Bagbelt,Sep 20 2005, 10:42 PM]
To the sit starter, we pay dues because at least we have some say on a local level.
You pay dues for that reason. Most that I know pay because of the RLA.
The TWU is a company union, we are basically subsidizing the company's HR dept because that basically is what the TWU is. Sure we can vote for Local leaders but even company founded unions allowed that. The fact is the Locals have no control over the contract, the International has that and we dont get to vote for ANY of them. In fact usually failed Presidents are brought into the International.
Despite the lies the International puts out Locals are not autonomous. Nor does the Presidents council have any jurisdicytion over the contract or the union. Several Lawsuits have proven that to be the case.
They remove any officer of any local they want and they can dissolve any Local they want. So while the Locals may be "on their own, as far as survival, they are not autonous, they have to do whatever the International tells them.
Here are some minor examples that prove that even the money the Local gets is not the Locals. All Local must contribute to the Micheal Quill Scholarship. Why? Because the International says so. All the ATD locals must contribute to the gifts to ex-local presidents-thats right the International gives gifts to Presidents that are voted out of office and requires all the other ATD locals to contribute to these gifts. Locals have to foot the expenses related to LTD processing, even though the International gets thousands of dollars a year from the provider. Locals are assigned to recruit new hires into the plan and provide the International lists of all new hires that are not in the plan plus mail out information to those new hires. Lost time, postage etc are absorbed by the Local.
An employee at will has just about zero to say on anything, unless the company is in blatant violation of federal law.
And how much say did we have when Jim Little put the current contract in place? ZERO.
And in this rotten business, there is little else we can do at the moment.
Sure we can. We can start to make the move to get rid of the TWU and get a union where the top leaders are accountable to the rank and file. A union that will seek to organize the entire industry in one union, even if it means raiding, the way it should have been all along.
The people who complain the most normally are the ones who had some sweetheart deal ruined because it was in violation of the contract.
And those who dont complain are the ones that have their sweetheart deals within the union. The fact is I cant find one member, regardless of department, that thinks that we should keep the TWU.
The laws that have been passed over the years crippled every tool we had, now the same people who crippled us ask us why we want an ineffective organisation.
The law did not force Little to impliment the contract without a vote on the new contract.