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Author centric columns by newsletter editors and contributors.

#StagehandView: Call for Help from Local 917

This post has been corrected. The original contained factual errors. I apologize. In my haste to move at the pace of unfolding events I failed to figure out some rather important details about the major players. Again, I apologize.

March 8, 2014

9:17 a.m.

I recently and belatedly joined the You Know You’re a Stagehand If group on Facebook. I was almost immediately sucked into a cool little cyber campaign recently started by 1st International VP Michael Barnes on behalf of the IATSE local 917 in  Atlantic City. He is asking people to cut and paste a message about how the casinos in his town have double crossed union workers. I can tell you that local 917 doesn’t have anything about the Facebook group IA917 or Barnes’s claims about a “sleazy” double cross by the casinos in Atlantic City. I think it’s only fair to mention that, as far as I could tell, Local 917 doesn’t really have much of a web presence at all. After hitting that dead end I did a couple of preliminary – i.e. very fast and un-thorough – Google searches which didn’t mention anything about the local having a beef with the casinos, either. However, I did find a couple of December, 2013, newspaper articles talking about a casino bankruptcy and an executive bonus judgement from the courts. These stories corroborated at least part of Vice President Barnes’s story.

None of which means much of anything, of course.

Granted, my bias inclines to believe his claims about the double-dealing casinos. Here’s what he wrote and asked members of the IA917 group to share on various casino Facebook pages:

WORKERS DOUBLECROSSED BY SLEAZY CASINO GAMES; The Atlantic City Stagehands Local 917 was chartered in 1978. Our mission is to represent the people working in the entertainment departments at the Atlantic City Casinos. In 2011, our union like many other unions in Atlantic City were asked to roll back cost to get Atlantic City back on track. The members of Local 917 agreed to a 20% roll back in wages and a three year wage freeze. The casinos asked and we agreed to take this step back to allow us to move forward. We were told we were in this together. We were gamed. The casinos took our roll back and immediately distributed management bonuses. The non represented workers in the casinos were given raises and in some cases now earn 25% more than the represented workers. Help us spread the message. Share and Tweet this post.

I went ahead and joined his IA917 page and shared his message on some casino Facebook pages.

Okay, I admit it; it’s my first time. I’ve never done this kind of cyber-activism before. I only shared his message twice, at Harrah’s Atlantic City and Trump Tower Las Vegas. I was nervous and almost chickened out. But then I pushed Post. After the second time I did lose my nerve and went and had breakfast. It’s been about a half hour and my computer has not caught fire. Nor has my Facebook page fallen victim to some massive and irrecoverable hack. In fact, nothing’s happened. … I think I might be a little disappointed.

Two performances of Wicked today. The plan is to do some more posting of Brother Barnes’s “Double Cross” message between half-hour and top-of-show. I honestly don’t know if this kind of thing – Am I ‘”trolling?” – works or not. But it seems like it might. If anybody else does it, let me know how it goes.

9:51 a.m.

I can tell you that my posts at both Harrah’s and Trump have been removed. Though I just liked about a half dozen postings of it on the Harrah’s AC page. According to Barnes, there are at least 200 people working on this action.

Like I said, I have no idea what the result of this will be. But it’s kind of fun.

Next up, I’ll reach out to Vice President Barnes and see what he has to say. If you join in, let me know by commenting here. Or not. That’s cool, too.

#StagehandView: The Rumors of Labor’s Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

