had was to pursue the matter to the end of the first step. And so that’s exactly what he would do. If the company didn’t give in at that point—and they almost never did—he would just fold his hand and leave the table.
The reason he usually quit then and there was because he wasn’t prepared to go further. Part of the reason for this was that Pete had avoided attending the union’s grievance preparation meetings, which all stewards were encouraged to attend. The classes went step-by-step through the process, but they were held on a Sunday morning before the monthly general meeting, and Pete declined to rouse himself that early. These classes were offered by the union, which would bring its labor counsel down to show how the process was supposed to work. I sat in on some of those sessions and the lawyer did a good job of explaining the steps and procedures.
But it was only after I’d had a good deal of experience in other fields before I found my own way to go about the grievance process.
Working as a probation officer, I discovered that the entire system was geared toward getting probationers off the books—either by releasing them at the first moment after they’d satisfied the requirements of the court, or by sending them to jail for refusal to comply. In either case the court required considerable documentation.
Working as an investigator for the Department of Labor, I discovered the same system in place: every activity was structured on the assumption that the whole matter might go before a federal judge, even though the proportion of cases that actually did so was small. In sum, the investigator put together evidence for a prosecution from the start; if the violator gave in early and paid the back wages, so much the better.
Both experiences got me to thinking about grievance handling. The nature of the process is that it follows the path of progressive discipline which is common to both union and nonunion workplaces; in either case the design intends to provide due process rights to all concerned, as well as a method for correction of behavior to avoid further difficulty.
The customary grievance process calls for an increasing amount of information and documentation as the matter proceeds from initial contact through the first and subsequent steps. As the distance from the underlying events increases, the requirements of form and content also increase. The difficulty with this situation is best understood in the humorous advice given by doctors to those seeking to live long lives: Choose your parents carefully.
Consider this in light of the perfunctory documentation of grievances which from their outset appear to merit no more effort than an initial conference. Occasionally such grievances will contain the seed of a larger issue, or undiscovered facts will later emerge to enlarge the scope and significance of the matter.
A sample situation:
A union construction work complains that his tools have been stolen from a job site. The tools, valued at several thousand dollars, were in a locked steel case that was removed by thieves.
The union business agent files a grievance based on the testimony of the member. The grievance states, “Worker wants company to reimburse $3,000 for loss of equipment and storage box per Section 3(a)1 of agreement.”
The grievance goes to step one, which consists of a meeting between the firm and the union agent. The company representative simply refuses to pay for the tools. The second step of the procedure is reached, and the grievance is submitted per the rules of the agreement. The company replies with a simple refusal, and the file goes back to the union side.
At this point the union must decide to take the matter to arbitration or accept defeat. The union’s grievance committee at this point decides to go forward.
The arbitrator hears the parties and renders a decision in favor of management, reasoning as follows:
1. The union’s case essentially rested upon a provision of the contract which had not been in effect since expiring with the previous contract.
2. In place of the cited provision the parties had agreed to rely upon the language of the comprehensive national agreement which provided for reimbursement in cases of theft or other loss of tools or equipment upon the filing of a claim with the firm through the associated contractor association.
3. The worker in question had been offered compensation pending reimbursement but had turned down the offer, preferring to pursue the grievance.
In essence, the union had filed for arbitration of an issue based on a dead provision, while ignoring the possibility of filing a claim under the national agreement.
There are a number of problems with this grievance, but all of them could have been avoided if the union side had worked the grievance from the far end rather than the near.
The union had the obligation to cite the agreement correctly; management did not have the burden of correcting their misapprehension. They did so in their arbitration testimony, taking advantage of previous research as well as the understanding that the union side would not at that point be able to alter its original filing to encompass more appropriate contract provisions. In fact, the management side’s arbitration testimony was loaded with minutes from bargaining sessions in which the parties had agreed to replace the old loss compensation language with the national agreement’s provision.
Had the union foreseen the refusal of management to concede in the early stages, it might have done the research necessary to compose a successful case. The labor side threw a weak first step grievance at their opponent, and sat on their hands waiting for a result. They didn’t plan further ahead than the second step. The union grievance committee worked to rubber-stamp the original paperwork without additional effort or research when this could have made a difference. Consider the result from the standpoint of the grievant, the least informed of all parties and the one with the most to lose. Next, think of this outcome as it affects the reputation of the union among all members. Not a pretty scene.
In grievances as in war, many battles are lost though poor preparation, though their details, viewed in hindsight, suggest an imbalance of forces. If every grievance were planned and prepared as though the business agent expected the matter to be examined by an arbitrator, the union side would win more often than it does. Perhaps the best product of careful planning is the decision not to pursue a grievance. Certainly the example above is one such case. The grievance process is like a gun: once fired it is impossible to recall the bullet and difficult to predict its final landing place.
Michael McGrorty
My old friend Pete used to deal with this problem in a way that will help to illustrate the steps of the grievance process and the options available therein.
Many a time I sat in the desk behind Pete and watched how he handled grievances. Pete got around the plant a lot and usually knew what was going on before anybody came around to see him. Our agreement had a three-step grievance process. Step One involved interviewing the affected employees and filling out a form to be sent to management via the HR department. The form called for a description of the alleged violation and the correction sought. At the first step the resolutions possible were to cease the practice, adhere to the conditions of the agreement and make employee(s) whole for the losses incurred. The steward had only to jot down a few particulars and check some boxes, obtain a signature and turn in the form.
The second step procedure was a bit more complex, calling for more details, higher level signatures and the record of what had been discussed and decided at the first-step proceeding.
The third step included a request for information from the company, meaning records of previous discipline for the grievant and perhaps others, and quite a bit of other stuff; this was because the third step was reached only when the parties could not come to agreement over the matter and the item was intended for arbitration under the terms of the agreement.
