Unions

 

King Harvest (Has Surely Come)

I work for the union
‘Cause she's so good to me
And I'm bound to come out on top
That's where she said I should be

Are unions always good for you?

Some disclaimers.  While I am a union supporter and my father was a long-time union member, during 1992 to 1998 I was Director of the Massachusetts Highway Department’s Bureau of Transportation Planning and Development. Thus I have also by definition been a manager and a bureaucrat.  So when I say that unions can also be bureaucratic it is not meant to be an aspersion on unions, managers, or bureaucrats.

While I was Director, I had to make a choice about hiring a new Geographic Information System, GIS, position. My choices were a person who was not a union member, had no work experience but had just graduated with a degree in  GIS versus a current employee who was a union member, had unrelated work experience and no GIS training.  I opted for the recent GIS employee.  Among her first tasks was to train the other applicant, who filed a union grievance that she should have been given preference in hiring.

After a year, the GIS employee left and the other previous applicant, whom she had trained, was promoted to replace her.  Some time after that the original union grievance hearing was finally held.  Remember that the grievant now held the position which she was grieving that she had been denied.  The outcome of the hearing was that the grievance was upheld and the current occupant of the GIS position should have been hired in the first place, but because the hiring was otherwise proper, she was owed no difference in pay for the interim, .  In order to complete the union grievance, the original grievant, who was the current occupant of the position, was effectively fired for a nanosecond and then immediately rehired.

Which just goes to show that unions can also be bureaucratic.  Yogi Berra should have been the union hearing officer because the outcome made as much sense as “ No one goes there any more.  It’s too crowded.”