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Fired Sheraton employees challenge action
BOYCOTT BACKLASH?
Four dispute being let go after protesting work conditions.
Anchorage Daily News staff and wire reports
February 20th, 2010
For more than 10 years, Lucy Dudek worked at the Sheraton Anchorage. This week, she and three of her co-workers were fired for trespassing, insubordination and other charges.
Their offense? While they were off duty on Feb. 2, they stood outside the Sheraton, passing out fliers to potential customers about a union-sponsored boycott of the hotel. The boycott began three months ago after Sheraton management imposed a heavier work load and more expensive family health insurance coverage.
The boycott -- one of two at downtown Anchorage hotels -- asks that potential guests not eat, sleep or meet there until the boycott is over.
Dudek and her union, UNITE HERE, say the Sheraton firings were illegal retaliation. They cite federal labor law that says workers have the right to hand out union literature at their workplace when they are off-duty.
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Now - if I were to stand outside my place of business and basically call my boss an asshole and urge people not to do business there - I can honestly say I would expect to be fired. And if these people's boycott had actually worked, they would be endangering their jobs anyway - less customers means less necessary staff.
This is another fine example of why socialism doesn't work.
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9 comments:
Handing out a paper that tells potential guests not eat, sleep or meet there is union literature? Or, is it depriving a business of their right to conduct their business. I would think union literature would be saying things like, who's running for office, or when the next meeting is. Personally, i would like to see all unions done away with.
My wife used to work for Sheraton in the Reservations Center here in NC. They moved here from TX to break the union. And the reason the union came into being in TX? It was the ONLY way for the employees to get Sheraton to acknowledge problems.
The employees had been tied up in Federal Court for several years over unpaid O/T, unpaid benefits, management harassment of employees who expected to get the things they were OWED, etc. That included threatening ex-employees, away from company property after they'd left the company and who filed the suits. They have, as a company, a horrible rep in the hotel industry as an employer, unless you are in SR Management. They are known to fire managers who ASK about the O/T, benefits, and such. (I saw that in action once when I stayed in a Sheraton in Bellingham WA. She was there one day, gone the next. When we checked into another hotel on another trip, there she was. Man, did she have stories to tell. She was suing them too. You can't fire 23 year employees and deny them their retirement money, not in this country anyway.)
Sheraton wasn't here but a few years before the State was in their ear all the time, for that same kind of business crap. They ultimately payed a ton of fines and back benefits here and TX over it all. I'm not a union supporter, never joined a union, but there are companies that just refuse to work within the bounds of good business practices and the law.
I think they have a reservations center in India now. However, unions are on the rise there from what I've read recently. Gee, I wonder why?
The problem isn't "unions", people us that term like the plane guy from Austin used "IRS". It's NOT an entity, it's a group, and in the case of unions, too few union members understand economics. The UAW is a prime example. You shouldn't expect to make $50K, after 6 years, for putting a steering wheel on the steering column, 200 times a week. It's barely skilled labor, so expecting that kind of money is ridiculous. And the idiots at the car company thinking they should pay it is as bad or possibly worse from a business stand point. Greed and stupidity combined spells disaster, in my experience.
Here's my experience recently with hiring and firing.
We tried to resurrect our kettle korn business last summer. I did it primarily to help out my son, who I thought was headed to college last August. But we needed help. I could NOT find people willing to work for $10 per hour cash. Advertised several different ways, got a few phone calls, had two or three say they'd come by for interviews, not one showed up. Right now, my son has been trying to hire drivers for the Dominos store he manages. Wages avg $15 - $18 per hour counting tips, after the gas allowances. He can't even get people to come in and talk about working.
Somewhere along the line, people got the idea that life is free ride. Most union guys are in that group I think, but not all. The people I know of from Sheraton just wanted what they'd been promised.
Steve - I believe unions are anti-human-advancement.
In my life I've earned more and moved up by doing a better job than everyone else.
The union culture is one of reward for pushing a mop for more years than a high schooler - though not pushing it any better.
A mopper should make $X. If they want more money they need to have the incentive to supervise the moppers; then supervise maintenance, then supervise hotel operations, then buy their own hotel.
Unions (socialism) encourage apathy.