As we have seen, Pete was a very poor writer. This being true, he tried to avoid doing paperwork at all if possible, and managed to achieve this goal in most cases. He did this by disposing of grievances at the first step—and in his own unique fashion.
Let’s say you the company docked you an hour’s pay because you didn’t clock out for lunch. And let’s also say that the actual circumstances were that your supervisor told you to pick up some parts at a vendor’s shop, which prevented you from clocking out. Definitely a legitimate subject and issue for a grievance by the employee. Pete would have heard your complaint, scribbled a few doodles on the first-step form and then told you, “I’ll look into this.” ‘Looking into this’ consisted of having a very brief chat, usually by phone, with the supervisor of the affected area, and then informing the grievant that the matter had reached the end of its course.
Pete knew that the only obligation he had was to pursue the matter to the end of the first step. And so that’s exactly what he would do. If the company didn’t give in at that point—and they almost never did—he would just fold his hand and leave the table.
The reason he usually quit then and there was because he wasn’t prepared to go further. Part of the reason for this was that Pete had avoided attending the union’s grievance preparation meetings, which all stewards were encouraged to attend. The classes went step-by-step through the process, but they were held on a Sunday morning before the monthly general meeting, and Pete declined to rouse himself that early. These classes were offered by the union, which would bring its labor counsel down to show how the process was supposed to work. I sat in on some of those sessions and the lawyer did a good job of explaining the steps and procedures.
But it was only after I’d had a good deal of experience in other fields before I found my own way to go about the grievance process.
Working as a probation officer, I discovered that the entire system was geared toward getting probationers off the books—either by releasing them at the first moment after they’d satisfied the requirements of the court, or by sending them to jail for refusal to comply. In either case the court required considerable documentation.
Working as an investigator for the Department of Labor, I discovered the same system in place: every activity was structured on the assumption that the whole matter might go before a federal judge, even though the proportion of cases that actually did so was small. In sum, the investigator put together evidence for a prosecution from the start; if the violator gave in early and paid the back wages, so much the better.
Both experiences got me to thinking about grievance handling. The nature of the process is that it follows the path of progressive discipline which is common to both union and nonunion workplaces; in either case the design intends to provide due process rights to all concerned, as well as a method for correction of behavior to avoid further difficulty.
The customary grievance process calls for an increasing amount of information and documentation as the matter proceeds from initial contact through the first and subsequent steps. As the distance from the underlying events increases, the requirements of form and content also increase. The difficulty with this situation is best understood in the humorous advice given by doctors to those seeking to live long lives: Choose your parents carefully.
Consider this in light of the perfunctory documentation of grievances which from their outset appear to merit no more effort than an initial conference. Occasionally such grievances will contain the seed of a larger issue, or undiscovered facts will later emerge to enlarge the scope and significance of the matter.
A sample situation:
A union construction work complains that his tools have been stolen from a job site. The tools, valued at several thousand dollars, were in a locked steel case that was removed by thieves.
The union business agent files a grievance based on the testimony of the member. The grievance states, “Worker wants company to reimburse $3,000 for loss of equipment and storage box per Section 3(a)1 of agreement.”
The grievance goes to step one, which consists of a meeting between the firm and the union agent. The company representative simply refuses to pay for the tools. The second step of the procedure is reached, and the grievance is submitted per the rules of the agreement. The company replies with a simple refusal, and the file goes back to the union side.
At this point the union must decide to take the matter to arbitration or accept defeat. The union’s grievance committee at this point decides to go forward.
The arbitrator hears the parties and renders a decision in favor of management, reasoning as follows:
1. The union’s case essentially rested upon a provision of the contract which had not been in effect since expiring with the previous contract.
2. In place of the cited provision the parties had agreed to rely upon the language of the comprehensive national agreement which provided for reimbursement in cases of theft or other loss of tools or equipment upon the filing of a claim with the firm through the associated contractor association.
3. The worker in question had been offered compensation pending reimbursement but had turned down the offer, preferring to pursue the grievance.
In essence, the union had filed for arbitration of an issue based on a dead provision, while ignoring the possibility of filing a claim under the national agreement.
There are a number of problems with this grievance, but all of them could have been avoided if the union side had worked the grievance from the far end rather than the near.
The union had the obligation to cite the agreement correctly; management did not have the burden of correcting their misapprehension. They did so in their arbitration testimony, taking advantage of previous research as well as the understanding that the union side would not at that point be able to alter its original filing to encompass more appropriate contract provisions. In fact, the management side’s arbitration testimony was loaded with minutes from bargaining sessions in which the parties had agreed to replace the old loss compensation language with the national agreement’s provision.
Had the union foreseen the refusal of management to concede in the early stages, it might have done the research necessary to compose a successful case. The labor side threw a weak first step grievance at their opponent, and sat on their hands waiting for a result. They didn’t plan further ahead than the second step. The union grievance committee worked to rubber-stamp the original paperwork without additional effort or research when this could have made a difference. Consider the result from the standpoint of the grievant, the least informed of all parties and the one with the most to lose. Next, think of this outcome as it affects the reputation of the union among all members. Not a pretty scene.
In grievances as in war, many battles are lost though poor preparation, though their details, viewed in hindsight, suggest an imbalance of forces. If every grievance were planned and prepared as though the business agent expected the matter to be examined by an arbitrator, the union side would win more often than it does. Perhaps the best product of careful planning is the decision not to pursue a grievance. Certainly the example above is one such case. The grievance process is like a gun: once fired it is impossible to recall the bullet and difficult to predict its final landing place.
Michael McGrorty
Monday, May 25, 2009
More Sparks
I worked for that factory three years and six months, long enough to graduate with a BA in labor studies, greatly supplemented by what I learned on the shop floor. I studied all the past grievances I could find, helped anybody who would have my assistance, and learned lessons both sweet and bitter about unionism at the cutting edge. I’ve still got a badge that says “Assistant Steward,” and many memories.
