Why couldn't we (teachers) just have sat down together and had a conversation about whether voting for a union was a good idea or not?
We're all educated adults here. Joining a union or not has to be a dispassionate choice. The only question on the table: Will we be better off financially with union representation or no?
I would have loved to have this conversation with every single person I work with. I'm generally not a very social person, but through this I feel like I've built stronger connections with every single teacher at my school, and look forward to continuing these relationships no matter what the outcome of the vote is on Thursday.
The secretive nature of how this thing started upset a lot of people at the start. We could have recovered from this however; the signing of union cards only made possible for the election to be held. We still could have had healthy discussions for over a month about how we should vote.
But instead, people got so inundated with KIC's propaganda and fed up with overly tense meetings with management that many just got completely turned off from even talking about it. As someone who feels strongly that membership into the Newspaper Guild will be beneficial for every teacher, this has been quite maddening.
It's not maddening because we don't share the same point of view, it's maddening because most of us don't even understand why we have different views.
Anyone who looks at the comment sections on this blog can see that we are not having a real dialogue about this issue. Just to be clear: I 100% blame KIC upper-management's anti-union strategy for this lack of understanding we have. Not the managers we see every day, but these people that we don't see. Who are they? We know David Jones' name of course, because we all got an email from him as he was suddenly very interested in how we were all doing...
Their strategy has poisoned our workplace by creating an atmosphere of fear, and muddied our conversations with misinformation.
These people have somehow also convinced our managers to take this personally, when it in fact has nothing to do with them. Since they're taking things personally, they've been able to make appeals to emotion about why a union will be bad. Due to their position as our superiors, I feel completely patronized by this. Plus, when our managers' superiors are spending
By the way, KIC managers, if you are reading this, this is how you sound to me at meetings:
"Don't vote for a union, or we will be sad. We know what's best for you anyhow, because we have all the right information. You're simply not capable of finding and processing information like we are, so let us do it for you, OK? And all of you who are supporting a union, how could you bring this immoral organization into our sacred workplace? You should be ashamed of yourselves for wanting to collectively bargain a contract with KIC!"
Despite all of this, I still respect my managers and actually like them a lot as people. And despite whatever you've been told, you will still have the ability to advocate for us since guild contracts are very clear that they only set minimums.
If we vote "yes" however, you should be secretly happy: Instead of you shouldering all the burden, we will have the ability to advocate for ourselves as well.
To be honest, I don't care in the least that I wasn't notified initially about this. I didn't take that personally because like you said, it had to be done secretly.
ReplyDeleteI don't understand how you are insisting that it's Kaplan's fault that we are confused and have a "lack of understanding" with each other. Did you expect Kaplan to be pro-union? I don't expect Kaplan to be pro-union any more than I expect the union to be honest and open about pros and cons of unions.
The reason why most teachers are confused and unsatisfied is because it seems as though the pro-union teachers are naive and trusting everything that the union is saying without hesitation. I have seen no evidence of any outside research done by any of the pro-union teachers. All I've heard is, "They (Newspaper Guild) said..." as though everything the Union says should be taken as truth.
The upper level bosses at Kaplan have done nothing unexpected- they are giving facts that support their claim, just like the Newspaper Guild is doing. Teachers are not upset because of the Kaplan "fact sheets." In fact, most anti-union teachers ignore them at this point, I know I do. I know that I'm reading a skewed information sheet. Teachers are upset that they will be forced to join the union whether they want to or not- and that is unfair. A third party business will be deciding our salaries and working conditions. I would never vote yes knowing that I would be forcing my fellow teachers to do something they do not want to do.
And just to be clear, every teacher I've spoken to is clear on why they are pro and anti union. People clearly understand what they are voting for and why they are even voting in the first place. The reason why "open dialogue" has been at a minimum is because some pro-union teachers have often gotten aggressive, snarky and rude. There are few open dialogues that end amicably. Even at today's training, it was shared that there was a blatant display of unprofessionalism and hostility by two of the teachers. Others apologized on their behalf, but the damage was already done. Do you blame us for not engaging in open dialogue? Everywhere we turn we are being inundated with questions like "How are you voting?" On the street, at going away parties, in the bathrooms...everywhere! That, my friends, is why there is a lack of open dialogue.
I appreciate this comment 100%. Truly this is the kind of dialogue that we need to have and should have been having all along.
