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A Simple Question

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doug slaydon
Post Posted: Mon Aug 09, 2010 3:00 pm

Joined: 30 Aug 2006
Posts: 189
Here's a simple question. Going to the very heart of the issues we have faced over the years and likely one at the core of this website. It presents a choice.

Do we as human beings/union members have a right to decide what is "useful and proper" to our lives?

YES or NO!

To answer NO means to choose "faith and obedience" to those in power to make the decisions for you: Joe Hansen, Jacques Loveall, etc. To choose ignorance, because the honest answer is that ignorance is the basis for faith and obedience (Montaigne).Jacques Loveall is the messiah of UFCW Great Golden State, and according to how his business is conducted and whenever I have personally witnessed his conduct and the conduct of his minions, he is above any question to his AUTHORITY!

To answer YES to the above question means to deny that authority, to deny that faith and obedience. Of course most of us on this website already are down this lonely road. I hope my little discourse helped you to join the trip.

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Doug Slaydon has been active campaigning to reform UFCW Local 8.
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hawk
Post Posted: Mon Aug 09, 2010 4:05 pm

Joined: 07 Mar 2010
Posts: 268
You have the right to make decisions at work and at the union hall. Of course you can.

You can decide whether you want two sugars or only one in your coffee. You can decide what kind of sandwich you want to buy.

Once you leave work or the union hall, you are then free to make some real choices that are only limited by your need to earn money to take care of yourself and your family.

When you think of it, your responsibilities even in your private life, tends to limit dissidence.
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unionnow
Post Posted: Mon Aug 09, 2010 11:24 pm

Joined: 05 Feb 2006
Posts: 658
Location: Gettin the Hell out of retail 		The answer is both yes and no. We are constrained to do and not do things by the systems we live under, the inputs we receive, by our moral compasses, mental abilities and so on.

30,000 years ago what would be the answer? It would be driven by the inputs, abilities and understands of the humans living at that time. Killing a tribe of Neanderthals and eating them might be a good and honorable thing to the Homo Sapiens of that era.

To the boys, they see what they do as right and honorable in their eyes. In their eyes they are better than us and smarter than us. With the turn of a phrase they can control how we perceive things.

With that power they are justified in what they do. The pay and accouterments reinforces those notions.

What we choose to do or not to do is driven by a complex set of variables that is received and processed by the individual.

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doug slaydon
Post Posted: Tue Aug 10, 2010 12:07 am

Joined: 30 Aug 2006
Posts: 189
Both very thoughtful replies. Hawk's seems on the "render to Caesar what is Caesar's" side; while unionnow has adopted the fatalistic reality that force outweighs truth. I am a slow learner and maintain that a standard applies to all.

I choose to live an honest and simple life and do good to serve others. Of course now having taken what I could get from the UFCW pension fund and moved on to my next career...

Hawk, if you work in retail or possibly a union office, my hope is you earn your life free from the duplicity of having to be something different for the situation; because it is the situation that is wrong, not you. Most of us, myself included, just need to see the good in ourselves that everyone else already sees.

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Laboryes
Post Posted: Tue Aug 10, 2010 3:34 am

Joined: 29 Jan 2006
Posts: 1959
doug slaydon wrote:


Do we as human beings/union members have a right to decide what is "useful and proper" to our lives?


Doug IMO... Of coarse we have the right to choose what is “useful & proper” in our own lives, but I think the bigger question do we have the “guts & energy” to fight for those rights? How many people have “we” encountered over the years that just want “their" problems fixed and want someone else to do all the “fixing” for them?

It’s my belief that people(at least in my area) are still way to selfish to put in the work and energy that it takes working as a “collective” to better their lives as human beings. Much easier to hide in the shadows and hope someone else takes all the risk so they can pop out and reap the benefits.

It takes work, trust and a willingness to give to in power “your rights” and “choose what’s useful & proper for your own life! Frankly I just don’t think the masses are there yet.

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hawk
Post Posted: Tue Aug 10, 2010 6:07 am

Joined: 07 Mar 2010
Posts: 268
Quote:
Doug Slaydon has been active campaigning to reform UFCW Local 8.


I am retired now and I no longer have to work in manufacturing plants following the company line and sucking up to the boss.

I was a UAW activist over 30 years ago. When I went to a district conference where there were over 300 local leaders and all the national representatives and I counted less than five of them that I thought that it was worth talking to, I knew it was time to get out.

Now, after being in management for 30 years, I have a simple job as a UFCW member. I am there for the extra benefits package. For the first several months there, I thought I was with the Teamsters, that is how little influence the union has.

The Marxists were wrong. Trade unions is not a fit vehicle to change the work place. Too corrupt.

I now think that something like the IWW has more promise for real change.

