oblioblioblio wrote:
Watch out on complaining about unions, I'm familiar with that attitude from the UK. My mum is really pro Thatcher because she broke up the power of the unions. And ultimately they're there for a reason, under capitalism humans are worked till they bleed and the unions are there to say when enough is enough on behalf of the worker. I've personally been scapegoated like that in a job and it's just gossip, but it spreads quickly and really fucks with people's lives.
yes, but that's exactly my point.
I happily pay for my union membership. It's a lesson my grandfather taught us when we were still very young.
He worked his ass off in a carpet factory all his life to feed his 8 children.
He said : "even if you never need it, you still have to join to support the others".
And he was damn right.
But that's exactly why I was so disgusted to see this selfish behaviour with people that are representives of the union.
I know very well you have lazy and selfish people everywhere, but by doing this, their selfishness has massive results for the people that do need their union.
I never had to, thank god, but others did, and where are they left with union people like that ?
I really believe n that system, and they completely exploit it. It's disgusting.
I had a colleague of mine who was sick 50% of the time. Always one of those things you couldn't really prove : migraine, back ache, knee trouble,...
If she was there, she wouldn't do half the work cause "she didn't speak any english".
All of a sudden, she was a candidate for the union position.
I was really puzzled by that, cause she didn't seem to be a person that cared much for others,
and asked her once about this, you know, what her plan was, she didn't know
anything decent to say,
not even half of the complaints everyone who's there on a regular basis had.
Anyway, the cleaning lady told me that 5 year rule, with a mysterious smile on her face,
and sure enough, the woman got elected because she was at that time the only candidate for that union (you have 2 or 3 different ones here),
and bam, after 2 weeks, she was gone on sick leave.
She
never came back in 5 years time. Not once !
(but meanwhile you could spot her from time to time, happily shopping away in town)
She never did anything union wise, not even attended a single meeting.
And what did she do after her union time was over ?
She put herself up for election again !
We had to inform all the new people here at work, you know, like "whatever you do, do NOT vote on her, please",
because they simply didn't know who that was since she hadn't shown up for work in 5 years,
and there's always a certain percentage of people that vote on somebody without thinking about it very much.
Thank god there were other candidates so she didn't get re-elected.
I mean, the complete arrogance of exploiting the system in such a way,
not even raising the slightest benefit of a doubt,
and then having the balls to put yourself up for re-election !
And that's just one example, I could give more.
And yes, of course, what is the alternative, no unions ? Of course not, I know that.
I'm just saying, there should be some kind of way to keep the parasites out of such a positive thing like the union (at least in theory).