My initial understanding of the labor movement was shaped by two forces: the example of my parents and my own reading. I was raised in a union household by two activists who were also exemplary employees where they worked. My mother was very highly regarded in her trade and my father was a very respected teacher. Neither of them missed a day of work, arrived late or botched the job—nor had they any sympathy for those who did. At night, my father worked on union business or political campaigns aimed at electing a union-friendly candidate. I can’t tell you the number of times I walked precincts with the old man.
I was an early and avid reader. My childhood years were filled with the usual adventure books, but I also got a good dose of Upton Sinclair, Henry George, Martin Luther King and Cesar Chavez. Taken altogether what I knew of the labor movement came from the example of two upright practitioners and a library stocked with hagiography.
This view of the movement was bound to suffer in its collision with reality, and of course it did. I remember writing a paper about grievance handling for a college class wherein I discussed the nature of our firm’s grievances. I trust to memory that these figures are approximately correct.
Unexcused Absence/lateness: 85%
Insubordination/refusal to comply with direction: 10%
Violation of work or safety rules: 4%
All others: 1%
Allow me to sketch out a typical grievance situation for you. My example and mentor, the aforementioned Pete, would permit me to interview some person who was in the process of being disciplined for missing time. I would take notes, which generally came out like this:
“Subject, Mary Smith, to be given week off without pay for excessive absences. Firm claims that she missed eight workdays and parts of other days over past three months without excuse or permission. Records support allegation. Ms. Smith claims ‘I have not got any more sick time or vacation and have various situations with my kids that need taking care of.’ Such situations include doctor visits, et cetera. This is third proceeding, first two being met with standard verbal/written warnings.”
Anybody with experience in such matters could see that Mary hadn’t a leg to stand on. Absent error by the company, she would have to take her lumps.
Here’s another example: Joe Blank decides to show off in the company parking lot with his new car. Joe’s a young kid and likes to race, so he spins his ride around the lot every afternoon on the way home. On the third offense he gets canned. Hard to fight that termination, don’t you think? And equally hard to win a case when your client has been caught drinking liquor in the parking lot, stealing company tools or writing his name on the restroom ceiling with a cigarette lighter. The only good point to these cases is that they at least didn’t involve somebody arguing against the testimony of the time clock.
The point of this discussion is to underline the reality of union stewardship: that the grievant is usually guilty. Meaning in legal terms that the claimed violation has occurred at least to some degree, and that fighting the facts will not result in a positive resolution for the union side.
What does this mean for the union steward? It means that the steward is in the same position as another hard-working advocate.
I used to work as a probation officer. What that means is that I kept watch over 150 adult felons as they attempted to avoid prison. When they didn’t try hard enough I brought them to court. When they went to court they were represented by one of the public defenders, because most probationers haven’t the cash to afford a private lawyer. The public defender rarely saw a winnable case. The management side, which is to say, me, always had a good case against the probationer, consisting of records, statements and documents to the effect that he had broken all the rules that he promised to keep. The public defender’s job was usually divided into two parts: reviewing the situation to insure that the facts were straight, and then trying to cut the best deal possible under the circumstances.
Public defenders are very conscious of the fact that their clients are generally guilty. They look at their work as primarily defending the rights of the accused. No better description of the grievance work of a union representative could possibly be found. The only difference between the public defender and the union steward is a different set of laws. In the case of the steward, the law is the union agreement, perhaps supplemented by company rules, applicable employment laws, and precedent.
Understanding grievance representation in this light prevents the steward from the sort of burnout that comes of having to defend a stream of guilty parties. The first and most important consideration of any steward in a grievance is the maintenance of a strong procedural defense. This means giving the grievant his day in court and every advantage that the process permits. Our criminal justice system’s first consideration is to preserve the rights of the accused; the union grievance system is intended to work the same way. The best defense for any grievant begins with following the system to the letter. Don’t come to any premature conclusions regarding the nature of your client’s case. Make the company deal its cards; play each hand to the end, and double down if you have to.
If you practice this methodology you will be amply prepared when you get a zinger—one of those too-rare cases where the grievant is innocent of the charges, or where management has stepped beyond the boundaries of its authority. Consider these cases:
The company fires a man for attacking his wife in the unionized plant where they are both employees. The long-term employee loses his job, retirement and benefits at a stroke. Because of the charges he has no hope of gaining another position in a similar company. A pro-forma grievance is filed but there seems little chance of success.
The steward looks at the charges, accepts the grievance and, because a firing means a direct ascent to arbitration, waits for the case to come up on the calendar. When it does, he informs the arbitrator of certain facts omitted in the termination letter, to wit:
The man and his wife quarreled during lunch and returned to the plant together. She left their car at the end of the parking lot and walked to the building alone. She entered and went to her workplace. Unbeknownst to her, her husband followed behind. When he found that she had gone through a set of wired-glass doors, he pounded on the door to get the attention of the guard, but the guard was somewhere else. In anger, the man punched the door, making a large dent in the glass and cutting his own hand. The supposed victim never knew that she was supposedly being attacked, and the two never were in sight of each other. In fact the man had attacked only a door, if anything.
The arbitrator ruled that the company had made misstatements of fact and reinstated the employee, who accepted the accumulated time off without pay as punishment for his damage to the shop door glass.
Another case:
In the engine shop of a union factory, one of the assembly mechanics is transferred to another shop on the order of the shop’s supervisor. The worker files a grievance to contest the transfer, but the agreement permits management to unilaterally relocate workers within the same classification and skill level. The worker loses the grievance.
Within weeks of the first transfer, this mechanic is transferred again, to another location in the same plant. The work is identical according to the agreement’s specification, but quite different in operation, and the worker falls behind schedule. This results in the threat of discipline from the mechanic’s current supervisor. Clearly this fellow is at risk of losing his job.