DeleteI hate to argue with you because this is one of the few comments on this blog that doesn't seem like someone trolling for a fight, but I have to say a few things:
From an organizer's perspective, let me just say that there is a lot of are fear that Kaplan's anti-union messages and fear will be swaying people's opinions, and this has lead to a lot of anxiety. I'm sure people all understand why they are voting, but what if I think the reasons for their vote are unfounded? Shouldn't I have the opportunity to prove this to them, as they the opportunity to prove to me why I'm full of it? We all 100% believe in this union thing and have stuck our necks out to try and make it a reality. The recent tactics, especially the attempts at isolating us from the rest of the teachers, has been especially maddening. There was a meeting at lunchtime today that I didn't even get invited to. Our manager could have just sent out an email to everyone and wrote said "If you've been invited to an "employee rights" training meeting, you don't have to go", but instead purposely chose to send the invitation to everyone else except the 4 or 5 of us. WTF?
All this is probably no excuse for acting like crazy people, but this is why :)
Speaking for myself, I have done a lot of independent research into unions, and I find the view that we're all just spewing guild propaganda to be pretty problematic. I also wrote the "Divide and Conquer" post, and you'll see that I quoted a passage from the NLRA. This isn't coming from the guild; I got this because I've read the damn thing, start to finish (fun way to spend a friday night). Another teacher researched David Jones' claim that "raises generally can't be given" during negotiations and found a specific case where that very issue was addressed. If you work at ESB then you got that email.
I came into this pretty naive about union politics however, so while you're not surprised by Kaplan's reaction, it still is pretty shocking to me. I feel continually condescended to on a daily basis by my employer.
(Part 2 because I've turned into quite the windbag lately)
DeleteTo the point about people who don't want to be in unions being forced into one...I understand this completely and it is the most disconcerting part of it for me. A point on that however:
- Have you met with someone from the guild? If someone hasn't taken the time to go to the guild and meet the people, check out their operation, and get their point of view, then that's a whole lot of perspective that you don't have. If people are able to see through Kaplan's propaganda, then they'll be able to see through the Guild's. I would love for them to be challenged more, but people less-inclined to the idea of a union aren't doing this. And I still haven't had a single thing that the guild has said be proven to be untrue or misleading, but perhaps if there were more people getting the message from them then we could find some. I put the blame on Kaplan's shoulders for this: Many people who I've talked to are scared shitless of even being seen talking to someone who is pro-union, much less the guild itself.
If enough people have met with guild members and have weighed the decision dispassionately, but still don't want to join, then I think we can have a real discussion about the "tyranny of the majority".
I'm sorry if this seems condescending that I have these opinions, but I simply cannot help having them. It's just how I am. I'm also an information junkie who is cursed with seeing both sides of an issue, and as a result have very few strong opinions about anything, especially political ones. And as of yet, no one has been able to raise a legitimate point as to why a union will end up financially hurting any teacher at Kaplan.
"Even at today's training, it was shared that there was a blatant display of unprofessionalism and hostility by two of the teachers. Others apologized on their behalf, but the damage was already done. Do you blame us for not engaging in open dialogue?"
I was at this meeting, and one of the "unprofessional" teachers actually made it a point to apologize a number of times to Jay and shake his hand after the meeting. So idea that people "apologized on their" behalf is simply untrue. Another commenter down below spoke to why certain outbursts happened though...
But what "damage" could possibly have been done in a room where 100% of people raised their hands when asked "Do you feel like you are here today because your employer has pegged you as pro-union?", and the two "presenters" are not Kaplan employees, but people who Kaplan has hired to convince us to vote no with disingenuous information?
I truly thank you for taking time to express yourself on this forum. I still feel like Kaplan's anti-union campaign (especially the fear aspect) has been the main wedge between co-workers, but I'm willing to consider how my own actions are causing this as well.
Hi there. This is Toby from the East Village. You wrote:
Delete"A third party business will be deciding our salaries and working conditions."
This is one of the pieces of misinformation that Kaplan's lawyers keep trying to push on us. In reality, the people who will be creating the union contract will be a group of teacher representatives from each school, democratically elected by all of the teachers, who will be polling all the teachers by electronic survey on their needs and wants for the contract. The contract will then require a majority vote from all the teachers. The job of the Guild in the formation of the contract is to help us write a document that works and protects us legally, and then to advocate on our behalf in conversations with Kaplan's lawyers.