I began my career in 1974 as a $2.10 per hour lab tech with a lot of manual labor thrown in. I moved up to a $7.00 ph drafting job. From there I became a $16.00 ph Lead Draftsman. Then a $30.00 ph CADD manager, then deputy engineering manager, then professional associate. I'm now a senior principal technical associate who no longer worries about my bills. It took hard work, and a personal commitment to do a superior job. I still concentrate on doing a better job than any of the other senior principle technical associates. I strive to manage the engineers in my charge to be more productive and happier and more challenged - thus completing more successful projects which, in turn, gives America a more stable infrastructure.
I've done this with a high school diploma, and the recognition of what it takes to a good job. (Thanks, Dad!)
Doing a good job doesn't come into play in the unions - the number of years doing a mediocre job is what counts with them.
I'm not going to disagree with you, but your talking about the way unions operate, 1970 and LATER. My contact with unions goes back to my grandfather and the Teamsters, the ORIGINAL Teamsters, when 25% of them still had horses drawing wagons around Louisville.
He drove a truck before unions came in. Back when there were drivers being killed for loads, and when loads were hijacked, the companies held the drivers responsible for the losses. Sometimes, if supplies were low, his own company would steal loads, operating under the rule that everybody was doing it. This was back when the companies could cut your pay, or not pay you at all and there was no state or federal law to help you. I've got relatives who worked the coal mines too, same kind of crap there. They unionized then to get fair treatment. After he fought for the unions, my grandfather did as you said, worked himself up into management.
And, sans HS diploma, I did like you did. I've had degreed engineers so pissed off that they had to work behind me that two of them quit instead. (I guess they showed me, HUH?!) But there are laws that covered you and I when we went to work, that the guys who formed the original unions didn't have. Most of those laws came from bargaining between unions, companies and gub'ments, trying to get finished with a job stop action.
To me, the problem of modern unions is the mindset that the workers are OWED something, and it goes out to more than the unions, most workers spout that shit now. But when a guy mining coal or putting on steering wheels thinks he's worth more than the guy who designed the car or the mine, that's just stupid. It's not the "union" that's the problem, it's the vocal idiots who make up the union.
My grandfather grew to hate the unions ultimately. Not for what he'd fought for, but for the attitudes of guys who were my age when he retired, guys who thought truck drivers should make as much as the plant owners!! There is no such thing as a "union", it doesn't walk, crawl, die or eat.
What we, the ant-"union" thinkers, really hate is the morons who band together for MORE than they are worth. But I don't feel sorry for companies who get caught short because of the unions. They overpaid the morons until they got an attitude of thinking they deserved the money and benefits.
And how's that situation of conglomerate greed working out for the UAW and the automakers, or the UMW and the coal companies? They all deserve each other as far as I'm concerned.
And here's what we haven't talked about. Unions run by guys who've NEVER worked in the trades / jobs, making hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. Again, I blame the unions for letting it happen. But when greed is in, everyone wants some, they've all gotta get their "fair" share.
Makes me glad I've never been a money grubber. Would I like more? Absolutely, but I know the difference in need and want too. Something else I see most people don't understand now.
Jesus, I sound like some crotchety old fart!! Next thing you know I'll be yelling things like, "Hey, YOU KIDS!!! Get outta my yard!! I'll set the dog on the lot of YOU!"
Very well put, Steve. Damn well put.
My Dad was just a Texas cowboy (a real one) with a work ethic. My grandparents were dirt farmers with a work ethic. I come a family of ruralites who never had to (or wanted to) depend on the urbanite way of life. I grew up - even in high school - living on the same side of the tracks as the Mexican laborers. I had no more (or less) opportunity then they. I cherish my "white trash" background.
And whether I like it or not, unions are a big part of the urbanite existence, and have been valuable shapers of our society. The 'shaping' part I don't have a problem with. The 'forcing an employer' to basically work for them, I disagree with.
Now the big Q: Would you have fired the employees in the article?
See, here's where we have a problem, I've got an axe to grind with Sheraton. Mrs Schteveo got fired and duck walked out for covering her mngrs ass in a situation. When the whole thing unfolded, the Mrs lost her gig, but Ms mngr, who actually broke company policy, did not. That's count one.
On count two, in all the years I've worked, even when I was managing and training people with MUCH more formal book learn'n than I have, I've never had to fire anyone. I've never had a complaint filed, much less voiced over my management skills or style. To go along with that, I've ALWAYS busted my ass for "my people". So, I probably would have been fired long before it got to this point.
But I follow the laws too.