For those who don’t know, the UAW is appealing the Chattanooga VW election. The auto workers’ union is claiming (in my opinion, rightly so) that the anti-union campaigns mounted by Tennessee’s public officials crossed a line into voter coercion and intimidation. I retweeted a blog post from The Nation the other day (@bpwilsonlit is my handle) which does a really nice job of explaining why the UAW’s appeal is important to the larger union vs. anti-union debate. Here’s a link.
But today I want to talk about Wisconsin. You remember Wisconsin, right? Where the people occupied their state capitol in 2011?
Governor Scott WalkerWhat’s happening in Wisconsin is emblematic of a big reason why U.S. labor is on the defensive. Governor Scott Walker’s Act 10 eviscerated the public sector unions, taking away their ability to negotiate over pretty much anything but wage levels. It also outlawed automatic paycheck deductions for union dues. Correction, Act 10 eviscerated all but two public sector unions. The two unions that endorsed Walker in his initial bid for governor, the firefighters and the police, somehow managed to avoid the gutting.Jay Gould
Jay Gould, one of the original robber barons, put it best when he boasted in 1886 “I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other half.”
Sad commentary that over a century later unions are still being divided and conquered so easily. But I have to admit I find it hard to argue with at least one of Governor Walker’s critiques of organized labor: when unions get entrenched and powerful, the leadership does tend to become reactionary and inflexible. Though, it is only fair to point that unions are just acting like every other hierarchical grouping of human beings in the history of the universe. It’s nothing new for the leadership of any established institution to prioritize short-term self-preservation over all else.
The problem for unions is they have let that their flaws become the main focus of the public discourse. The Radical Right’s been framing the debate since the Carter Administration. Worse, the mainstream unions have let their detractors create the very language society uses to critique organized labor. Think ‘right-to-work’ or ‘labor boss.’
At this point the only way for big labor to get back into the fight is to nullify the very labels they’ve allowed to Right to pin on them. And the only way for them to do that is to stop acting like  calcified sphincters. And I’m not just talking about the police and firefighter unions selling out the rest of the Wisconsin public sector unions. That kind of breakdown in solidarity is a huge and constant problem, don’t get me wrong. But I’m talking about a fundamental, completely self-created and almost universal issue: the leaders of organized labor need to stop thinking of the membership as their clientele. Conversely, the rank and file need to stop seeing themselves as mere consumers of services. And both groups need to stop kidding themselves into thinking they aren’t in the same exact boat as the vast majority of non-union workers in this country.
Unions are not a group of like-minded businesses, we are a social movement. What we are seeing right now in American labor is the result of workers letting their unions become the very thing they organized to stand against in the first place, conservative institutions that only react from a position of immediate self-interest.
A February New York Times article (in the business section) called “The Wisconsin Legacy” by Steven Greenhouse focuses on the despondent executive director of the State Employees union’s and his take on post-Act 10 Wisconsin. The man has a right to be angry and frustrated; his budget has dropped by two thirds and so has his membership. It’s also understandable if he doesn’t really have a plan for how to respond. Towards the end of the piece Greenhouse quotes the executive director as saying that “Now 99 percent of what the staff does is organize.”
It’s a sad irony that he was bemoaning what he can only see as a hopeless situation. Because unions should be organizing and, more importantly, reorganizing. Unfortunately, I think that guy’s depression is indicative of how most of big labor’s leaders are feeling. I don’t blame them. I’d probably be shocked and depressed, too. And I wish there was time to give them the chance to work through the process of completely changing their views of the world. Because I think most of them are honestly doing their best. But the American worker just doesn’t have time to wait for them to catch up with a situation that passed them by long ago. We need leaders who will see this crisis as an opportunity for organized labor to become a movement again.
If you’re wondering where these leaders will come from, you should read publications like Labor Notes. Then you’d know they’re are already mobilized and working hard. They just need the rest of us to support them.

#StagehandView: The Hope of Chattanooga

So the representation election at VW didn’t go as I’d hoped. Oh well, live to fight another day and all that other crap we tell ourselves when we lose.

It sucks, sure. But maybe the U.S. labor movement isn’t as agonal as some are intimating. I’m a week behind, but I just read Steven Greenhouse’s NY Times article about the election in Chattanooga (Feb. 16, Section A-19). He paints a pretty bleak picture of a decidedly anti-union Tennessee and greater South. And maybe he’s right. I’m sure he’s studied the problem more than me.

But he left out the part about a certain, rather contentious clause that was allegedly in the neutrality agreement between the UAW and Volkswagen. It was the clause where the UAW and VW committed to “maintaining and where possible enhancing the cost advantages and other competitive advantages that [Volkswagen] enjoys relative to its competitors in the United States and North America.”

