Part-Time Pundit

Union Takes Exception to my Column; Comes up Short

You can read the letter here.

Here are the highlights.

Mr. Bambenek also claims that academic professionals get 10 weeks paid leave per year. Even totaling our very generous vacation, holiday and sick leave does not reach 50 days.

Ok, you got me, it’s 48 days. I rounded up, shoot me.

For example, we heard from academic professionals who were expected to work 60+ hours/week for months on end and faced reprisals when they objected.

First, that makes them just like every other employee in the private sector. I did months of 90 hour weeks. Heck, talk to most law school grads who take their first job in a firm. One, they should ask what is required before they take the job. Two, they may or may not face reprisals, but for most objections, they are covered by whistleblowers protection… a benefit not afforded private sector employees. They can also… *gasp* find a new job.

Academic professionals are at the mercy of their immediate supervisor, who may not carry out University policy fairly. Even those of us with good supervisors are at risk because policies can be changed without notice and certainly without the input of academic professionals.

They can (1) talk to their supervisor, (2) talk to their department head, (3) quit. This is a free country and by pretending that the only recourse to an incompetent boss is to suck it up or unionize only ENSURES incompetent bosses stick around. The free market works when people choose, telling people they can’t choose sabotages the market. Also, because we work for a state agency, those policies CANNOT be changed without notice. Heck, most of them need to be approved through the UC Senate, the legislative body of the University. Some even need to take place in Board of Trustee meetings.

Forming a democratic union is the best way to ensure good working conditions so that academic professionals can continue to contribute to this campus.

This “democratic” union was formed to benefit a certain subset of academic professionals… those in the “visiting” category. Of 300 or so, only 60 voted in favor of unionizing. 20% is hardly democracy.

UPDATE:
The column in question is available here.

September 19th, 2006 Posted by John Bambenek | Chambana, Politics, Unions, University of Illinois | one comment

Two Columns up

First:

The Daily Illini has my column Unions: Relics of the Past, Taxpayer Frustration up on there website.

Second:

MercatorNet has published my first paid freelance column, Who Needs Drugs? I Have a Blog a humorous look at blogger addiction. Enjoy!

Update:

I don’t think people realize the blogging article was part tounge-in-cheek… particularly because… hey! you’re at my blog. There’s a fair amount of self-deprecation in there. Bloggers need to stop taking themselves so seriously.  Really.

August 31st, 2006 Posted by John Bambenek | Blogging, DailyIllini, Politics, Unions, University of Illinois | 3 comments

Union Busting?

Below is an email I intercepted from the local anti-war group (who’s stance against war is more often than not that the wrong people are being killed not that no killing should take place). We have a Hilton coming in, and when they decided to do construction they choose not to go union. The horror!

Of course there are protests against the “union busting”. Now union busting is smashing attempts of employees to join unions. As far as I know there was no attempt by the construction workers to form a union, Hilton simply choose a firm that wasn’t part of the union.

What this protest is, is the “monopolistic” attempt to demand all jobs in various industries have to go to union-approved firms. It’s bad enough that they try to foist unions on people who don’t want them, but now they also insist that all jobs in a certain industry have to go to the union or they are behaving unethically.

=====

Message: 1
Date: Thu, 9 Feb 2006 10:44:13 -0800 (PST)
From: XXXX
Subject: [Peace] Solidarity picket at NOON Friday
To: AWARE peace
Message-ID:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1

Just a reminder about the SOLIDARITY picket in support
of the Building
Trades this Friday ( 2/10/06 ) at NOON on Kirby Ave.
between Neil st.
and
State st.

Let the mega-corporate Hilton hotel chain know that
the
Urbana-Champaign
community WILL NOT TOLERATE Union busting in OUR city.

See you there, and dress warm.

In Solidarity

XXXX

—– Original Message —–
From: XXXXX
…
Subject: Solidarity picket this Friday at noon!

> **Please Forward**
>
> Union-busting,
> It’s disgusting!
>
> You are cordially invited to join the local Jobs
With
> Justice Organizing Committee in a show of support
for
> the efforts of Building and Construction Trades
Unions
> in town this Friday February 10 at noon.
>
> We’ll meet outside the work site on Kirby between
Neil
> and State St., where Tatman is building a new hotel
> and renovating an old one - one of the largest
> non-union projects in town in years. Signs will be
> there. Dress warm. Look for the big rat.
>
> p.s. The nearby Walgreens construction site is NOT a
> target of this picket. This construction is being
> done union, respecting wages, benefits, working
> conditions, etc.

February 10th, 2006 Posted by John Bambenek | Local, Unions | no comments

Unions Have to Pay People to Protest Walmart

Picketers for Hire: The strange business of protesting jobs that may be better than yours

The Unions pay people $6/hr to protest the Walmart and provide no benefits while they sit out in the sun. Walmart pays more, offers benefits, and has air conditioning inside.

Does anyone else see this as silly that they have to PAY people to protest a Walmart?

No one cares.

September 13th, 2005 Posted by John Bambenek | Around the US, Politics, Unions | 4 comments