Greed is Good

Alternate title: The Big Announcement!

Now that Winter Quarter is complete and “the significant event” has taken place, I can let y’all in on a little secret effecting 2/5 of the RNS staff.

You could rather easily say that Scott and I have been getting an open-book lesson on union organizing.

This may take a bit to explain, so it is below the fold.

There will be a Part II to this tomorrow.

For the past six months the two of us and the other nine people we work in the office with have been made to sit in meetings with the suits from our employer’s corporate HQ to try and stop the eleven office staff from joining the union who represents the 200+ drivers we work with on a daily basis.

We have been keeping our lips zipped on this because I cannot be sure whether or not the company has found RNS and I didn’t want to give them any help in defeating us.

The meetings were pretty bad at times, with the company telling us how worthless, useless and stupid were, and the company telling us they would find a way to block the vote and then fire us all.

It started back in September of last year when we got word that our competitors had organized their office staff with their driver’s union. The result being their pay scale went from slightly more than what we were earning to 50% more than our rate.

I got word of this via one of the shop stewards, and knowing that greed is good, I spread the word. A few years ago I would have said “good for them” and kept it to myself, since I don’t trust a union as far as I can throw them. However, the past couple years have been particularly trying with our employer.

In the dozen-plus years I’ve been employed there the company has gone through multiple management changes. The company has gone from being a steady #2 in the industry to being #1. However, much credit the corporate management would like to take the credit for this, the majority of the credit should go to the frontline employees, such as Scott and myself. Sadly, we have seen nothing other than longer hours, for which we get punished for (more on this in a minute).

To to begin with, the company is quote fond of firing the long-term employees without cause and then hiring someone to replace them at 2/3 the pay rate. The alternate scenario involves  first firing the long-term employee, and then in the same meeting, saying that they really hate to let them go and offering them their jobs back at 2/3 rate and total loss of seniority. I’m now the #1 person in the office in term of time-served and saw the signs of this coming down the pike during the summer, and I’m not really down with either of those options.

While I am a big fan of smart business decisions, and some would say that the above is one of them. I disagree, and I’m not too hip on becoming a “smart business decision” because of someone’s misguided idea.

When I started working there, it was a two person office. It then doubled when we were merged with another district. It nearly doubled again when we got a very large contract with the City of Seattle and we became seven. This is when Scott hired on. Then came the big push from corporate to monitor the driver’s productivity with a magnifying glass and we swiftly became ten. We added an eleventh person within a year because covering the vacations and sick time of ten people with ten people leads to overtime, which the company was attempting to cut down on.

When we were just four, $2.50 was given to our manager to divide amongst us as raises to our hourly rate after our reviews, with the larger portion given to the most deserving employee. We are now eleven, and that same $2.50 is divided up amongst the group. Last year, I got $0.19 of it. What with the big contract and a number of medium sized ones added since we were four, a logical person would think that more money would be added to the amount to be divided up. If that person were a manager and posed that idea, that person would be fired.

The way they weaseled this into common practice was to base our reviews not on our personal performance, productivity, willingness to take on new tasks, and attendance, but on the district as a whole and our percentage of overtime worked compared to our regular hours. Yes, they would mandate overtime and then dock you percentage points for working the mandatory overtime during your reviews so as to give a smaller raise. This began in 2008. The company claimed financial hardship and we bought it. Since then, they have done the same. Until this year, when they told us that because the company had not met its earnings goals, hourly employees would not be getting any raise. The goal was a 20% increase in profit. In this economy. We’d all guessed when these goals were published in the company newsletter that there would be no raises this year.

Never mind that my previous raises had not even kept up with the price of gas, so that I was keeping less and less of my earnings due to the simple fact that I had to drive to work, now not only was I not going to see a dime more for the year, but I was staring down the barrel of the corporate firing squad for not quitting or getting fired during the last twelve years.

I say the last sentence because over the last twelve years I had noticed that there were only three ways to leave this place: Quit, Get fired, or Die. I’ve seen all three happen and didn’t want to get on any of those buses. Only one person has broken the above rule, and she took a lateral transfer to another office to get out of the current manager’s crosshairs.

The last reason on the list as to why this happened is a complete lack of respect from management for the job we do. A job we do quite well I might add. We do this job so well that we get trotted out and bragged about when the company is attempting to win a contract. But day-to-day, it is round after round of either pretending we don’t exist, or if they do take notice of us, it is because someone in middle-management wants to blame us for one of their mistakes. Scott used to sit in meetings which ended up being 90 minutes of hate on our department. The middle-managers would heap blame on the department for their mistakes for an hour and he’d spend 30 minutes digging up proof that we had nothing to do with the mistakes. Our newest corporate ladder climber of a General Manager would hmm and haw over the facts and then take his middle managers out for beers.

In February of 2000 I turned down two other job offers, one with slightly better benefits and the other with slightly more pay, when I took this job because I’d heard that this was a good company to work for and they were growing. I’ve put in good words for friends to get them jobs there because it was a good company. That was until about four years ago or so.

I’m listing the above reasons (you can call them excuses if you’d like) as the major reasons this happened. Believe it or not, I’m leaving out twice as many smaller reasons for the sake of brevity.

Also during my 12 years there, I have seen the Teamster’s local interact with the drivers and the company. I’ve seen them screw with the company regularly, leading me to not hold them with any esteem. Multiple times I’ve seen them defend the jobs of guys who any sane person would admit should be fired, and win. And for this I still despise them.

However, they have stayed constant over the last decade-plus while my employer changed into a monster who cares less about the people that work for them than they do the office furniture (there’s a story behind that one that I don’t have time for).

I am a firm believer in the idea that working with the devil you know is easier than working with the devil you don’t. Seeing as how I’ve had to add my employer to the list of “devils” I have to deal with regularly, something I’ve never really had to do, I’ve made a choice to give the union a chance to show me what they can do for me. Because, in the end, everyone who works for someone else has to admit that they are their own biggest concern.

My coworkers and I voted 9-2 on Friday in favor of giving the union this shot. I’m doing this out of greed, and a little bit of spite for the General Manager. While neither of those are very good reasons, this has become a case of low-speed chicken. If I lose, I lose nothing more than I would have lost had this situation not happened. Namely, my job. If I win, then I get more pay, better benefits and the chance to stand in the freezing cold holding a stick every few years.

Taking into account what I said above about not trusting either my employer or the union, one of the things I decided that would make this a better situation for me is that I can get into lower eschalons of the organization’s management in the union as a shop steward and keep an eye on them, unlike my employer who likes to keep everyone below the District Manager position in the dark about everything, partly because they don’t give a shit about those under that level, and partly because they like the drama of a “big reveal”.

I know the above tale has come as a shock to most of y’all, and if you want an apology for that, then consider this it. But I’m not only one of the nation’s newest Teamsters, but I’m going to attempt to get into their management structure and see if I can control the train a bit. One feeling I caught emanating off the union boys during all of this was the smell of greasy used car salesmen. They are not to be trusted by any sane person.

Negotiations with the suits begins in the next few weeks. I am going to be gunning for the spot of “employee representative” on the team so that I can make sure we get as much of what what we all want as possible and not just what the union boys think they can get us.

I’ll keep you updated as I am able.