DISCLAIMER: The previous quote is from film maker Michael Moore’s website. The links to the source material for the quoted text are not working. Nor are any of the links I recently followed to the neutrality agreement. In the days right before the election, those links had led to what was presented as a legitimate copy of that document. All I get now is a “404 error” page. Read into that what you will.

But the legitimacy of the “sell-out” clause is ultimately irrelevant because the plant floor anti-union group, No2UAW, seems to have used it to successfully make the case that the Chattanooga VW workers would have been signing on to a permanent two-tier wage situation if they voted yes. They convinced enough of their fellow workers that “maintaining and where possible enhancing cost advantages” meant keeping VW’s wages lower than the Big Three’s. It’s not like there isn’t historical precedent. The UAW negotiated two tier wage structures for their members years ago.

By itself, the controversial neutrality agreement clause might not be bad enough. But when I place it in the context of the multiple intimidation and propaganda campaigns those Chattanooga folks were enduring, I can start to understand why some who might be undecided would vote no. It’s sad to think about how little effort it takes to convince people unions suck, or at least shouldn’t be fully trusted.

I suppose you’re wondering why I put the word hope in the title of this post.

It’s this: even with all of the millions spent by the likes of Carl Rove and the Koch brothers, even with the threats from the state and local governments, even with the alleged prearranged semi-sellout by the UAW, the election in Chattanooga was decided by less than a hundred votes, 712 to 626. Mr. Greenhouse of the Times buried a hopeful little nugget under his pile of pessimism that I think bears highlighting: if just forty-four people had voted yes instead of no, that plant would be a union shop.

The people of Tennessee aren’t all anti-union. Quite the contrary; they’re organizing themselves. Private sector union density is actually increasing there, as well as in Georgia. And North Carolinians are mobilizing, too.

So, let’s not give up quite yet.

#StagehandView: Chattanooga Volkswagon Workers Decide for Themselves

Another busy week for me, so I’m sharing a second article on what’s happening right now in Chattanooga. This time it’s an opinion piece from Reuters. I think it might be particularly relevant to Local 205, given that we are currently involved in our own NLRB representation election. So, happy reading. (By the way, all of the links are the original author’s and they connect to other interesting pieces on both sides of this issue.)

To me, the most interesting point Logan hits on is the hypocrisy of the anti-union billionaires who have inserted themselves into this fight. These same Radical Right activists who normally insist that corporations should never, under any circumstances, be told by the evil federal government how to run themselves seem to have changed their tunes. Apparently what they’ve actually been saying all this time is that corporations should only be free to make choices which are in line with the Radical Right’s medieval views on employer-employee relations.

One last thing from me: don’t forget about that other election tomorrow. It’s a couple of months late, but it looks like we’ll actually get to vote on new officers. Many thanks to Sister Joan Miller for serving as the elections judge this time around. As we saw during last year’s cluster f**k, screwing up a local election is a lot easier than getting it right. -BPW

 

Why the Far-Right Fears Change in Chattanooga
Posted By John Logan On February 11, 2014 (6:49 pm).

 

On Wednesday through Friday, 1500 autoworkers at Volkswagen’s plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee will vote on whether to join the United Auto Workers union in a landmark National Labor Relations Board election. Like other U.S. outposts of foreign auto companies, the facility, which opened in 2011, has never had a union.

 

A vote for unionization at Volkswagen would be a historic victory — not only for the UAW, but for the entire labor movement. It would provide unions with a key victory in the South, even in the face of a lavishly-funded external anti-union campaign, and may lead to transformative changes in labor-management relations, especially among European-owned firms.

 

If the Chattanooga workers vote to unionize, they will provide another example that when companies remain neutral in union elections, employees usually choose unions. Instead of pressuring the employees to vote against the UAW, Volkswagen management has let workers make the choice on their own. This is exactly what should happen in union elections, but rarely does. Volkswagen would probably have recognized the union on the basis of documented interest among workers, but Republican politicians and anti-union groups such as the National Right to Work Committee (NRTWC) demanded that the company hold an NLRB election. Ironically, the NRTWC has insisted that Volkswagen provide employees who oppose the UAW with an opportunity to make their case to the workforce, something that pro-union workers never enjoy during standard U.S. anti-union campaigns.