The company is clearly in the right, but something doesn’t smell right about the situation. Interviews with other workers reveal the truth. The mechanic is an older man who has worked for the company a long time. His job consists of assembling small motors. Most of his workmates are younger people. There is a clash of cultures; he is old enough to be their father and he does not appreciate their tastes, music or pastimes. A conversation with the original supervisor reveals an nasty side to the case: the grievant is a Korean war veteran who was badly wounded in battle. He is missing some fingers, has a prosthetic leg, and his face is badly scarred as well. The supervisor feels that “The guy is just an ugly, cranky old cripple who ought to retire.” In other words, the grievant is simply not one of the in-crowd which includes the supervisors of the assembly areas. The contract permits the transfers, which are obviously intended to get the man to quit his job.
The steward confers with the grievant and gains his permission to contact a veteran’s organization on his behalf. Soon a polite letter of inquiry is received at the company’s main offices. The letter notes that the firm has many federal contracts which could be jeopardized by activity prejudicial to the interests of service veterans such as our grievant. Within hours the whole misunderstanding is resolved. The grievant has his slate wiped clean, an apology is tendered, and life goes on as before.
And yet another:
In a large unionized factory, the management decides that it has become too expensive to pay union workers to perform certain tasks. The contract requires that all employees in particular classifications be union members, and the firm decides to interpret this in the best way possible for themselves.
The company hires many new workers into existing hourly non-bargaining unit classifications and works these hires beyond the limits of the classifications, thus saving much in salary. In effect the firm is simply spreading non-union workers into union work. The union is faced with the option of filing many grievances, putting out fires one after another. The company hopes to fatigue the union into surrender, or perhaps win a big victory in an arbitration case.
Here is another case where the union agreement will provide no remedy, and the workings of the process will act as a punishment to the union side. The solution to this came about by accident. A union steward was approached by one of the non-bargaining unit workers who realized that she was performing the same work as union hands, but for less pay. This steward did some research and discovered that the company would permit any person who had a work dispute to be assisted in that dispute by a fellow worker. And so the steward began assisting non-union workers in filing complaints about working in union classifications for lower pay. A few dozen of these filings and the company backed off its plan.
M. M.
My initial understanding of the labor movement was shaped by two forces: the example of my parents and my own reading. I was raised in a union household by two activists who were also exemplary employees where they worked. My mother was very highly regarded in her trade and my father was a very respected teacher. Neither of them missed a day of work, arrived late or botched the job—nor had they any sympathy for those who did. At night, my father worked on union business or political campaigns aimed at electing a union-friendly candidate. I can’t tell you the number of times I walked precincts with the old man.
I was an early and avid reader. My childhood years were filled with the usual adventure books, but I also got a good dose of Upton Sinclair, Henry George, Martin Luther King and Cesar Chavez. Taken altogether what I knew of the labor movement came from the example of two upright practitioners and a library stocked with hagiography.
This view of the movement was bound to suffer in its collision with reality, and of course it did. I remember writing a paper about grievance handling for a college class wherein I discussed the nature of our firm’s grievances. I trust to memory that these figures are approximately correct.
Unexcused Absence/lateness: 85%
Insubordination/refusal to comply with direction: 10%
Violation of work or safety rules: 4%
All others: 1%
Allow me to sketch out a typical grievance situation for you. My example and mentor, the aforementioned Pete, would permit me to interview some person who was in the process of being disciplined for missing time. I would take notes, which generally came out like this:
“Subject, Mary Smith, to be given week off without pay for excessive absences. Firm claims that she missed eight workdays and parts of other days over past three months without excuse or permission. Records support allegation. Ms. Smith claims ‘I have not got any more sick time or vacation and have various situations with my kids that need taking care of.’ Such situations include doctor visits, et cetera. This is third proceeding, first two being met with standard verbal/written warnings.”
Anybody with experience in such matters could see that Mary hadn’t a leg to stand on. Absent error by the company, she would have to take her lumps.
Here’s another example: Joe Blank decides to show off in the company parking lot with his new car. Joe’s a young kid and likes to race, so he spins his ride around the lot every afternoon on the way home. On the third offense he gets canned. Hard to fight that termination, don’t you think? And equally hard to win a case when your client has been caught drinking liquor in the parking lot, stealing company tools or writing his name on the restroom ceiling with a cigarette lighter. The only good point to these cases is that they at least didn’t involve somebody arguing against the testimony of the time clock.
The point of this discussion is to underline the reality of union stewardship: that the grievant is usually guilty. Meaning in legal terms that the claimed violation has occurred at least to some degree, and that fighting the facts will not result in a positive resolution for the union side.
What does this mean for the union steward? It means that the steward is in the same position as another hard-working advocate.
I used to work as a probation officer. What that means is that I kept watch over 150 adult felons as they attempted to avoid prison. When they didn’t try hard enough I brought them to court. When they went to court they were represented by one of the public defenders, because most probationers haven’t the cash to afford a private lawyer. The public defender rarely saw a winnable case. The management side, which is to say, me, always had a good case against the probationer, consisting of records, statements and documents to the effect that he had broken all the rules that he promised to keep. The public defender’s job was usually divided into two parts: reviewing the situation to insure that the facts were straight, and then trying to cut the best deal possible under the circumstances.
Public defenders are very conscious of the fact that their clients are generally guilty. They look at their work as primarily defending the rights of the accused. No better description of the grievance work of a union representative could possibly be found. The only difference between the public defender and the union steward is a different set of laws. In the case of the steward, the law is the union agreement, perhaps supplemented by company rules, applicable employment laws, and precedent.
Understanding grievance representation in this light prevents the steward from the sort of burnout that comes of having to defend a stream of guilty parties. The first and most important consideration of any steward in a grievance is the maintenance of a strong procedural defense. This means giving the grievant his day in court and every advantage that the process permits. Our criminal justice system’s first consideration is to preserve the rights of the accused; the union grievance system is intended to work the same way. The best defense for any grievant begins with following the system to the letter. Don’t come to any premature conclusions regarding the nature of your client’s case. Make the company deal its cards; play each hand to the end, and double down if you have to.