First off, I greatly appreciate reading the information and comments from teachers from this blog. It has been challenging to digest all of the information from the meetings so it is nice to read this at my leisure. I hope everyone who is eligible to vote (as a recent hire I am unable to do so) seek out as much information as possible before voting (whether in favor of the union or not).
ReplyDeleteI was one of the teachers at the training who probably acted unprofessionally. Realizing this, I excused myself. What was frustrating was that the trainer was attempting to entrap us in an unfair labor practice. He asked us to try to get the Guild to commit to its promises in writing. This would be a violation of labor law, just as it would be a violation for Kaplan to make any promises about future changes at this time. Kaplan has presented the labor education workshop as impartial but the presentation makes it appear, for example, that an individual would not be able to request a raise or to qualify for merit pay. This is not the case. The union contract sets minimums but doesn't prevent an individual from merit pay or raises above that. The union is the sole bargainer for the group of workers but, just as now, you can bargain for additional pay, vacation time or other benefits above that. I regret any lack of professionalism but didn't appreciate misrepresentation or an attempt at entrapment.
ReplyDeleteI think and hope that, regardless of the outcome of the election, friendship will continue to exist even between those who disagree. My experience of a recent going-away party was a pleasant conversation with my managers and others who I disagree with about the union.
(cont.)
ReplyDeleteI had to leave the meeting very early, but even in the first few minutes Jay from WaPo told a direct lie of omission: he said that the playing field was stacked AGAINST Kaplan and TOWARD the Guild, because the company "isn't allowed to make promises and the union is." What he failed to mention is that, under the NLRA, there is *no* requirement for Kaplan to tell us the TRUTH in *any* of their communications with us. So, sure, they can't threaten us ...directly, or promise us anything ... openly, but they can walk right up to that line with as many lies as they want and there's not much we can do about it. And when it was pointed out to him that in fact the Guild has NOT made any promises to us, well he didn't have an answer for that.
Remember that these two are people who make their living by DELIBERATELY trying to frighten workers (not only at Kaplan, by the way) into choosing to NOT bargain as a group. This is equivalent to intimidating citizens into NOT VOTING in Federal or State elections, in order to remove those citizens' voices altogether. Our election on Thursday isn't the same as an ordinary political election - after all, whether you vote Democrat or Republican, you are voting for a REPRESENTATIVE, and *someone* is elected to represent you, even if you don't like the team that wins. In a union election, your choice is between a representative or NOTHING. I really don't have any respect for people who choose to make their livings preventing unionism. Frankly I don't know how they sleep at night. Without unions, we wouldn't have weekends, we wouldn't have health and safety laws, 40-hour weeks, the list goes on.
Now of course none of that means that as an individual employee that you have to like unionism in general, or want to be in a union, and you should have the right to vote against a union. We all as teachers should be free to make that choice without being deliberately misinformed.
Kaplan doesn't want us to have collective representative of ANY KIND. Lately they have been focusing on attacking the Guild's success/failure rate, but does anyone really think that if we had approached a different union, that management would suddenly be recommending us to vote "YES"? What if we somehow had a three-way election choice - the Guild, another union, or nothing? Which choice do you think management would recommend?
It is NOT about personal relationships between us and them, it is about we employees increasing our power by speaking with one voice.
If the union is elected on Thursday, I am going to do my absolute utmost to make sure that all of our various concerns are addressed, and the Guild will seek input from all teachers, regardless of where they may have stood on the election question. I have met and spoken at length with the Guild workers who would be working with us, and I am convinced that they will passionately pursue our interests and help us all improve our situation at Kaplan.
Peace!
(This was supposed to be the first part - somehow it didn't post the first time, so now the 2nd part is listed earlier...)
ReplyDeleteThis is mostly addressed to "Anonymous from 11.30pm", but it's also a general response to the original post...
I am openly pro-union and most of the teachers at my branch (Midtown) know that I researched and pointed out the misrepresentations in one of the Kaplan flyers about collective bargaining. My response was also distributed to the other two branches. Most of the other pro-union flyers that appeared on the noticeboards were produced by teachers rather than by the union, and of course we had the union provide us with example contracts.
So I don't know why Anonymous has "seen no evidence" of outside research done by the pro-union folks.
As for people getting snarky and rude, we've all heard the report from ESB about anti-union teachers screaming at the perceived pro-union "leaders" from that branch, not to mention the condascending comments from a manager about "running to daddy" to solve our problems. Here at Midtown I've had a colleague suddenly unfriend me from Facebook because of a hearsay report of what I supposedly said about him in a meeting; he then refused to reply to my apology email when I tried to clear things up.