 

Unionized workers at the Chattanooga plant would almost certainly get the first works council in the United States — a type of organization that deals with issues of employee welfare and management, such as flexibility in work schedules. Works councils, which operate at the plant level, have long been a key aspect of employment relations in many European countries. Currently, every one of Volkswagen’s 61 major production facilities outside of China has both a union and a works council, except for the Tennessee plant. A successful works council at Volkswagen may lead to other corporations adopting this innovative (for the U.S.) form of worker representation.

 

A vote for unionization would provide the UAW with a key victory in the “foreign auto transplants” — the U.S. plants of European and Asian auto manufacturers, most of which are located in southern right-to-work states. The UAW has encountered robust opposition when it has attempted to organize in these facilities. Nissan is currently resisting efforts by autoworkers in Canton, Mississippi to form a union. The company is also fighting pro-union workers in Smyrna, Tennessee, where it defeated organizing campaigns in 1989 and 2001, after it allegedly threatened job losses, plant closings, relocation to Mexico, and a loss of wages and benefits if the union prevailed. The UAW has organized in several U.S.-Japanese joint auto ventures, but not in any wholly-owned foreign automakers.

 

This time around, domestic and international allies have supported the struggles of U.S. autoworkers. The fact that Volkswagen is allowing its workers a free and un-coerced choice on unionization is in part because of support from the two million-member IG Metall, Germany’s largest union. Nissan workers have received support from unions in Brazil, South Africa, Japan, England and Australia. Civil rights, faith and environmental organizations have also assisted their efforts. If Volkswagen goes union, Nissan, Mercedes and other foreign auto transplants may soon follow suit.

 

A victory at Volkswagen would signal that the anti-union South — where elected officials have frequently joined with the business community and right-wing organizations to stop workers from organizing — might not be so solid in future years. Unions have enjoyed some important recent victories, especially among predominantly Latino workforces, such as the Service Employees International Union’s janitors’ campaign in Houston, and the United Food and Commercial Workers Union’s historic victory at Smithfield Foods in North Carolina. Union membership in the South is well below the national average of 11.3 percent, but in 2012, Tennessee had the biggest percentage growth in union membership of any U.S. state, with Georgia and Alabama not far behind.

 

Most importantly, a UAW victory would show that even billionaire anti-union zealots can be beaten. Right-wing groups are furious that Volkswagen is not fighting the UAW, so they have chosen to do so on their own. National organizations funded by the billionaire Koch Brothers and other right-wing activists have taken to the airwaves to demonize the UAW. State politicians have attempted to blackmail autoworkers to vote no by stating that Volkswagen may lose state financial support if it becomes unionized. Unionization, one elected official explained, “was not part of the deal.”

 

In their effort to whip up anti-union fervor, UAW opponents have called it the “vilest of cancers,” “Ichneumon wasp larvae,” and “black shirted thugs.” If Volkswagen workers resist this blatant attempt at intimidation by anti-union organizations, they will make clear beyond a doubt that they want UAW representation. They will have rejected the insidious lies about “Big Labor” — and the depiction of unions as narrow and self-serving — that the Koch Brothers and others have been peddling for far too long. And they will have participated in a historic union victory.

 

PHOTO:

Labourers work on the assembly line of the Volkswagen Kombi at the Volkswagen plant in Sao Bernardo do Campo December 9, 2013. REUTERS/Paulo Whitaker 

 

Article taken from The Great Debate – http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate
URL to article: http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2014/02/11/why-the-far-right-fears-change-in-chattanooga/

#StagehandView: Makes Me Want to Buy a Volkswagon

 

 

This article was tweeted to me a couple of days ago from the UAW. It was published Tuesday, February 11th, 2014, in the Chattanooga Times Free Press. It’s a worker’s take on why he’ll be voting yes in what could be one of the most significant union elections in recent U.S. history. That, and I’m behind schedule with pretty much everything in my life. So here, learn some potentially good news. -BPW

King: Having a voice — VW worker supports UAW

 

Copyright ©2014, Chattanooga Publishing Company, Inc. All rights reserved.