If you practice this methodology you will be amply prepared when you get a zinger—one of those too-rare cases where the grievant is innocent of the charges, or where management has stepped beyond the boundaries of its authority. Consider these cases:
The company fires a man for attacking his wife in the unionized plant where they are both employees. The long-term employee loses his job, retirement and benefits at a stroke. Because of the charges he has no hope of gaining another position in a similar company. A pro-forma grievance is filed but there seems little chance of success.
The steward looks at the charges, accepts the grievance and, because a firing means a direct ascent to arbitration, waits for the case to come up on the calendar. When it does, he informs the arbitrator of certain facts omitted in the termination letter, to wit:
The man and his wife quarreled during lunch and returned to the plant together. She left their car at the end of the parking lot and walked to the building alone. She entered and went to her workplace. Unbeknownst to her, her husband followed behind. When he found that she had gone through a set of wired-glass doors, he pounded on the door to get the attention of the guard, but the guard was somewhere else. In anger, the man punched the door, making a large dent in the glass and cutting his own hand. The supposed victim never knew that she was supposedly being attacked, and the two never were in sight of each other. In fact the man had attacked only a door, if anything.
The arbitrator ruled that the company had made misstatements of fact and reinstated the employee, who accepted the accumulated time off without pay as punishment for his damage to the shop door glass.
Another case:
In the engine shop of a union factory, one of the assembly mechanics is transferred to another shop on the order of the shop’s supervisor. The worker files a grievance to contest the transfer, but the agreement permits management to unilaterally relocate workers within the same classification and skill level. The worker loses the grievance.
Within weeks of the first transfer, this mechanic is transferred again, to another location in the same plant. The work is identical according to the agreement’s specification, but quite different in operation, and the worker falls behind schedule. This results in the threat of discipline from the mechanic’s current supervisor. Clearly this fellow is at risk of losing his job.
The company is clearly in the right, but something doesn’t smell right about the situation. Interviews with other workers reveal the truth. The mechanic is an older man who has worked for the company a long time. His job consists of assembling small motors. Most of his workmates are younger people. There is a clash of cultures; he is old enough to be their father and he does not appreciate their tastes, music or pastimes. A conversation with the original supervisor reveals an nasty side to the case: the grievant is a Korean war veteran who was badly wounded in battle. He is missing some fingers, has a prosthetic leg, and his face is badly scarred as well. The supervisor feels that “The guy is just an ugly, cranky old cripple who ought to retire.” In other words, the grievant is simply not one of the in-crowd which includes the supervisors of the assembly areas. The contract permits the transfers, which are obviously intended to get the man to quit his job.
The steward confers with the grievant and gains his permission to contact a veteran’s organization on his behalf. Soon a polite letter of inquiry is received at the company’s main offices. The letter notes that the firm has many federal contracts which could be jeopardized by activity prejudicial to the interests of service veterans such as our grievant. Within hours the whole misunderstanding is resolved. The grievant has his slate wiped clean, an apology is tendered, and life goes on as before.
And yet another:
In a large unionized factory, the management decides that it has become too expensive to pay union workers to perform certain tasks. The contract requires that all employees in particular classifications be union members, and the firm decides to interpret this in the best way possible for themselves.
The company hires many new workers into existing hourly non-bargaining unit classifications and works these hires beyond the limits of the classifications, thus saving much in salary. In effect the firm is simply spreading non-union workers into union work. The union is faced with the option of filing many grievances, putting out fires one after another. The company hopes to fatigue the union into surrender, or perhaps win a big victory in an arbitration case.
Here is another case where the union agreement will provide no remedy, and the workings of the process will act as a punishment to the union side. The solution to this came about by accident. A union steward was approached by one of the non-bargaining unit workers who realized that she was performing the same work as union hands, but for less pay. This steward did some research and discovered that the company would permit any person who had a work dispute to be assisted in that dispute by a fellow worker. And so the steward began assisting non-union workers in filing complaints about working in union classifications for lower pay. A few dozen of these filings and the company backed off its plan.
M. M.
First Sparks
The very first union business agent I ever knew was my father, but I never saw him handle a union grievance. On the other hand, in his capacity as manager of our household enterprise he handled my grievances with great dispatch, turning them all down at the first stage of the process. Once I asked for an increase in allowance from a dime per week to a quarter; his response was to snort and turn back to the sports page. I took the matter to the second stage of our process, an appeal to my mother. She promised to give me some change when she could but would sign nothing. Finally I brought the issue to arbitration: my grandmother agreed that I was being treated badly indeed, awarded me a cup of tea and half a dollar in liquidated damages. It goes without saying that the settlement was not binding on the parties.
The second business agent I encountered was a fellow I’ll call Pete, whom I met while working as an expediter in a factory. Pete was my co-worker, and also the steward over a few hundred workers of various classifications. I have always been grateful for his example and guidance. Pete was the very worst union representative I have ever seen or heard of in all my years of contact with trade unions. He was a living catalog of what to avoid, and his story is worth knowing for that reason.
One of the products that every factory generates is paperwork. Somebody has to manage all that paper, which consists of orders, reports, analyses and various forms of correspondence. That’s what I did at this particular factory, which was in the business of producing electronic devices. It was a big plant, with a couple thousand workers. It was a union plant and so it had the usual union structures within. Pete was the steward for my area. I knew this right from the start because he wore a badge that told the world his position.
