Unions are bodies set by employees or any other group of people that has a common interest. Unions always present there members right and the welfare of there members. Fair wages, benefits and good working conditions are always the priority and there mission as they carry on there duties as unionist. unionist must come up with strategies on how to meet these objectives as well as meeting other competing needs of there members. The following information was obtained from the meeting which was held at p-9 union hall. The attendance was recommendable and UFCW local p-9 president Jim Guyette and UFCW international representative Lewis Anderson ware present. The main a gender for the occasion was meant to strategies how the Hormel workers can win a fair contract. the two speakers to give solution and forge the way forward for a case where the union voted to strike in August and the company involved announces to employ other employees.
JIM: Yes we can win our case out if we remain solid to our demands. Unity among employees make they demands sound relevant to the employer. it is writhing the law to demand better and reasonable pay as a consideration of our hard work. All the employees I believe they have a common problem and common interest to the company or employer. Then we should join hands and be ready to claim our rights to the better end.
LEWIE:Striking is not the best way to handle the case like this .first, the company is willing to employ other willing workers to fill you gaps as you continue to resist the formal way of solving these crises. Strike is not the way forward; it should be the end result after all other ways have failed. it is not always good to resolve on strike without considering its impacts. For example, today if the companies successively manage to hire another group of willing employees you will all loss you jobs. Imagine a life where you will no longer able to feed you be loved children, a day when your kid will not go to school and when all your bills that you meet every mouth will not be met. I am advising you all agree to agree and return to your place of duties and it will be easer to solve your problems.
JIM: We agreed to go on strike and we will demand our rights while striking. it is time the company speed up the process and meet our demands. if they employ other people to fill our gaps, we will go to court to stop them.
LEWIE: Some time it is not always possible to enforce illegal things in court. you have not tried even to bargain with the management on what you want, you only resolved to go on illegal strike which I believe court can not interfere with the management decision.infact you should be taken to court with your teem of leaders for miss leading the workers.
JIM: According to the United States law concerning the labor law section seven, we are not sympathy strikers we something in common between us.[1] We can not be fired because we are protected by the law. The same section states very clearly that workers have the legal right to negotiate with their employer as a group instead of as individuals. That’s why am encouraging our members not to give up. We will continue to puss as union resolved.
LEWIE: The same law at the same section states that if employee engages them self in misconduct in the name of union activation for their right, the employer is free to fire them. According to what we are taking our activities in the name of our right, we should first of all bargain.
JIM: The problem with union members and there leaders is that we fell to unite. We always fell to meet our target due to the fact that not all members are royal to the union. If we remain together and keep our genders right, we will be able to meet our entire objective.
LEWIE Not all members has a common problem even if we have a common goal. There are those how can not meet there needs without these job. There are those who have a negative intention to mislead others. Some time there is not honesty among leaders or even members.
JIM: Civil disobedience is the best tactic for the union[2]. We must disobey them. We have being obedient to them for long. We should now use the strike as the language they can here first and understand it. This is the only formulary that we have not used. I am optimistic that they will understand it. Let us all be optimistic to win because we can. We are not going to be silent any more. Let us all stand for our rights. We are not begging but we are demanding for fair consideration of our work. We must disrupt their function to bring there attention to our problems.
LEWIE: Civil disobedience some time lends some members jailed as you try to disrupt the public or the company. There lead to loss of even more money and time as we fund rise to bail one of us out. it is not the best way for our case. Let us use other available ways of solving our case properly without some of our people or even leaders ending up in jail for no reason. Civil disobedience formula makes other people of the public to surfer for no reason. This also affects our economy at large. Those how will be affected by your activation will end up losing their dairy source of income hence inconveniencing their lives. Let us sacrifice for now and go back to our respective places of duties knowing that we will solve our issues once and forever. This can only be met by using diplomacy to argue our issues.
JIM: If civil way will not be effective, we are going to use corporate campaigns against them. We will have a grand move which be called Must better pay or no reopening of the plant. It will take place outside the office of the general manager. It will be on June this year. I am requesting for your support during that big memorable day. We will be expecting all members to be on time and be on red cloths. It will be sorry a moment to the management. Their will be no more negotiations with them. We must be given our right and am advising you not to take anything less than what we believe is our rights. We will ruin the good reputation they are having to day. I believe we have all correctively contributed to it.
LEWIE: Corporate campaign against the administration will give us no credit at all.[3] These are some of the old methods that we are avoiding to use to day. Let us be realistic. The leadership and member ship of this union will be put on notice even at the eyes of law. This will reflect a situation where there is no democracy at all. Every member has a right to choose either to continue striking or not. One has a right to decide to attend your meeting or not, we are all free citizens and of age of majority how can decided on there own without influence. Before we attend other issues of today’s programs, I would like to remained you that every body has a right to either decide to continue striking or go back to work.
JIM: We can, let use go on with our strike. I would like to elaborate our entire rights witch I think you all now. We all now or should now that our job must be secure. Job security is our priority. There is no way one can mislead us to go back to work without being assured of our job security. Let them first explain at length how our job security is. Is it our duties as you union leaders to tell you what you should be knowing? According to our constitution at section seven, all employees have a right to join a union. Employer also has no right to stop or interfere with the unions meeting. No one should be prevented to attend union meetings. We also have a right to have good considerations as our pay. We should be motivated well for us to work and meet the expectations of our employers. Our working condition should be conducive. This are our rights not my reasoning. It is provided for in the constitution that governs us, so why are these people taking away our rights.
LEWIE: Let me take you out of that topic a bit and explain to you the way we should strive to remain united. We are planning to be having meetings every months .this will help use come up with techniques of solving our problem. All members will be provided for with a T-shirt that we will be putting on during our meetings. This will make user look having common a gender. We will also be visiting our members at home; mostly during those sorry moments .this will create a sense of belonging to our members. We will be contributing a given amount which you will agree upon every month to finance our functions and to pay the leaders of the union. New member will have to subscribe for membership. We will be moving all over the area recruiting new members. As our number increase, we will be having a better bargain when we have problems. we will be mobilizing members all over the country soon.
JIM: The union democracy is to share our fillings together. Let us fill free to tell our employers that our member’s right must be met. Their is no way out, no shortcut to these. Unions are set to make it essay for employer listen to the people, so le us be royal to our union because it is the only hope we have aloud. We will join hands with all human right bodies, religion organizations; student and other sympathetic people to help voice less employees have their voice hard. We hope we will make it as we straggle for our people’s right. Thank you all.
[1]“ Sympathy strikers” by Michal Evan, p.72
[2] “South central federation of labor”1602 spark, p. 228
[3] “Tactics in corporate campaign” Ryan Ellis. P, 45