There's too little in this article to tell me what they were doing. If AK law says they can strike or protest in their off hours, I would have followed the law. If they were harassing my customers, truly harassing not just picketing, I would have called the police, had them arrested, THEN fired them when I had cause AND proof they'd violated the law.
I'm the kind of guy who calls the police when I see able bodied people driving up, parking in Handicap Parking, and jogging into the store to get Gatorade post tennis match they're dressed for. I'm the kind of guy who calls the cops when drunk neo-Nazi who lived upstairs, when he harassed my Mexican friends next door.
I coulda' shot him, he pushed into my apt, but I just called the police on his stupid ass. I use the laws. If they broke the law in AK, I would fire them.
Steve -
Unless the law has changed, it is not illegal to fire a law abiding citizen.
I have personally fired incompetent employees who never broke the law.
I think you danced around my question (what - are you running for office?) - let me be more "exact":
If you have employees - union or not - who stand on your property handing out leaflets that are detrimental to you and your business, would you fire them?
I guess the problem here is: Do your employees work for you, or do they work for a union under contract to you.
I hire people to work for me. I do not hire a union to supply me with people. And if those employees 'organize' after I have hired them, am I obligated to the employee, or am I obligated to their union.
Possibly I'm naive about "labor". I don't deny that. But, by God, if I am paying wages to a person, I expect them to dance to my tune. If they don't like the tune, there are other jobs out there - I'm not holding a gun to their head - they are not my slaves. If they don't want to work under my rules they are free to leave.
God NO, I'm not running for office!! I like my evenings and weekends free.
And I've never hired any union people, here in NC, we are a Right to Work State. Or as the workers call it, NC is a Right to Fuck State. NC employers are pretty much free to do as they damned well please. And most of them do, even big corporations do crazy anti-worker stuff after they come here. We've seen employees move here with company "X", stay a year or two and transfer back to their original place because of employer craziness here. I'm talking about good employees too, not the shit birds.
Southerners have some funny ideas about how unions work, so they're not big here. Most of those ideas have come from the government and the employers, people with an axe to grind anti-union wise. (right now, the Governor is trying to get the State Employees Association, ruled AS a union, so she can break them. And their complaint? The Gov, the Dept Heads and the General Assembly ALL got raises this year, the state employees did not.)
But I digress, I've hired plenty of people, and I've made them miserable enough that they quit when I wanted them gone. (hell, I've done that to co-workers I didn't like) Here in NC, it's almost impossible to get Unemployment if you QUIT. And in a roundabout way, employers are penalized for firing people, so I've avoided it. But having said that, I was taught, by a family of supervisors, managers and Superintendents, to use the law to do my bidding, where troublesome employees are concerned.
If those protesting employees were within the law, I'd leave them be. If they are doing their jobs, again, I'd leave them be. But how often are the hard working employees the ones wiling to strike or make waves.
Here's what you may NOT have thought about in this particular situation. The grand majority of hotel rooms are booked and one night guaranteed in advance. People are most likely not going to walk away from the $80, $90, or $120 they agreed to pay for that first night, because of a strike. And once you're in a hotel, would you leave? Most people won't. Another business would definitely be different in my mind.
Now back to the law.
If I feel those people are hurting my business, it will be in their best interest to do everything I tell them, be on time, be dressed right, be good with customers etc. Because I have been known to write up, suspend, etc to get employees to quit. Most businesses have in their employee rules, the right and power to suspend employees for 1 day, then 3 days then 5 days, even up to 10 days one place I worked.
I'd simply write them up, then suspend them for 1 day, let them come back one day, suspend them for 3 days, let them come back one day, and suspend them the full 5 days. It's been my experience that doing that, denying them that 9 days of pay, over just 2 1/2 weeks generally gets them to go elsewhere. After one or two employees see you do that, the word is out among the workers and when I suspended them for 3 days, they just never came back.
Problem solved.
It's also been my experience as both a patron and a peon, that the folks that will strike in front of a business will tend to be slack workers during that, and I'd use company rules and the law to get rid of them. I most probably would not have fired them JUST for protesting, I'd have shoved them out some other way.
But too me, it ALL goes back to protecting "my people". I've quit jobs working for screwed up companies like Sheraton. Companies that think money is made by screwing the customers and the employees are NOT for me. And I'd bet my bottom dollar, knowing Sheraton, that these people had legitimate gripes.
"Unions", like all their parasitic "liberal", "progressive" members and ilk, want to control everything; they want to bleed dry their hosts with as little productive effort as possible.
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