I'm not involved with union organizing, but I've seen similar stuff play out in my union. Union drama like this is never good. Different industry, but my union had a takeover by SEIU somehow. I...
I'm not involved with union organizing, but I've seen similar stuff play out in my union.
Union drama like this is never good. Different industry, but my union had a takeover by SEIU somehow. I don't know the details, the local and the later SEIU leadership were spinning it, but we're good now, if a part of SEIU. Many people lost their jobs because there was nobody there to defend us against management I had a friend in another union, in another department, that was more interested in political action than representation, but they couldn't get the workers to organize and at least integrate with another union, which led to a work environment she ultimately left (after she tried becoming a shop steward and saw how fucked it was after having to waste time with politics to get "in").
Hopefully the same doesn't shake down here in either instance. The CWU and Uni leadership should definitely have to be accountable to the AWU workers for anything concerning them, and membership as a whole for decisions affecting the whole union. Even in my takeover scenario, the Department of Labor had to mediate and set conditions for an election of the board, leadership, and a vote for ratification of the new contract, and then negotiation with our collective cross-union contract with the company. It may be different for "minority" unions, who don't have the DoL protection. It looks like there's simply too many layers of management, and the top-most managers decided to take control of the situation, leaving the middle managers and the workers in the lurch.
This may also highlight the need for different union representation for different industries in a more granular way. I've heard issues of cross-industry unions (resort transit and resort housekeeping) having issues properly meeting everybody's needs. While tech workers need the same stuff, the environments in Germany and the US are significantly different. They would want to be united by CWA for that large collective-bargaining power, but not necessearily as one worker's union. Sort of how garbage truck drivers in New York and Disneyland ride operators are Teamsters, but they're in different locals with different representation and radically different contracts.
The Alphabet Workers Union (AWU) is in turmoil following the announcement of an international alliance on Monday. The alliance, Alpha Global, was billed as a worker-led initiative, but union members in the US say they didn’t know about it until The Verge published an exclusive. That piece included a press release quote from AWU executive council member Parul Koul, which she says she didn’t write.
The news was an unwelcome surprise to union members who expect the Alphabet Workers Union to run democratically. Now, multiple sources tell The Verge that some AWU organizers are considering pushing the group to disaffiliate from the Communications Workers of America (CWA), a national union representing workers in telecommunications and media. AWU has also set up a committee to investigate CWA’s role in the announcement.
In a statement, AWU executive council member Auni Ahsan said: “We want to honor the concerns that have been raised, but our primary focus as a union isn’t affiliation or disaffiliation.”
[...]
Since the union went public on January 4th, it’s grown from 230 members to more than 800. But some members have raised concerns that the Communications Workers of America pushed the union to go public prematurely. They also say the CWA has a history of publishing big announcements without first consulting Google workers. Amr Gaber, a Google engineer who helped organize the 2018 walkout, told The New York Times that the union has been more concerned with claiming turf than listening to the needs of organizers.
I'm not involved with union organizing, but I've seen similar stuff play out in my union.
Union drama like this is never good. Different industry, but my union had a takeover by SEIU somehow. I don't know the details, the local and the later SEIU leadership were spinning it, but we're good now, if a part of SEIU. Many people lost their jobs because there was nobody there to defend us against management I had a friend in another union, in another department, that was more interested in political action than representation, but they couldn't get the workers to organize and at least integrate with another union, which led to a work environment she ultimately left (after she tried becoming a shop steward and saw how fucked it was after having to waste time with politics to get "in").
Hopefully the same doesn't shake down here in either instance. The CWU and Uni leadership should definitely have to be accountable to the AWU workers for anything concerning them, and membership as a whole for decisions affecting the whole union. Even in my takeover scenario, the Department of Labor had to mediate and set conditions for an election of the board, leadership, and a vote for ratification of the new contract, and then negotiation with our collective cross-union contract with the company. It may be different for "minority" unions, who don't have the DoL protection. It looks like there's simply too many layers of management, and the top-most managers decided to take control of the situation, leaving the middle managers and the workers in the lurch.
This may also highlight the need for different union representation for different industries in a more granular way. I've heard issues of cross-industry unions (resort transit and resort housekeeping) having issues properly meeting everybody's needs. While tech workers need the same stuff, the environments in Germany and the US are significantly different. They would want to be united by CWA for that large collective-bargaining power, but not necessearily as one worker's union. Sort of how garbage truck drivers in New York and Disneyland ride operators are Teamsters, but they're in different locals with different representation and radically different contracts.
From the article:
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