Sunday, September 30, 2012
Court upholds ruling favoring local stagehands
News from southeastern Connecticut: In a case that grew out of a dispute over the stagehand business at Mohegan Sun, the state Appellate Court has upheld a ruling in favor of stagehands who withdrew from a union and formed their own business.
The resulting nonunion company, Crew 538 LLC, has since cornered the lucrative stagehand business at the casinos and elsewhere in southeastern Connecticut, according to its co-founder, Robert Francis of Lisbon.
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6 comments:
I'm of the opinion that it reflects negatively on our culture that in 2012 we still need unions to apparently force employers to offer decent wages and working conditions. Shouldn't we be beyond this by now? It adds a complication to the workforce and job market and workplace that shouldn't be necessary--even if it is. And then we get stories like this, when everyone ends up taking everyone to court, in addition to the usual 'what's the best union to join?' and 'the false power of unions' and 'is your union stealing your money' articles. I'm not saying I think things would be better if all the unions abruptly ceased to exist, I'm saying that when I picture a more civilized and evolved culture--and I'l be the first to admit I could be wrong, I don't know much about these things--unions aren't a part of the workforce, or at least a much less vital part. And I'd rather live in that world.
I'd like to know more about this. Did the members of Local 538 loose their pensions, were they even vested? Other than because Local 84 wanted the casinos what caused the split? I'm assuming the relationship between the production managers and the Local 538 officers were pretty good to keep those contracts. Did Crew 538 take a pay cut on those contracts to keep Local 84 away from the casinos? Can the employees of Crew 538 hold a Local 84 card? Will Local 84 blacklist the stagehands who went with Local 538?
Interesting to see what will happen to the future of Crew 538. Looks like they've been around for about 4 years now. They were able to secure their contracts with the casino but for how long? I'm assuming the casinos are staying with Crew 538 because they are happy with the work but also, I'm willing to bet, that they can settle on contracts at a lower price than Local 84 would be willing. Maybe. What happens when the casinos try to get that labor at a cheaper price. Crew 538 will have to settle, right? They are now the only game in town. How long before the casinos end up having Crew 538 by the balls. Where's will their representation and bargaining strength be then?
I too would have liked to know what exactly happened to the Local 538 and the unfair dispersal of unions funds. What did they loose, were they to be compensated? Were they knowledgeable of the situation while it was going on or were they only told after the fact, making it significantly more difficult to oppose any action done high up in the ranks (the merge)?
I think it is a bit pathetic that unions are acting without the approval of the members. The whole point of a union is to give the workers a voice, a united voice.
So local 538 seems to be a fairly new union, so it is a bit understandable as to why the heads may want to merge, increasing the sustainability and power of 538. But ultimately this should have been at the discretion of the workers making up the union.
Unions are a double edged sword with me. I think they are great for protecting a large blanket of people under a set of generally accepted standards. However, they can be terrible to deal with when one is trying to think n a case by case basis, or wants to do anything at all in many raodhouses (where there are strict laws on what one may so much as touch.) Also, many union members rely too much on the security the union provides, and are actually less efficient because they make out better individually by being so. This article did not provide enough information for me to decide whether I think Local 538s ruling was justified, but I do know that the term "slighted" when used by a union member can vary greatly in meaning than what it means when used by a member of the larger workforce.
It is interesting that this turned into a lawsuit about a two union merger. I am surprised that for this merger to happen that both groups did not need to have a majority rule vote with all of their members. But I guess that if you are bigger you can just gobble up any adjoining union. If this was just continuing that the large ones set up the smaller ones, then they would gain monopoly and probably not be the best thing for everyone. It is very interesting that the union that was taken over just 5 people stayed in the union and the rest of the people dropped out. I feel that when they joined together either all the people from the old union whet to the bottom of the list or they were just not happy.
I think it's interesting that, as I understand it, the members of Crew 538 LLC were able to keep the gigs with the casinos even though they were no longer union. Does this mean that the casinos are not unionized and just happen to hire IATSE crews because that's what is available and better than employing a full time staff? There seem to some underlying details missing from this article that would be much more interesting to know.
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