Negotiating tools

New Jersey Superior Court Justice Mary Beth Rogers recently issued an injunction in which she forbid striking unionized Verizon employees from:

“…dropping, spreading, throwing, placing or otherwise causing nails, glass, cinder block, spikes, feces, clubs, rocks, screws, or puncture devices of any kind, or any other object of debris to be thrown or strewn in, on, or about Verizon’s driveways, parking lots, entrances, exits, vehicles.…”

h/t.
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34 Replies to “Negotiating tools”

  1. Intimidation and violence are just normal operating procedure for unions. Four years for me in the UAW was enough to see their methods. Twenty-six years for my father-in-law in a GM plant in St. Catharines was enough. He kept his mouth shut and when possible voted against the UAW’s plans.

  2. I am in a union…….. A double edged sword
    Everything my union has given me has been lost somewhere else.
    I hate it. But… I like what I do(Sask-Tel)
    I live with crap and the scum.
    Now don’t pile on all you better than thou SDA’ers. Not everyone can just own their own company and live the pure non unionized life. I do it because it is the best I can get for the company of Jeff’s family.

  3. A great percentage of people work for a company with a union, it is just a fact of life in saskatchewan, but that doesn’t mean we agree with everything they do. I have the misfortune of being in a highly skilled job in a union workplace and as a result my wages are limited. I like what I do so I put up with it and although I could have gone back into industry where I was not in a union, I have been there and done that. Working in the field is for younger people that don’t mind living on the road 49 weeks of the year, sometimes not getting home for weeks on end. I enjoy training my successors and as a result I tolerate most of the union crap. Not all union members are dippers thankfully.

  4. Jeff K
    Spent 33 years with the same outfit. Slackers in this company always rise to the top of union ranks.
    Hard to attend union meetings and voice opposition to see my union dues used to feed the dippers.Only way to rid the Co. of them is to promote them into Co. management!

  5. Too bad that the electrical contractor who got winged wasn’t an abortioist. Then the MSM would be all over the story like a tent,nationwide, with tear-jerking blurbs of sympathy.

  6. “spikes, feces , clubs,”
    I agree. Feces are only to be nailed to doors,and only when you have 97 of them.It says so in the bible.

  7. So you need a government injunction now to prevent you from doing something that I would believe is already illegal?
    Those unions are real stand up types (sarcasm intended)

  8. We’re all missing the point here, folks. It doesn’t matter if the union thug tried to kill the contractor. What really matters is if the thug said anything uncivil while doing so.
    /sarc

  9. Wallyj – ha! Too funny!
    Jeff K – I get it, really I do. The issue in my mind is that the corporate and “private sector” have become decoupled.
    If both are making the same $$ – fine.
    But when not = not good

  10. *
    “derek says… a government injunction now to prevent you from
    doing something that I would believe is already illegal?”

    hang on, derek… i think you just described one of the liberal party’s
    biggest & most celebrated legislative achievements.
    *

  11. The most valued position in a union organization is the Secretary-Treasury appointment..
    Control of the money/ uh… union dues.

    After reading this,
    I bet Jimmy Hoffa is twisting in his cement..

  12. Being a Verizon tech isn’t the easiest job in the world. I remember a short period about 5 years ago when security guards were threatening to shoot any Verizon staffers seen carrying concealed (there had been witness reports of a Verizon tech shooting some people). They are in crap situations all the time and have good reason to be packing heat.
    That being said, if they are striking for no good reason they will be rightfully fired. The marketplace has a way of sorting that out.

  13. I live in BC (union central) and I will starve to death before signing a union card. Anyone who claims the are union members because they cannot find anything else are full of it.
    Use your backbone and tell the union to stuff it.
    Union members are SCUM.

  14. Unions. The blight of Capitalism.
    Really I think greed is the blight, being from ON and working in and outside of union companies most my life, there is something to be said for and against unions.
    The violence and intimidation though coming from either side is just wrong.
    Their struggle ended only after approximately one million rounds were fired,and the United States Army intervened by presidential order.
    Battle of Blair Mountain
    bin there done that

  15. I’ve worked in both union and non-union institutions and am cautious about over-generalizing. Of the two non-union institutions, one treated its employees with respect and honesty and had a loyal and hard-working staff, while the other treated its employees shabbily and cynically, and the place was one of intrigue, suspicion, and inefficiency. Of the two unionized institutions, at one labour relations have been generally cooperative, strike-free, and, with only a few exceptions, governed by common sense and a recognition of a shared purpose, while at the other union ideologues led the employees into three pointless strikes, and were motivated not by a desire to protect or advance the interests of their membership but to pursue their own political agenda.
    Union organization and collective bargaining is a legitimate aspect of freedom of association and free economic choice. In a free market, however, the government has the responsibility to prevent fraud and the kind of physical coercion described in these incidents.

  16. …dropping, spreading, throwing, placing or otherwise causing nails, glass, cinder block, spikes, feces, clubs, rocks, screws, or puncture devices of any kind, or any other object of debris to be thrown or strewn in, on, or about thedriveway”
    Funny, I have the same rules at home.

