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Getting out of union because union leader facing criminal charges

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nmerrick

Junior Member
What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)?

I'm a union member in New York State working for a public library. My union's president was recently charged by a U.S. Attorney for accepting kickback payments and embezzling money from an employee benefit plan. I have never trusted my union, but I am required to participate in the union. Several colleagues and I are looking to terminate our relationship with this particular union. We would like to use another union or an alternative option.

Can we use these criminal charges as a reason to terminate our relationship with this union? I realize that we are under union contract and we would normally have to formally go through a voting process with all of our fellow colleagues to remove the current union. But, in light of these charges, we were hoping to simply terminate our relationship with the union due to the charges (or eventual conviction).
 


justalayman

Senior Member
Your union president is not your union. The union pres committed the crime, not your union.

changing which union represents you can be a difficult task. If both unions involved are associated with the AFL-CIO, you would have to be an independent union for at least 1 year before the new union could accept you. Of course you could simply withdraw (as a company) from the union and be without representation for that year as well. Getting a union back into the company can be very difficult, if not impossible.

Of course if you are successful in installing a different union, you are starting over with ALL negotiations. You can lose a lot real quick.



You may be better served by being an active member in your union and attempting to affect a change from within rather that attempting to throw out everything you have in place and starting over.
 

TigerD

Senior Member
Why are people surprised that Union leaders, and Unions by construction, are corrupt? The entire premise of Unionization is extortion. People who do that are not nice people.

TD
 

justalayman

Senior Member
Why are people surprised that Union leaders, and Unions by construction, are corrupt? The entire premise of Unionization is extortion. People who do that are not nice people.

TD
You aren't that old T. Those unions are of days long past (for the most part) but arguing there is no corruption in unions would be like arguing there is no corruption in the board rooms as well and we both know that isn't true.

and no, the entire premise of unionization is not extortion. I suspect you are basing that on the possibility of strikes. Well, I happen to belong to a union and guess what; we have a no strike clause in our contract. We cannot strike.


but if you want corruption; look at the politicians in dealing with the VW plant in Tennessee. To have the politicians actually threaten to pull tax abatement and other benefits given to lure the plant there if they allowed a union to be installed is the epitome of corruption. They were behind anti-union activities as well.

and that is knowing that VW actually wants a union there.

of course if you want to speak of days gone by all one has to look at is Ford's River Rouge plant and the Battle of the Overpass of 1937.
 
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CdwJava

Senior Member
Why are people surprised that Union leaders, and Unions by construction, are corrupt? The entire premise of Unionization is extortion. People who do that are not nice people.

TD
I am not a huge champion of labor unions and have held my nose as a reluctant member of them most my adult life. But, I have found them to be a necessary evil in some cases - particularly out here where public safety personnel are legally prohibited from engaging in job actions. Being entirely at the whim of the local government when it comes to collective bargaining agreements, the only thing we have is political pull and public relations to pressure a local agency to any kind of agreement. Without an association of some kind to help wield political and/or public pressure, police and fire out here might well face even more massive cuts in wages and benefits than have already been the norm for the past 6 years.
 

FlyingRon

Senior Member
While there are some corruption, always a possibility, it's not really the case to say that the times for unions are past. There are still a lot of industries where the unions are playing an essential role. I have a friend whose associated with the mineworkers union and even to this day the working conditions even with OSHA, etc... in play are scary, plus there's a whole new issue of companies going bankrupt (either because they are truly insolvent or to strategically get out of obligations) that the union spends a lot of time protecting their members from.
 

single317dad

Senior Member
I love the conceptual idea of unions. I love what unions did in practice in certain situations. I do not love what unions, by and large, became over the years. As with any power structure, especially one where large sums of money are involved, corruption and greed worked their way into the fabric. Some unreasonable unions have done irreversible damage to the companies they're associated with (and the small towns that relied on those companies). Some unreasonable companies have made their own beds in that same regard.

Some of the most glaring examples are sports leagues and players' unions. I love my teams as much as the next guy, but every league should be prosecuted by the Justice Department, and every one of those ridiculous "unions" dissolved.

That said, I still think unions are necessary in some cases. Companies take advantage of people; that (and the associated dangers) would be much more prevalent today if not for unions. Sometimes, protections in place specifically because of labor unions are the reason a worker doesn't die. That's worth it to me.
 

TigerD

Senior Member
I love the conceptual idea of unions. I love what unions did in practice in certain situations. I do not love what unions, by and large, became over the years. As with any power structure, especially one where large sums of money are involved, corruption and greed worked their way into the fabric. Some unreasonable unions have done irreversible damage to the companies they're associated with (and the small towns that relied on those companies). Some unreasonable companies have made their own beds in that same regard.

Some of the most glaring examples are sports leagues and players' unions. I love my teams as much as the next guy, but every league should be prosecuted by the Justice Department, and every one of those ridiculous "unions" dissolved.

That said, I still think unions are necessary in some cases. Companies take advantage of people; that (and the associated dangers) would be much more prevalent today if not for unions. Sometimes, protections in place specifically because of labor unions are the reason a worker doesn't die. That's worth it to me.
I'd shut down a company and fire everybody before I deal with a union. Nobody is forced to work for a company. If you don't like the compensation package, don't accept it.

TD
 

justalayman

Senior Member
I'd shut down a company and fire everybody before I deal with a union. Nobody is forced to work for a company. If you don't like the compensation package, don't accept it.

TD
It's so much more than just compensation T. Benefits are a nice perq but having rules are a great thing. How many companies walk up to an employee 10 minutes before the end of the shift and say; you ARE staying an extra 1,2,5,10 hours? How many workers have no real voice when a safety issue comes up? Of course they can call OSHA AFTER they are forced to do the unsafe work but with a union, you have somebody to stand up for you before you kill yourself.

I can give you examples of employers that are non-union where the actions were outright illegal but because the employee feared for their job, they simply sucked up whatever the issue was and trudged on.


seriously T, take a look at the time before there were unions and tell me they weren't needed. Then take a look where the work rules are headed, and realize the unions were a great proponent for those safety, equality, and general respect rules and tell me it will be just fine without unions.
 

TigerD

Senior Member
seriously T, take a look at the time before there were unions and tell me they weren't needed. Then take a look where the work rules are headed, and realize the unions were a great proponent for those safety, equality, and general respect rules and tell me it will be just fine without unions.
I would have rooted for the Pinkertons.

TD
 

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