[SML] Boston Mayor's aides convicted of demanding music festival hire union stagehands.

[Stephen Clear]

I owned a non union staging and lighting company for 30 years. Over the
years, I dealt with a half dozen business agents. We went from a very
adversary relationship to us signing a union contract using the union as
our main source of labor. When working properly, the union is a great
source of highly skilled, very reliable professional stage hands.

On Sun, Aug 11, 2019 at 4:25 PM Lou Poppler via Stagecraft <
stagecraft at theatrical.net> wrote:

> On Sun, 2019-08-11 at 11:11 -0400, Dave Vick via Stagecraft wrote:
> > On Sat, Aug 10, 2019 at 9:14 PM Dale Farmer via Stagecraft <
> stagecraft at theatrical.net> wrote:
> >
> > > and yeah, I have been threatened by union thugs for being a non-union
> > > worker on jobs they were trying to take over.  This was after I
> applied to
> > > the union and never got a response to my repeated inquiries.  So I have
> > > little sympathy for the union.
> >
> >
> > S’okay; we’re quite used to being the non-union world’s boogeyman. It’s
> always our fault, isn’t it...
>
> Under the hood, "The Union" turns out to be many little local workers'
> democracies.  In some places, in some times, the result can be an
> "Us vs. Them" fear of undeserving non-members trying to steal "our" work.
> In other places or times, the members can look at the same non-members and
> view them as underpaid and exploited potential colleagues, who could be
> brought
> into the family, and gotten raises and benefits.  There is all kinds of
> history,
> good and bad, that can be pointed to.  The US Attorneys occasionally take
> an
> interest on one side or another, depending on how baldly partisan is the
> then
> current administration in Washington.  The IA sometimes tries to influence
> outlier locals.  But in most cases, that Union Boss is just some sound guy
> or
> some AV tech who got him/her self elected in the local union.
>
> The best way for The Union to "take over" jobs currently filled by
> non-union
> workers, is to convert those non-union workers into union workers working
> the
> same jobs, only now with union-scale pay rates, working conditions,
> insurance,
> retirement, training, etc.  The same workers, just better conditions, and
> an
> option to become union members if they want to.
>
> Many of you reading this are already voters in these little workers'
> democracies.  (I have been a member of 3 locals, and now hold a retired
> card out
> of local 363).  I urge you members to guide your locals toward the
> inclusion and
> recruitment I described above.  Other people doing the same work as we do,
> are
> not the enemy.  Sometimes they are the exploited victims of unfair
> employers.
> We have plenty of prima donna members, as well as the prima donnas who
> don't
> want to be members.  Even those prima donnas who don't want to join, will
> still
> be happy to get a raise and vacation and insurance and retirement.
>
> [Sorry, re-lurking now.]
>
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