#StagehandView: Labor Notes, It’s Not Just for Labor Geeks Like Me

First off, comments are enabled. So dig in.labornotes.org

That said, be aware that I am the moderator of your comments. And, while I encourage a lively debate, I won’t tolerate meanness. To quote myself in an earlier Stagehand View post, “don’t be a dick.” That’s my only rule and I am the only interpreter or enforcer of that rule.  I’m not saying you can’t tell me you think I’m wrong. Quite the opposite, I hope you give full voice to your dissent from or critique of my opinions. Anything I write on this blog is fair game. But this is not the forum for any personal vendettas; if you go after individuals (especially by name) there’s a good chance your comment will not see the light of day. Like I said, my blog, my rules. Start your own if you want something different.

Oh, I guess I lied. There is one more rule for commenting: you have to register as a user of this website and give an email address to take part in the discussion. Sure you can make up a fake name and use a burner email address … if you’re too big of a wuss to stand by what you say. But I hope you don’t because that’s just not as much fun.

Otherwise, I’ve gone back and enabled the comments for all of past Stagehand View blog posts. You’re welcome to comment on those, as well as this and all future posts.

I think that’s all the housekeeping I’ve got to do.

Moving on to this week’s blog. I’m not going to lie to you.  I’ve got nothing. I’ve been loading in and teching Austin Lyric Opera‘s Tosca this week, my bathroom remodeling project sits stalled at the halfway point because our original tile guy is a horse’s ass who bailed at the last minute, and a bunch of other crap you don’t care about has happened, as well. Put simply, I’m tired this morning.

Troublemaker's UnionSo here are some links to just a few of the great articles published by my one of my favorite news sources, Labor Notes.

My favorite article from last month’s issue debunks the myth of the so called skills gap in the U.S. Don’t believe the hype. The only gap that exists is between what employers are willing to pay for highly skilled workers and what those workers are willing to work for. Another good piece from that same issue talks about how Seattle has elected a socialist city council member who ran on a tax the rich/$15 minimum wage platform. Or, in case you still think organized labor should continue its unholy alliance with the Democratic Party, you should read the article about how the unions in Lorain County, Ohio successfully fielded about two dozen independent labor city council candidates. And my last recommendation is that you read Jenny Brown’s concise recap of 2013. All in all, last year had some glimmers of hope for the American labor movement. Mostly in places where union members decided to start acting like they’re part of a social movement again.

Not sure why every union local in the country (including Local 205) doesn’t subscribe to Labor Notes. They offer steeply discounted rates for union locals that want to get the print version in bulk. I think it might make a nice (and informative) attendance prize for our monthly meetings.

That’s it for this week. I’ll have slept more by next Monday, and I’ll try to do better.

#StagehandView: Are You a Trade Unionist or an Industrial Unionist?

First off, I learned today that what I’m sure must be the thousands of you reading this blog haven’t had the ability to comment. I guess that explains why nobody’s chimed in to point out why I’m an idiot. Please accept my apologies for assuming you could comment and were merely choosing not to. The Newsletter Committee and the Communications Committee are currently working to make comments possible.

There’s got to be a joke in there: How many union committees does it take to add a widget to a WordPress site?

Sorry I don’t know the punch line yet. I guess we’ll all learn together.

Speaking of learning, it was a great meeting today that mostly moved along nicely and allowed everyone a chance to have their voices heard. I was rather proud of my local today … for the most part.

Except for this one thing.

I get that the IATSE is a trade union, I do. I also get that trade unions make up the deepest roots of the once mighty tree that is the American labor movement. Trade unionism should be honored. It has earned a spot  in the annals of history for all time as one of the great progressive social movements. We’ve all seen the bumper stickers about unions and weekends.

