Quote:
Originally Posted by Billy Nees
Ya know Jeff, in case you couldn't tell, I've always been one of those guys who can fight his own battles. I've never had the need to have a corrupt union stick up for me so yeah I'm OK with Trump. I've always been able to count on my talent and work ethic to get by on my own. How much money (your money) do you think that your union bosses have taken for themselves and given to corrupt politicians over the years?
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Billy,
I just retired from being the union president (of the plant I'll post.). And I can tell ya, I was not corrupt. We just wanted a fair shake. In 2004, when our previous 3 year contract expired, we were expecting smooth sailing on our future contract. Our company had been spending money hand over foot. They had purchased a cookie company, a cracker company, a ketchup company, a mayonnaise company, and a nut company. Instead of treating us with respect, after all, we helped them buy all that stuff, we were told the company could no longer afford our pension. The trend was to do away with them, and they were going to follow corporate trends. We told them to shove it, and went on a month long strike. Interestingly enough, while we were out on the picket lines freezing our butts off in Ohio's winter, we noticed the Wall Street Journal articles announcing they had just purchased Pantry Chef a few days before, and had paid 500 million cash for it. I'm retired now, because of the bargaining that was done during that strike. We kept our pension and made improvements. Sometimes, you have to stand up, not just quit, which if we were non union, would have happened.
As far a where the money goes, all of our union paying members moneys was split between the International, and our own in house kitty. The International supplied the training for our stewards, and officers, and lawyers for our arbitration cases. (We never lost one BTW.) They also sent a rep to be at every one of our monthly union meetings to answer any questions and to hear the heartbeat and concerns of the local. Our local's moneys paid for all office supplies for our office, printers, laptops ect. and arbitrations, which cost around 5 grand now. I was required to put a monthly meeting on, every month, for the entire 10 years I was president. There were 3 meetings, one at 6am, one at 2 pm and one at 4 pm so all members had a chance to attend.