  17. And by the way, if I’m Verizon do I really want these freakin’ lunatic saboteurs -working- inside my delicate telephone system?
    Now would be a great opportunity to FIRE THEM ALL and hire guys who aren’t violent @ssh0les.
    BTW, I have worked, briefly, in union shops in my younger days. Every time I found that it just wasn’t worth the pain. Hellish environment. Much better to take less money elsewhere and stop the suffering.

  18. Only ever worked in a union situation as a summer student many years ago. I was told to ‘cool it’ on the job because our production was embarassing the regular workers. Coming from the farm it was a shock.
    My most recent experience was my mother’s stay at our local hospital. Anyone who says the union is not running the BC medical system must not have any recent experience. Nurses spend more time
    BS-ing at their station than looking after patients. Not only was attention cursory at times but family observations were met by indifference or at one time hostility.
    Another powerfull union in BC is the BCTF of which I have family members. This union also runs the education system for all intents. These people take great pride in social activism in the workplace. I have never seen them take responsibility for the abject failure of producing responsible young adults. The mantra is always that more money will fix things. Their latest contract demand is 10 paid leave days for any death of an acquantance. Not family, just anyone they deem.
    The bottom line to all this is that the ‘taxpayer’ will pay. These people place themselves above the very citizens they claim to go to the ‘barricades’ for. It is laughable.

  19. Unions are holding tanks for the insecure, the jejune and the stupid. Unionism has become a psychosis and a plague on our economies.

  20. Speaking of the BCTF they push the gay recruiting agenda.
    When I told the school off about it they just ignored what I had to say.
    Now I wonder how much more of this we should tolerate?
    Maybe its time to run for school board?

  21. So if a judge does not specifically say you can’t do something. Anything. Then it is ok to do it? That is sad.

  22. Yes, yes … all unions and union employees are E-V–I-L. Damn those freedom of association rights.
    I’d never deny that unions have problems, big problems, particularly in the areas of government monopolies and private business heavily regulated by government. But sometimes you guys are a bit much. The last time I was on a strike line we had a round robin cribbage tournament – winners remain in the trailer and losers sent out to man the line and/or keep warm near the burning barrel (seniority rules temporarily suspended).
    The problem is human nature and union rules. Union’s constitutions force them to protect the members to the best of their ability, even the losers. These losers tend to concentrate in certain shops and locations as all the decent workers flee to other shops, leaving the losers and, unfortunately, newbies who do not have enough time to get other bids. Then, surrounded by the like-minded, this group feeds on its bitterness and corrupts the new employees. Most of the time they are manageable by being ignored and avoided. It is during labor action that they ‘shine’ and embarrass the rest of the staff.
    These people are everywhere -work, social circles and sometimes even popular blog sites. Unions, just like SDA, are mostly made up of decent hardworking people but the batshit crazy ones can embarrass the regulars and chase away the less tolerant.

  23. LC, In BC,we have name for those kind of cesspool dens of radical unionism in our education system … elementary schools.
    Sorry to be blunt, but it is true.

  24. A judge has to issue and injunction against unions workers telling them not to commit crimes?!? What kind of people join unions? And being the kind of people who already commit crimes, why would they obey the judge?

  25. It is true, Rick, unions over time can turn from sensible to radical as the radicals concentrate and take over. One of my co-workers and I used to discuss this issue. How do you get rid of these guys in an inflexible system? Everyone who works with the losers knows who they are, they are the ones everyone schedules their vacation around to minimize exposure time. Yet, they become permanent fixtures of the organization.
    This is not isolated to unions, btw, Human Rights Commissions and labor laws make it very difficult to get rid of any employee.

  26. A form of order which will be known to the New Jersey Bar as the “No shit” injunction…

  27. LC Bennett, have you noticed so many of our jobs, skilled and unskilled alike, have been going overseas? Part of the reason, in China you can fire goldbricking peckerhead agitators and nobody can sue you.
    Note that I’m not saying China is an awesome place, its not… unless you’re trying to run a factory. Which is why all our frickin’ factories are there now.
    Did you know Sherwood hockey stick company has moved -all- its manufacturing to China? Uh huh. La Belle Provence has been giving them Le Deal Specialer for 30-40 years, and even with the gummint money they STILL CAN’T COMPETE. And since they are the -last- hockey stick maker to off-shore, now all hockey sticks are made in China, Indonesia, Taiwan, Vietnam, whatever.
    Canada’s national sport, made in anywherebutCanada. Because of math geniuses like Davenport and creeps that spread broken glass on the company driveway during strikes.
    Things may change for the better when everybody else on the picket line beats the snot out of the glass spreaders. That’s the kind of group responsibility missing in the equation.

  28. Doing these things is already illegal.
    Instead of an injunction, the judge should have issued arrest warrants.

  29. @Phantom
    Indeed, bring back the old Pinkertons.
    The sad irony is that the security and detective firm once known as Pinkerton is now a subsidiary of Securitas AB which has been infiltrated by the SEIU.

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