Unfortunately for us working stiffs, trade unionism’s not holding up so well here at the beginning of the 21st century. And it’s long, proud past does not make it any less obsolete. I mean, how many people do you know who work a single, forty hour a week day job with free insurance and a fully funded pension? I know, we’re stagehands, we always work weekends. But I think you see my point. American trade unionism has failed. Most of its gains have been lost. Case in point, a new (union represented) auto worker at Ford gets paid the same as his friend who works non-union at the Toyota plant across town.

Which is why sometimes can’t help myself and I stand up at union meetings (like I did today, you should have seen me, I was on fire) and rail against the well-intentioned trade unionists in our local who cling to what are essentially irrelevant (i.e. trade unionist) ideas about who should or should not be allowed to join our elite (ist) band of sisters and brothers. The only qualification for membership we need to concern ourselves with is whether or not a person is working in Austin as a stagehand. Their knowledge or stagecraft or unionism is irrelevant. Our doors should be flung wide to all who would enter. Any sort of litmus test that makes an Austin stagehand hesitate before joining local 205 hurts every stagehand in town, regardless of whether or not they have a card. Every time we sit on an application (for whatever reason), or do anything but respond to a membership inquiry with a hearty “Hell Yes,” it’s basically the same thing as sitting down at the negotiation table and telling our employers we want them to pay us less and abuse us more.

At this point in history, local 205 needs the unorganized stagehands of Austin a hell of a lot more than they need us.

We have to organize our jurisdiction. But first we have to reorganize ourselves. Just because the IATSE is trade union, that doesn’t mean this local can’t act like an industrial one.

So what the hell is an industrial union? An industrial union takes the stance that any divisions between workers hurt workers. That includes “craft” divisions. An industrial union works from the assumption that anybody who’s been hired to do the work should be in the union, no exceptions. And that’s the attitude the members of this local need to embrace if we ever want actual power.

I’m sure I’ll regret it when the comments get turned on. But let’s start the debate. If you’re in the trade union camp then please present your side of the case. I’ll publish it as long you’re not a dick about it.

Got even rantier than normal today, sorry. But the meetings get me all riled, sometimes.

To close on a happy note:

Welcome Jessica Dunbar to the union the next time you see her. She took her oath today and made us all stronger.

#StagehandView: White Privilege and Cannibal Capitalism

This week was supposed to be all about parliamentary etiquette. But you’re in luck because I had an exchange on Facebook the other day which I’m going to write about instead. It started when I posted an essay someone shared on the timeline of a friend. I recommend reading the article. It’s concise and talks about another, I’m guessing longer, piece on “white privilege” which I have not yet read. If you want to, here’s the link. If not, it basically does a pretty good job of parsing out the term white privilege into many of its perhaps lesser considered facets. In essence, the author makes the (I believe valid) point that white privilege exists in many aspects across all sectors of our society. It’s not just an economic term that deals with relative wealth.

White PrivilegeThat’s not to say relative wealth is not a huge part of white privilege, but it’s messier than that; there are no clearly drawn lines. For example, one type of white privilege the author noted was the fact that most white people in America get to choose whether or not to live and associate with other folks who look like them. That’s not as true for most blacks. Another way whites are privileged is how they are treated by banks, law enforcement, and the education system.

So that’s the basic set-up.

After I posted this link on my friend’s timeline, one of his FB friends ripped into it.

My friend’s friend attacked the entire idea of white privilege, rather than the nuanced critique of it found in the article. Given that he showed no evidence of having read the article, I chose not to engage in a FB “debate.” But I gathered from his comments that he’s a military recruiter who regularly interacts with very poor, very desperate white people. Given his day to day experiences, it’s not surprising that he views the term white privilege as just another wedge being used to keep the working class divided. And he’s right. Race identity has a long tradition of obfuscating class distinction, especially in the U.S.

Examples: Poor Southern whites mostly sided with their exploiters to die by the tens of thousands in defense of American slavery. Similarly, impoverished African Americans have been used as strike breakers against racist, if not whites-only,  unions since the end of the Civil War. And the use of ethnicity to divide the working class isn’t limited to black vs white. But that’s a whole other discussion.