As I wrote in the Introduction, one day a man came into our office looking for Pete, who had been dealing with this fellow’s grievance. Pete was out sick, and the guy wanted to know when his hearing would be scheduled. I looked into Pete’s file drawer but the contents were a mess of scattered papers in no particular order. The guy asked me what he should do. I said, “Let’s find the form,” and we both had a look. It turned out that the poor fellow had failed to file his grievance within the time limit prescribed in the contract. Pete had simply let the matter slip, and it was too late to do anything.
At lunch that day I fished around in the file drawer and found a lot of grievance forms old and new. I arranged them by date and studied them. Here’s what I found:
1. Quite a few of the grievances had been neglected until they were past the deadline for
submission or some particular response.
2. Pete wasn’t in the habit of making reference to contract provisions.
3. Most of the writing on the forms was illegible; spelling was atrocious and grammar worse. In fact, Pete used three different spellings for the same term: ‘grievance’ was spelled ‘grivance,’ ‘grievants’ and ‘grievanse’ interchangeably, as though the writer hoped to at least get one out of the three correct.
4. There was no description of the events or the claimed violation of the agreement, except in a very general way: “Overtime no seniority” was about all you could gather about a particular violation.
5. There was nothing written about any particular plan of action and no records were kept of outcomes.
Overall it looked more like a third-grader’s homework rather than the records of a union steward. When Pete came back I asked him about the grievance of the guy who had come into the office. He got a hard look on his face and told me to mind my own business. I was young and green and didn’t know enough to mind my own business, so I proceeded to contact the people whose names had appeared on the grievance forms to find out what had gone on. Thus began my first real lesson in union business.
I talked to half a dozen people around the plant who’d filed grievances through Pete. They all told similar stories. If a worker came to Pete with a grievance, he would schedule them for a conference during which he would listen to their complaint, scribble a few notes and then tell the grievant that he’d see about the matter. After which time very little or nothing would be done. Anybody who had been disciplined and appealed through Pete would find that the discipline would rarely be challenged. Pete never explained anything. He never included the grievant in any discussions.
Finding this out distressed me greatly. I mentioned the matter to a friend who had worked in the plant many years and he told me this story:
Pete glad-handed enough so that he was elected steward when the previous steward retired. He gained a reputation as somebody who would give management a hard time, mainly because he complained about his own job constantly. Because of this reputation and the fact that nobody else wanted to do the work, he kept being re-elected steward. Nobody liked his work, but nobody would run against him. Anybody who wanted their grievance done better would do it himself or hand it up the line to the senior steward.
As if that didn’t leave a bad enough taste, I happened to be sitting next to a secretary from Human Resources one day in the cafeteria. We got to talking and she told me worse news. The company was very pleased to have Pete as steward. He lost about 85% of the grievances he bothered to take up, mostly because he didn’t know what he was doing. She added, “It doesn’t help that he can barely read and write.”
I hadn’t come to that conclusion before, but the evidence was inescapable: Pete was practically illiterate. One of his boasts was that he would never work on the computer station; that was how he avoided admitting that he couldn’t type, spell, write or even find letters on the keyboard. In short, we had a steward whom you couldn’t expect to research the contract because he couldn’t find the right section, much less explain it to anyone. And the company thought this was just great—why wouldn’t they? They were fighting a one-armed man. All that Pete had was swagger. He spent about a quarter of his day just chewing the fat, another quarter going to and fro, and the rest of the time smoking in the corridors.
At the same time as I discovered Pete’s methodology I enrolled in my first labor studies courses. If you have any familiarity with that subject, you know these deal with union basics such as contracts and grievances. I learned what I didn’t know and moreover, what ought to have been done in our plant. Back at the shop I began to assist fellow workers in understanding their rights and in processing complaints and official grievances—but that’s another matter. What matters now are the lessons I learned from working around Pete. Let’s have a look at these in detail.
The first mistake Pete made was in deciding to run for steward, or perhaps in accepting a nomination. His lack of reading and writing skill alone should have convinced him that he had no place in a job where writing reports and taking down testimony would be common tasks. Pete had been able to fake his way through the paperwork for the job itself, so he thought nothing of faking another role too.
Next, Pete was completely unorganized and he couldn’t keep a schedule. Union business runs on schedules and deadlines.
Finally, Pete was not the sort of a person who should work as a steward, and probably not in any other union position either. He had a poor attitude toward work and a grudge toward the company that employed him. He really didn’t like helping people, particularly people who had problems. He just liked cruising around the plant wearing a steward’s badge, avoiding work.
Finally, about that grudge. There are plenty of unionists out in the world who think that the workplace is an extension of hell run by Satan and his minions. Pete certainly thought that. Let me give you an idea of Pete’s hell.
It was a very large firm with numerous locations, employing over ten thousand union members in many different sites around the country. The firm paid quite well, had very frequent raises, advanced current employees whenever possible, encouraged further training and paid for just about any sort of outside education you could imagine. It was a clean shop and nearly everybody was pretty pleasant. The grievances that came up usually arose from personal disputes or errors; management didn’t have any war against the union, though they bargained hard in negotiations. Comparable nonunion shops were paid substantially less that we were. It was a good place to work.
Take a look at the first sentence of the last paragraph. Over ten thousand union jobs. And a company who never, not once, put out any article, broadcast or other public indication that they were against collective bargaining. And then, when you’ve digested that, think of old Pete, swaggering about, talking trash about the company while unable to process a grievance correctly.
Which brings us to an important point: What is the real role of a union business agent? Is it war against the company?
M. M.
The second business agent I encountered was a fellow I’ll call Pete, whom I met while working as an expediter in a factory. Pete was my co-worker, and also the steward over a few hundred workers of various classifications. I have always been grateful for his example and guidance. Pete was the very worst union representative I have ever seen or heard of in all my years of contact with trade unions. He was a living catalog of what to avoid, and his story is worth knowing for that reason.