I agree with the original poster's opinion that management's behavior has dramatically worsened the atmosphere, and in fact that was quite possibly deliberate, as it's a classic union-busting tactic to divide employees and try to pit pro- and anti- camps against each other. Of course nobody expects a company to welcome a union with open arms, but it's not because they're worried about their "personal relationship" with their employees being worsened, it's because companies often end up paying more for their employees' labor when a union contract is in place.
And that's the most important mistruth/mistake that is repeated in Anonymous' comment - "A third party business will be deciding our salaries and working conditions" - that is completely incorrect. The salaries and working conditions that are "decided" will be those that are agreed to in negotiations between the company and the union, if the union is elected. But the union will be operating under instructions from *us*, the teachers; their job is to REPRESENT our interests. And the teachers have to approve whatever contract the union negotiates.
On another point, the fact that some teachers today became unprofessional when dealing with two outside union-busters (talk about your "third parties"...) actually reflects well on those teachers, in my opinion. Remember that this meeting was one of the last of these "information sessions" to be held, and it was deliberately stacked with teachers who are known to be fairly or wholly pro-union. So I'm glad that someone actually gave some pushback in a forum where they hopefully wouldn't offend any teachers who were anti or undecided. (more...)
AnonymousJune 5, 2012 11:30 PM
ReplyDelete"Teachers are upset that they will be forced to join the union whether they want to or not- and that is unfair."
Is having an election being forced into something?
You must think that democracy in general is unfair.
Today's meeting was the first time I have ever seen a pro-union person get at all aggressive. You can't say that open dialogue was stymied by anyone's behavior at that meeting because only avidly pro-union teachers had been invited. There wasn't anybody we could have had a dialogue with, unless we were supposed to have one with the people paid by Kaplan, or Kaplan's lawyers, to convince us not to join the union. Someone there asked people to raise their hands if they felt that they had been invited to that particular training session because management viewed them as pro-union and every single person raised their hand. The company is blatantly trying to keep us from having an dialogue with our co-workers. They wouldn't have to do that if they had a valid points against the union.
i am going to try to be as short-winded as possible ...
ReplyDeletei can only speak for myself, but i am for the union, and i personally know that i have never been aggressive or snarky. And I certainly never cornered anyone in a bathroom. I have always encouraged everyone to vote for what they feel is right. Iven if that means they are voting against the union. However, I find it sad that so many people made a decision against the union (or remained undecided) without actually have met or spoken with a union representative.
That said, the reason I support the union is that I have 1) been in multiple unions before and seen how they can lift up employees and provide them with better pay, benefits, and rights.
and 2) having met with the newspaper guild, I feel I can make an informed decision that they are a trustworthy group who will work hard for us.
It's like a presidential debate. we know both sides are telling us what we want to hear, but there's something in your gut that leads you to favor one side. I don't think that's naive. That's how democracy and elections work. But I wouldn't vote for president without watching a debate first.
So if a pro union teacher was trying to tell you their side, encourage you to go to a meeting, get you involved in a dialogue, I think that it's unfair to call it aggressive. They were merely trying to expose you to both sides.
I think everyone should vote for what they believe is best for the teachers at Kaplan.
That was not as short-winded as I had hoped ;)
having re-read this there are several typos and i apologize ... that's what you get for writing at 7 am
DeleteThanks everyone for your work on the blog. I feel very informed: I've read everything here, talked to a lawyer friend, read union info online, and even read all the flyers KIC handed out (really)!
ReplyDeleteI went to a Guild meeting and asked a question about what would go in the contract and I appreciated their honesty. About both seniority and eliminating min. wage pay, they said that if we wanted to put it in a contract, we could put it in a contract and bargain for it. Without a union Kaplan legally didn't even have to bargain with us.
I think I know which vote could make life a little better for us workers in the EV!
"I have seen no evidence of any outside research done by any of the pro-union teachers. All I've heard is, "They (Newspaper Guild) said..." as though everything the Union says should be taken as truth."
ReplyDeleteThis comment is condescending and disrespectful to the teachers that have done countless hours of research trying to get fact based information out to teachers, information that didn't come from the Guild or the company, but was sought out on our own (labor statistics, the Kaplan annual report...)
We are all highly educated people, and implying that we wouldn't make informed decisions is just rude.