So yeah, my friend’s friend has a point about white privilege being a touchy trope. But that shouldn’t put it outside the realm of discussability. And the concept should not be summarily rejected as a tool for viewing and discussing our culture. Especially not by working class people who are trying to at least slow down the cannibal capitalists who so adroitly manipulate white privilege to their advantage.

Read the article and decide for yourself. But I think white privilege is a complex bundle of ideas, beliefs, and assumptions. It’s more than a purely economic concept. And it does a disservice to working people to oversimplify it like my friend’s friend. To reduce it to its economic factors is to cede the argument before it’s even begun.Cannibal Capitalism

Human existence is about more than consuming and excreting. We are innovative and creative beings with needs and curiosities far beyond feeding and sheltering ourselves. Workers are more than bio-mechanical units of production. I get that our current iteration of Western Civilization is a realm where the fight for economic justice has forced its way to the top of our priority list. But that doesn’t make other, non-economic, factors unimportant. On the contrary. When working class thinkers and agitators bow to the pressures of expediency and disregard the non-economic, but still fundamental, realities of human life, we tacitly agree to their irrelevance. We grant the victory to the cannibal capitalists who have always maintained that the vast majority of humans are merely semi-disposable units of production. And that degrades the promise of all humanity.

#StagehandView: General Robert Rules Again!

I'm an idiotFirst off, huge correction to an old post. It’s, what, my fourth? And I’m already correcting and retracting. How’s that for establishing credibility? In the Stagehand View dated December 23, 2013, I missed a huge typo that changed the meaning of a very important sentence. Here’s what I wrote on the day I shamed myself:

“I get the sense they feel a union member who doesn’t come to meetings is sufficiently committed to the cause.”

Here’s what I meant to say:

“I get the sense they feel a union member who doesn’t come to meetings isn’t sufficiently committed to the cause.”

The latter sentence is how the post now reads. My apologies for what must have seemed liked, at best, a non-sequitur.

It’s funny how the human eye and brain conspire to show us what we expect to see of the world. I just checked the number of times I revised that December 23rd post: I saved twelve drafts. That means I read that sentence, with its huge mistake, at least a dozen times. And I’m a pretty decent editor! Except when it comes to my own writing.

Look at that! Already bumping up against two hundred words and not even a mention of Robert’s Rules of Order. I’m getting good at this, huh?

Today’s Lesson:Robert's Rules of Order 10th Ed.

I think I promised to start describing all the different motions. So that’s what you’re stuck with today.

Business is brought before an assembly by the motion of a member. A motion may itself bring its subject to the assembly’s attention, or the motion may follow upon the presentation of a report or other communication. (p. 26, lines 14-18)

The thing to keep in mind from this quote is that whoever wrote it had trouble expressing him or herself in a written medium. …

Seriously though, it doesn’t say anything about a motion “following upon” the protracted musings of one or more members. Motions start discussions at a meeting. And usually they take the form of “main motions.” To quote Robert, “The main motion sets a pattern from which all other motions are derived.” (p. 27, lines 1-2) Most of the motions anybody ever makes at a union meeting are main motions with the intention of getting the local to do something, anything. They didn’t get dubbed ‘motions’ because they’re intended to grind the meeting to a halt, despite what you may have personally witnessed.

All of this is not to say you can’t or shouldn’t ask questions. It’s every members’ responsibility to understand what the local’s doing. And when they don’t, they should ask questions until they do. There are even parliamentary guidelines dictating how this should be done. I’m not going to talk about a single one of them. You are more than welcome to learn them and let them be your guide. But I’ve never cared enough to bother learning them. I haven’t needed to. Local 205 is a pretty small deliberative assembly with a tradition of informality at its meetings that I think fits it well. Most of the time.