One of the products that every factory generates is paperwork. Somebody has to manage all that paper, which consists of orders, reports, analyses and various forms of correspondence. That’s what I did at this particular factory, which was in the business of producing electronic devices. It was a big plant, with a couple thousand workers. It was a union plant and so it had the usual union structures within. Pete was the steward for my area. I knew this right from the start because he wore a badge that told the world his position.
As I wrote in the Introduction, one day a man came into our office looking for Pete, who had been dealing with this fellow’s grievance. Pete was out sick, and the guy wanted to know when his hearing would be scheduled. I looked into Pete’s file drawer but the contents were a mess of scattered papers in no particular order. The guy asked me what he should do. I said, “Let’s find the form,” and we both had a look. It turned out that the poor fellow had failed to file his grievance within the time limit prescribed in the contract. Pete had simply let the matter slip, and it was too late to do anything.
At lunch that day I fished around in the file drawer and found a lot of grievance forms old and new. I arranged them by date and studied them. Here’s what I found:
1. Quite a few of the grievances had been neglected until they were past the deadline for
submission or some particular response.
2. Pete wasn’t in the habit of making reference to contract provisions.
3. Most of the writing on the forms was illegible; spelling was atrocious and grammar worse. In fact, Pete used three different spellings for the same term: ‘grievance’ was spelled ‘grivance,’ ‘grievants’ and ‘grievanse’ interchangeably, as though the writer hoped to at least get one out of the three correct.
4. There was no description of the events or the claimed violation of the agreement, except in a very general way: “Overtime no seniority” was about all you could gather about a particular violation.
5. There was nothing written about any particular plan of action and no records were kept of outcomes.
Overall it looked more like a third-grader’s homework rather than the records of a union steward. When Pete came back I asked him about the grievance of the guy who had come into the office. He got a hard look on his face and told me to mind my own business. I was young and green and didn’t know enough to mind my own business, so I proceeded to contact the people whose names had appeared on the grievance forms to find out what had gone on. Thus began my first real lesson in union business.
I talked to half a dozen people around the plant who’d filed grievances through Pete. They all told similar stories. If a worker came to Pete with a grievance, he would schedule them for a conference during which he would listen to their complaint, scribble a few notes and then tell the grievant that he’d see about the matter. After which time very little or nothing would be done. Anybody who had been disciplined and appealed through Pete would find that the discipline would rarely be challenged. Pete never explained anything. He never included the grievant in any discussions.
Finding this out distressed me greatly. I mentioned the matter to a friend who had worked in the plant many years and he told me this story:
Pete glad-handed enough so that he was elected steward when the previous steward retired. He gained a reputation as somebody who would give management a hard time, mainly because he complained about his own job constantly. Because of this reputation and the fact that nobody else wanted to do the work, he kept being re-elected steward. Nobody liked his work, but nobody would run against him. Anybody who wanted their grievance done better would do it himself or hand it up the line to the senior steward.
As if that didn’t leave a bad enough taste, I happened to be sitting next to a secretary from Human Resources one day in the cafeteria. We got to talking and she told me worse news. The company was very pleased to have Pete as steward. He lost about 85% of the grievances he bothered to take up, mostly because he didn’t know what he was doing. She added, “It doesn’t help that he can barely read and write.”
I hadn’t come to that conclusion before, but the evidence was inescapable: Pete was practically illiterate. One of his boasts was that he would never work on the computer station; that was how he avoided admitting that he couldn’t type, spell, write or even find letters on the keyboard. In short, we had a steward whom you couldn’t expect to research the contract because he couldn’t find the right section, much less explain it to anyone. And the company thought this was just great—why wouldn’t they? They were fighting a one-armed man. All that Pete had was swagger. He spent about a quarter of his day just chewing the fat, another quarter going to and fro, and the rest of the time smoking in the corridors.
At the same time as I discovered Pete’s methodology I enrolled in my first labor studies courses. If you have any familiarity with that subject, you know these deal with union basics such as contracts and grievances. I learned what I didn’t know and moreover, what ought to have been done in our plant. Back at the shop I began to assist fellow workers in understanding their rights and in processing complaints and official grievances—but that’s another matter. What matters now are the lessons I learned from working around Pete. Let’s have a look at these in detail.
The first mistake Pete made was in deciding to run for steward, or perhaps in accepting a nomination. His lack of reading and writing skill alone should have convinced him that he had no place in a job where writing reports and taking down testimony would be common tasks. Pete had been able to fake his way through the paperwork for the job itself, so he thought nothing of faking another role too.
Next, Pete was completely unorganized and he couldn’t keep a schedule. Union business runs on schedules and deadlines.
Finally, Pete was not the sort of a person who should work as a steward, and probably not in any other union position either. He had a poor attitude toward work and a grudge toward the company that employed him. He really didn’t like helping people, particularly people who had problems. He just liked cruising around the plant wearing a steward’s badge, avoiding work.
Finally, about that grudge. There are plenty of unionists out in the world who think that the workplace is an extension of hell run by Satan and his minions. Pete certainly thought that. Let me give you an idea of Pete’s hell.
It was a very large firm with numerous locations, employing over ten thousand union members in many different sites around the country. The firm paid quite well, had very frequent raises, advanced current employees whenever possible, encouraged further training and paid for just about any sort of outside education you could imagine. It was a clean shop and nearly everybody was pretty pleasant. The grievances that came up usually arose from personal disputes or errors; management didn’t have any war against the union, though they bargained hard in negotiations. Comparable nonunion shops were paid substantially less that we were. It was a good place to work.
Take a look at the first sentence of the last paragraph. Over ten thousand union jobs. And a company who never, not once, put out any article, broadcast or other public indication that they were against collective bargaining. And then, when you’ve digested that, think of old Pete, swaggering about, talking trash about the company while unable to process a grievance correctly.
Which brings us to an important point: What is the real role of a union business agent? Is it war against the company?