In the meantime, we plug away doing the best we can. Every small victory is so sweet because none of them come easy.
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doug slaydon
Post Posted: Tue Aug 10, 2010 12:19 pm

Joined: 30 Aug 2006
Posts: 189
Real obedience requires faith and ignorance! Why bother? I'm not being sarcastic about this, just speaking the truth.

Thanks for the background Hawk, you certainly have the advantage of time and ability to compare trends in unionism. I bought the union line for 25 years before I was shocked into seeing the reality of UFCW, then took a couple years to transition out.

Isn't IWW Marxism? I don't necessarily agree with their rhetoric, but have personally dealt with them and helped out with anti-war events and know I like their actions. They would organize the biggest and best protests in San Francisco.

Laboryes! Good to trade quips with you! You have really become a writer during these years, I hear your voice in your words.

Yeah the selfish thing! Do you think that goes along with ignorance? Because I'll share a lesson in selfish. How about when I was fired from Safeway and I started getting checks in the mail to cover my house payment? Talk about humbling! I still want to pay that money back and it bugs me that I haven't. I don't know how the TV evangelists can carry all that guilt taking people's money!

So how to get it into the members that if they start living outside that world of theirs they might experience the joy and heart in helping others, to feel the gift of accomplishing the bigger goal?

There is a big high in planning an action and carrying it out. Even if there's just a few of us who show up! It is taking personal power, and taking group power.

Hawk, you mention you were in management for 30 years. Any insights you care to share???

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doug slaydon
Post Posted: Tue Aug 10, 2010 8:34 pm

Joined: 30 Aug 2006
Posts: 189
Quote:
an act of rebellion is not, essentially, an egotistic act...the rebel-once he has accepted the motives and at the moment of his greatest impetus-preserves nothing in that he risks everything
Code:
Camus, The Rebel


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The Third Element
Post Posted: Tue Aug 10, 2010 10:07 pm

Joined: 22 Feb 2006
Posts: 363
So... why do even "reformed" union activists rail so soundly against working without a union?

From what I have experianced over the years, the UFCW seems more like a thicket of brambles between the employee and her rights.

Can I assume that it is, as stated above, just the benefits? Those bought and paid for with years and years of accepting the shaft up the hoop by the UFCW and the employer.

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unionnow
Post Posted: Tue Aug 10, 2010 11:20 pm

Joined: 05 Feb 2006
Posts: 658
Location: Gettin the Hell out of retail
Quote:
unionnow has adopted the fatalistic reality that force outweighs truth


That is not the case. What I am saying is that everybody lives in their own reality and has their own set of truths.

Sometimes the group comes together to work towards some type of reality. That is the case with our union and just about all forms of group efforts in general.

The reality they seek is a better life for themselves and they dissonant themselves from the purpose. By deceiving themselves they create a new reality.

Their fake reality has become a real reality for all of us.

Take the Taliban for instance. What is their truth? What is their reality? What are they working for?

The question is what is your reality, what is your truth?

Quote:
How about when I was fired from Safeway and I started getting checks in the mail to cover my house payment? Talk about humbling! I still want to pay that money back and it bugs me that I haven't.



Dont worry about it. They were gifts, we still owe your for trying to clean up the mess!!!!

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“The burden against Damascus. ‘Behold, Damascus will cease from being a city, and it will be a ruinous heap. (Isaiah 17:1-2)
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doug slaydon
Post Posted: Wed Aug 11, 2010 9:11 pm

Joined: 30 Aug 2006
Posts: 189
Unionnow, your thoughts are so clear, you must be getting your sleep. I wondered how a person could sleep so little.

But are we so different individually that we can't share common goals? Just the simple things we need: pay for all time worked, workplace safety, the ability to grieve a wrong ( sidebar: by the way don't assume out there that you need a union agent to file a grievance. I campaigned against the old leadership at the former Butcher's Union Local 115 and after losing couldn't get the representation I requested from President Bob Vyenello, so I went down to the Local office and demanded a grievance form and filed my own grievance which by the way got filed and resolved in my favor!)or how about the right to accurate information, because even the best store managers lie, why should a new worker have to navigate the bullshit without the proper information, like how many days a year the manager can block out on the calendar, not to mention HEALTHCARE!

Right now I am retired from UFCW and working without a contract even though I belong to the ANA and SCNA. "That's South Carolina" as they like to tell me.

Ms. Third Element, to answer your question, even the mention of running a de-certification campaign blew up the WORKER'S RIGHTS PROJECT I spent so many hours trying to assemble. Most of the pricipal being regular on this website. Which I finally laid to rest this year with the blessing of the Secretary of State of California, the smell of the turd left in my pocket as I was threatened with back taxes as the "executor" of said nonprofit.

And yours is another sore point, especially with retirees, those who fought the fight every day are forgotten by those who are "just there for the benefits".

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unionnow
Post Posted: Wed Aug 11, 2010 11:55 pm

Joined: 05 Feb 2006
Posts: 658
Location: Gettin the Hell out of retail
Quote:
So... why do even "reformed" union activists rail so soundly against working without a union?


