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Bummer, bro.. that videos pretty funny tho
The one I’m a member of has a rep for being corrupt as fuck but to me anyway they were the lesser of two evils. Dunno what you guys get paid in states but I did apprenticeship and then a couple years qualified for smaller companies but once I got on with a unionised gang I was fucking laughing
We’d uhh randomly have hoist issues and get stuck up the tower on overtime. When this happened we’d usually do cocaine but never any beers. No booze in the tower
We’d have our crib rooms in the basement and on fridays we’d knock off early get drunk as shit and cook steaks
I’d have to look it up but we got something like 8 weeks holiday a year and a world class superannuation scheme, pay worked out to 38hrs week for 1850 Australian in the bank after tax. But I used to do a whole bunch of overtime, anything after the 38 was x2.5
You don’t get half that pay on a non union site and certainly not as good conditions
How were you fucked over by your union? I'd be interested to hear more about your situation if you're willing to share
Sure, I've bitched enough about it on here but will break it down. I didn't when I first responded because I was already getting pissed.
Pretty much I work an office job pushing papers. Without getting into too much detail, we see if people are eligible for stuff, I'll using housing assistance as an example. Some people work housing/utility assistance, some see if you qualify to get help paying for medical shit even after insurance, supplies, copays, etc. But whatever program you do, that's the only one you do, and that's the only one you get trained for. You don't do both programs because it would be insane. It takes straight up a
minimum of a year to get it all figured out, 2 months of that are in training which just kind of helps you get an idea of how to do it. It's much more complex than it seems, we check out all kinds of info on people, require all kinds of information, and you constantly have to check up on them and see if they still qualify. We are under staffed as is and then our organization decided to have everyone do both programs. They are totally different, the rules of what you can ask for are opposite, it's dumb as fuck.
Since they decided to do that, morale not just in our office but all over has been horrible, people don't know what they are doing, all our work has gotten behind, and we have had a big increase in complaints. They were saying it just takes time, but some people have done it well over a year and are like fuck no, this just doesn't work. When they had me start to do the switch I saw for myself how fucked it was, how bad the training was, and how much work they had me start on when I literally didn't even know how to do it. I started feeling like an idiot, because I used to do the job no problem, but I decided to ask random workers, a ton of them I had never even spoken to, what they thought of the change and if they thought it was working. I asked them neutral questions so that I wouldn't skew them to my opinion and asked people from different offices, under different managers etc. Not a single person told me they thought it was working, a bunch of people told me how they had to start going to see psychiatrists because of the constant pressure put on them to do work that isn't possible. Everyone had burnout. Plus we were losing about 50% of our new hires because they just said fuck it, the job is too hard.
I gathered everyone opinions brought them up to our supervisors in a respectful way at a meeting with all staff, a lot of workers spoke up and it was really professionally done. In the meantime I had contacted the union and they first took like 2 weeks to return my call for them to come do an office visit, which they are supposed to do as routine but haven't. Then the date the guy set the appointment for he went to the wrong fucking office 45 minutes away.
In the meantime 2 weeks after our meeting where the supervisors seemed to listen, to at least ease up on their micromanagement and similar practices we had a new meeting about how we can meet goals and whenever I would speak they would all jump in and try to shut me down, or twist what I had said previously to make me look stupid, but I'm not stupid, and I'm pretty sharp in a situation like that so I handled myself professional, looked good, they got emotional, combative, all that stupid shit. A bunch of people said the way they behaved was unprofessional and obviously they had a plan to try to keep me from having any influence.
Finally I got the union guy there like another 2 weeks later. He was actually good at confronting the supervisors when they tried to tell us we had to have the meeting in an area they would also be in, even though they have a different union. He seemed like a badass when he walked in, then for 45 minutes of our 1 hour meeting he just talked about what the union does and why we should stick with them (because California passed a law where a contracted union has to represent you even if you opt out of paying them). Then we had 15 minutes to bring up what had been going on. The guy didn't pay much attention, so then I had another meeting with the head of the union, it involved a select few from multiple offices covering hundred of people. He is actually smart, really concerned, asks the right questions and is getting us a face to face meeting with the very top of our organization, like they literally are in charge of thousands of workers. But it turns out the guy is retiring in 10 weeks, covid happens so we have a phone meeting with the heads of the department, some representatives only got 1 day heads up, and when we are given the conference call info it is for a totally different conference call. We were told in advance they were going to cover some Covid stuff and we would have an opportunity to speak after. So the guy that wasn't actually smart, the one that went to the wrong office gives us the wrong conference call info, they are going over covid for 30 minutes and then I just happen to check my email and I have one from 20 minutes earlier asking where are we, the heads of our organization are waiting on us to talk and nobody is there besides the dumbass union guy. So he talks to them for us, when we finally get on the call they are wrapping it up and the head of our organization is saying she's got another meeting to go to and we didn't get to say shit. It was so totally fucking stupid, it wasted months of time and effort, and it accomplished nothing. From what I started in my office, it spread to organizing thousands of workers, and when the time came we get a 1 day heads up, and get put into the wrong call while our union guy is on the correct call.
I don't even want to read all that, I didn't want to start because I knew I would have to type it all up and get pissed off again.
In the meantime 75% of us are telecommuting so nobody really gives a fuck now because it's easier to do your job without your boss breathing down your neck, but when we come back to the office it will be the same shit, and all because our union is so fucking stupid.
Sorry to anyone who has to witness this wall of text I wrotei dont like it when grown men refer to their associates as "buddy" or "my buddy [...]"
ha.
"What's up
boss, what can I get started for you today?
Topic: real confessions (Read 1745772 times)