M. M.
Introduction
I come from a short line of unionists. Nobody before my parents was involved in the labor movement, but my father and mother were members and activists. My folks didn’t belong to any lodge; they didn’t have a bowling league. What they had and what they believed in were their unions—in my mother’s case the IATSE theatrical attendant’s Local and in my father’s the teachers’ union he was trying to build right up to the day he died.
I fell asleep at night listening to them talk about contracts, negotiations and grievances, or where my mother was on the dispatch book. For working people such things were very important. They determined whether you had enough money at the end of the month to pay for gasoline or meat or shoes. At the age of nine I knew that if my mother got enough overtime I could get a bicycle for Christmas; long before that I knew that if my father got seniority rights he would always be sure of teaching summer school, which meant that we would make it through the long summer when his regular salary wasn’t paid.
To our family the union was not just some vague concept of collective bargaining carried on by distant representatives. It was very much with us, not only in the presence and promise of material things but in the heritage of my family.
My father worked as a sheet metal mechanic in the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard right after World War II. One day while going to work on the streetcar he found himself passing through a union demonstration against the General Electric Company. Mounted police officers charged the union pickets with clubs swinging; several pickets went down and the cops continued to attack the helpless men. My father jumped from the streetcar and, with the help of others, pulled a few of the cops from their horses and treated them to a dose of the same medicine. After this he went to work as usual, but a few days later he found that he was being sought for assault on a police officer. This precipitated his departure for the west, and eventually for Los Angeles, where he began a new life.
My mother grew up legally blind from an eye disorder that was eventually cured by the time she was eighteen. At nineteen her mother got her a job in a Los Angeles garment factory making shirts. The place was simply a sweatshop. After working there a short while my mother (85 pounds and with glasses thick as your thumb) decided to lead a wildcat strike against the lowering of piece rates. Somewhere in my attic is a picture of the event, taken by a news photographer. It shows a line of picketers and an arrow drawn toward one. On the back is written, “Strike first job age 19.”
It was my fate to become a unionist, though I fought it hard. I got out of the navy and went to college but changed majors every other semester because it all seemed so far removed from real life. I took a break from school to get my head straight, and found a job in a factory. One day an office mate of mine who happened to be the union steward was out sick. A guy with a grievance came around asking for him. Instead of going away he said, “Can you help me out?” I agreed without hesitation. That decision was like a magic spell, opening the sealed door to let fate catch up with me. In a short while I was going to college at night, majoring in Labor Studies.
Since that time, a quarter-century ago, I have been a member of, worked for, with and around dozens of unions in the public and private sector. I have worked for the U.S. Department of Labor, for other public agencies, private firms and for labor-management trusts. I have been a private investigator in the area of labor and employment law. In all that time I have never been more than a handshake away from union contracts, union agents and union members. And never for a moment sorry I answered that question from the guy who wanted his grievance explained.
This writing is a distillation of those years and what I’ve seen and learned in that time. It was neither reviewed nor approved by any union or union official. I am aware that some of the content may not conform to the official views of particular unions or other groups. These postings consist of my work and opinions alone. In writing this I hope to pass on something useful to the practitioner in the field.
Michael McGrorty
I fell asleep at night listening to them talk about contracts, negotiations and grievances, or where my mother was on the dispatch book. For working people such things were very important. They determined whether you had enough money at the end of the month to pay for gasoline or meat or shoes. At the age of nine I knew that if my mother got enough overtime I could get a bicycle for Christmas; long before that I knew that if my father got seniority rights he would always be sure of teaching summer school, which meant that we would make it through the long summer when his regular salary wasn’t paid.
To our family the union was not just some vague concept of collective bargaining carried on by distant representatives. It was very much with us, not only in the presence and promise of material things but in the heritage of my family.
My father worked as a sheet metal mechanic in the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard right after World War II. One day while going to work on the streetcar he found himself passing through a union demonstration against the General Electric Company. Mounted police officers charged the union pickets with clubs swinging; several pickets went down and the cops continued to attack the helpless men. My father jumped from the streetcar and, with the help of others, pulled a few of the cops from their horses and treated them to a dose of the same medicine. After this he went to work as usual, but a few days later he found that he was being sought for assault on a police officer. This precipitated his departure for the west, and eventually for Los Angeles, where he began a new life.
My mother grew up legally blind from an eye disorder that was eventually cured by the time she was eighteen. At nineteen her mother got her a job in a Los Angeles garment factory making shirts. The place was simply a sweatshop. After working there a short while my mother (85 pounds and with glasses thick as your thumb) decided to lead a wildcat strike against the lowering of piece rates. Somewhere in my attic is a picture of the event, taken by a news photographer. It shows a line of picketers and an arrow drawn toward one. On the back is written, “Strike first job age 19.”
It was my fate to become a unionist, though I fought it hard. I got out of the navy and went to college but changed majors every other semester because it all seemed so far removed from real life. I took a break from school to get my head straight, and found a job in a factory. One day an office mate of mine who happened to be the union steward was out sick. A guy with a grievance came around asking for him. Instead of going away he said, “Can you help me out?” I agreed without hesitation. That decision was like a magic spell, opening the sealed door to let fate catch up with me. In a short while I was going to college at night, majoring in Labor Studies.
Since that time, a quarter-century ago, I have been a member of, worked for, with and around dozens of unions in the public and private sector. I have worked for the U.S. Department of Labor, for other public agencies, private firms and for labor-management trusts. I have been a private investigator in the area of labor and employment law. In all that time I have never been more than a handshake away from union contracts, union agents and union members. And never for a moment sorry I answered that question from the guy who wanted his grievance explained.
This writing is a distillation of those years and what I’ve seen and learned in that time. It was neither reviewed nor approved by any union or union official. I am aware that some of the content may not conform to the official views of particular unions or other groups. These postings consist of my work and opinions alone. In writing this I hope to pass on something useful to the practitioner in the field.
Michael McGrorty
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