Quote:
Ms. Third Element, to answer your question, even the mention of running a de-certification campaign blew up the WORKER'S RIGHTS PROJECT I spent so many hours trying to assemble.


You have to decertify the union you are part of to join another. Wasn't that the point?

It can't be done? I think It could have been done if fact it is being done right now.

People lack vision. Reformers lack vision.

If we reformers cant manage and talk through the tough choices and problems that would confront us on the road to change then you are selling yourself as a reformer when in fact you are just satisfying the status quo.

Lets face it; nothing has changed and nothing will change. The reformers have reformed nothing. The paint was scratched a little and it was a cheap and easy fix to repair the damage.

Are unions needed? In many cases not because management does what it wants anyway. In some cases yes because they do work for the membership in part even thought the system may be rotten to the core. I have seen it work both ways

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“The burden against Damascus. ‘Behold, Damascus will cease from being a city, and it will be a ruinous heap. (Isaiah 17:1-2)
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Laboryes
Post Posted: Fri Aug 13, 2010 3:33 am

Joined: 29 Jan 2006
Posts: 1959
doug slaydon wrote:


Yeah the selfish thing! Do you think that goes along with ignorance? Because I'll share a lesson in selfish. How about when I was fired from Safeway and I started getting checks in the mail to cover my house payment? Talk about humbling! I still want to pay that money back and it bugs me that I haven't. I don't know how the TV evangelists can carry all that guilt taking people's money!


Doug my brother you owe me “nothing”! I was taught a long time ago when you give from the heart consider it a “gift”. Your courage to run your campaign was a way bigger gift than any I passed your way.

Doug you talk about guilt? I feel guilt everyday for your termination! My “ignorance” of the UFCW system made me push you a little to hard I believe. I was so “naive” about the system I really thought we could make a difference! Now I realize we should have taken our time and concentrated on organizing & educating the members more than worrying about running a campaign.

After all we experienced Doug I’ve come to the conclusion that “most” not all, of the UFCW membership have no idea what it means to be a “union member”. I believe in their heads they believe that just because they pay their dues all should be taken care of with “no” efforts by them. Things just don’t work that way when your suppose to be a “collective”.

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The Third Element
Post Posted: Mon Aug 16, 2010 4:01 pm

Joined: 22 Feb 2006
Posts: 363
Mr. Slaydon, sorry for the misdirect, I am a Mister. I try write with both he/she context.

What would happen to a workforce that voted to decertify from the UFCW in their store? Not suggesting that it is to support a raid, what if they just want to work with their Management group - non-union.

Would they all be fired?
Would they keep their pensions money?
Would they lose all thier rights?
Would they gain rights?

I have a belief of what the answers are to these and other common questions about the process. I am interested in what a "reformer" thinks would happen.

Thanks.

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No Beast so fierce knows but some small amount of pity, but I know none and so I am no beast.
~ Richard III
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doug slaydon
Post Posted: Thu Aug 19, 2010 2:20 pm

Joined: 30 Aug 2006
Posts: 189
Laboryes: you were with me every step and I consider it my fortune we met. As for the money I made a list and still have it and would be repaying sooner had I gotten a nursing job in California, but $19.10 goes so far even in South Carolina. Sorry to mention it and I certainly don't want it between us. You and the others are friends for life. My point was exactly that if union members and workers in general could take some of the risks we took, they would find good people along the way just like we did!

Mr Third Element: depending on the state in which you reside you may find you enjoy more rights as a nonunion member as the union contract, especially the grievance process, is so buried in precedence and side letters that don't even appear in the printed contract that it's hard for the lay member to navigate. This is why the grievance process grinds on and little justice is served. UFCW prefers to "settle" (making trades) rather than grieve, part of what unionnow calls "the system". One member of our group has been fighting UFCW 8 for years over the sloppy handling of member's complaints. I know that UFCW 8 does not handle grievances in a timely manner. Letting deadlines lapse, Board of Adjustments taking way too long, and arbitration even longer.

Just to be fair: when the union loses an arbitration, that case becomes precedent.

Pension money cannot be lost, as it is vested and the vesting date has been lowered, I think to five years. Now if the pension fund is mishandled by the Board and becomes insolvent the federal government will insure a percentage which could be pennies on the dollar and that is the discussion you read on various posts in this website.

You can opt out of the union anytime as an active member and give up your membership without any discrimination from your employer, but you may be required to pay the dues contribution as a condition of employment.

If a majority of union members vote to "decertify" their union as their representative, all bets are off and the membership becomes nonunion, or in some cases they may seek other representation. Some unions have raided other unions as a way to swell membership without doing the hard work organizing.

Unionnow: please fill in the blanks I have left, as I'm sure you may have more to add for Third Element.

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