Would you cross a picket line?

Shottie, you are a poster I respect to the max. But Jones' parents WEREN'T wrong. They were loyal to their fellow workers and a cause larger than their own short-term gain.
If people stop doing that, our species is well and truly fucked.

 

Because I think for myself and because unions at this point in our history do little but institutionalize inefficiency and mediocrity, I would cross any picket line in a heartbeat. At the same time, I would hope to avoid working at a newspaper with a union, although I once did. And, the fact that newspaper workers need unions -- especially the journalists -- is an even better reason to avoid employment at newspapers at this particular time.

For journalists, there is a better world out there. It just will take a while to get there with lots of pain for lots of people that no strike will solve.

And, Notepad, if the teamsters or anyone else did not like my actions, the price to pay can go both ways.

 

Newspaper workers don't NEED unions. But people who work at union shops have some advantages that people who don't work at union shops can never realize.

 

Not ever.

I can cook or bartend, and both are much more honorable options than being a scab.

 

I've thought about this many times, and that's exactly my line of thinking. I would just flat out quit. Wouldn't strike. Wouldn't cross.

 

As is shoveling shit and male prostitution.

 

I live in a part of the country where labor laws favor employers. Journalists are not unionized here. If there are journalists back east who are sick of union BS where they live and want to experience the joys of non-union working, please, come on out to the heartland and share the good times.

Institutionalized inefficiency and mediocrity? Very, very common around here. And unions don't have a thing to do with it.

 

some believe that ship left the barn. we have not been great stewards of many things, our fellow humans includes, but we are still young in our evolutionary path. there might be hope.

 

My father worked 50 years ago to help establish the Guild chapter at his paper, a chapter which lasted 40 years until the corporate behemoth which had bought the paper in the meantime succeeded in leveraging out the older people, duping the younger ones, and winning a decertification vote.

For years and years and years, they offered to sweeten his retirement deal if he'd vote to decertify (and let it be known that one of the Guild fathers had flipped), but he told them to stick it, even though for many years, the Guild was doing little for him directly. Since he finally retired (and later died) and the Guild did decertify, wages have been frozen (nearly a decade), new hires hired in at tens of thousands less, vacation and personal time slashed, health coverage scaled way back, you name it.

I worked about 15 years at non-union papers. It was like driving through the drive-through with Leo Getz. You know what they do to you at the drive-through??

 

... in other words, Frank, it's a hot-button issue.

You may have known that already.

 

Well, y'know, until you found that next job, if you wouldn't cross, you technically would be on strike. Unless you quit as soon as the picketing began, no job in hand. Who would you even quit to? Do it over the phone?

Wouldn't be prudent to quit immediately anyway. What if the two sides hammered out a settlement a few hours later -- before your shift on the picket line even began?

 

Oh, I would picket during the day and work on my resume at night. No doubt about it.

As for Shockey's situation, sometimes you don't realize your mistakes until after you made them. It takes a lot more courage to admit you were wrong and do something about it than it does to do nothing.