Union

[marshall]

Do any of you belong to a union? We belong to the UGSOA.

[CorpSec]

Nope, in general I am not a fan of unions in their present form. There are some industries that could stand to be unionized more than others and the relatively low pay, low benefit area of contract security is ripe for the picking.

I know that there are contract union officers in the twin cities, I just don't quite understand how the whole thing works since the same companies employ both union and non union guards. I don't know if non union guards can fill in at union accounts or vice versa. I think that the major city accounts, Minneapolis and St. Paul are union, while the suburban accounts remain non union.

[N. A. Corbier]

Individual sites must have every employee on site vote in the union, overriding an old federal law that prohibits the union of the security force from representing anyone else.

The people at the site have to basically demand, with a large majority, that a certain union represent them. There is no election, etc. Its basically getting people to sign blue cards saying that "we demand a union, and we demand ________ to be that union."

At that point, every person on that site MUST be union.

The SEIU is famous for this tactic, recruiting not at the company level, but at the high-rise office level. So, if they get 10 securitas guards, plus 15 allied barton guards, plus the two guards who are in-house to sign and get a union...

Each company has to deal with union employees.

[sgtnewby]

We belong to AFSCME.

[copelandamuffy]

http://www.eyeonugsoa.org/

This does not speak well for this union
Don't shoot me, I am just deliver the bad news.

[davis002]

I never liked unions

[sgtnewby]

AFSCME has been pretty worthless....

[OccamsRazor]

As was SPFPA.

[EMTGuard]

I've never been in a union and see little need to be in one. Louisiana is a Right to Work state so you can't be required to be union to have a job.

[craig333]

Certainly there are good unions and not so good unions. As a union member for over 20 years (in another field) I've seen a lot of unrealistic expectations asked of the unions too "why didn't you guys make the company do such an such" ummm, we negotiate we don't make demands or run the company.

[N. A. Corbier]

Too many times, union stewards will try to say just that. In an industry like contract security, people want to hear things like "We can make them fire that guard supervisor." Or, "We can make them give you all raises."

Or, my favorite, "We can make them not yell at you for wearing ___________." The one about your OG hat backwards comes to mind.