As my first quote of the day indicates, motions are often responses to reports “or other communication.” For example, the education committee could give a report at a meeting highlighting the fact that we have apprentices but no apprentice training program. They could present the case that this is, at the least, an unethical stance for a union local to maintain. In response to this, a member could make a motion to immediately promote all the local’s apprentices to journeymen because it’s unfair to sentence them to three year probations without offering them the means to attain full membership status. Or, even better, the committee itself could have ended its report with such a motion. This would have cut out the need for an individual member to make it or second it. (Since a committee  is made up of more than one person, it’s always assumed it seconds any motions it makes). Then folks could talk about it and hopefully vote on it.

After that enlightened motion passed, a member could follow up by making another one to amend our constitution to delete any mention of apprentices or apprenticeships. Of course, special rules would apply to this specialized motion. For example, it would have to be in writing and be read at three consecutive meetings before we could pass it. But we’d be well on the way to giving the new VP a blank canvass on which to paint the Local 205 education program.

How do you like my hypothetical example which I made up for purely educational purposes? No hidden agendas at work here, I assure you. Well, nothing hidden anyway.

But seriously, I hope this little exploration of the main motion has helped. Look for more on Robert’s Rules of Order next week. And who knows what else.

 

#StagehandView: General Robert in Motion

Broken NutcrackerHappy Monday! I hope your holiday season is going exactly according to plan. Mine’s been lovely, relaxing, and productive all at once. Another Ballet Austin Nutcracker has come and gone, and my bank account is deceptively full.

Robert's Rules of Order 10th Ed.But enough happiness and gratitude, let’s talk Robert’s Rules of Order. No more lollygagging.

Today we’re talking about the motion, the parliamentary engine that allows us to get stuff done in spite of ourselves. The use of motions to enact the wishes of the assembled membership keeps us from doing more than one thing at a time, which is a good thing. When we’ve got a motion on the floor we have to deal with it. Admittedly, there are times when it feels like we’re not working on one item at a time (or not working on anything at all), especially when we’re hip deep in the amendments and fine details of a main motion. That’s where a strong chairperson comes in. A good chair can not only navigate those intricacies, he or she can bring the membership along for the ride. Being a presiding officer is a tough job to do well. I remember spending crazy amounts of time reading Robert’s Rules when I was president. I wonder if it makes sense to send our next chief executive and VP to parliamentary procedure class? They offer them online.

But there I go lollygagging.

One Item at a TimeBack to motions. They help us by keeping us focused on only one item of business at a time. They’re hierarchical. Certain motions take precedent over others. Some motions are debatable, some require a second and some don’t. Their interactions can get complex. Though that depth of parliamentary knowledge rarely comes into play for organizations like Local 205. It’s important to keep something in mind when learning the basics of Robert’s Rules of Order: as Brother Charlie Haymes put it, “Everything you need to know about Robert’s Rules of Order is in the first quarter inch.” He had something pithy to say about the remaining inch and a half of the book as well. But I’m pretty sure I’ve already misquoted him so I’ll stop. Even Robert’s Rules, in its preface, councils the novice to concentrate on the first five chapters. For now, just remember this about motions: A motion begins discussion, not the other way around. Do not be fooled by the deplorable habits of this local. It’s bad form to stand up and blather on about some idea you might have. Use the motion forms that I applaud the E-board for supplying and make a motion. Assuming it’s seconded, then it’s open for discussion. Not before.

Getting back to the beginning of Robert’s Rules. It starts off by defining a “deliberative assembly,” then it goes on to define it some more. It gets very in-depth. But we know “deliberative assembly” means members in good standing at an official meeting, so we’ll skip that part. Up next Robert defines more terminology, this time it’s the “Rules of Order.” [I’m telling you this stuff is riveting. I can’t believe you haven’t read it already.] The Rules of Order are not the by-laws. Ours can be found appended to our by-laws. These are simply the rules we’ve all agreed to play by as members of Local 205. For example, did you know the following was one of rules we all swore to abide by when we joined:  “refreshment, other than cold water, shall not be allowed in the headquarters of this local while the meeting is in session?” I guess we ignore this one because we don’t have an HQ. Either way, I’m pretty sure I saw a couple of boxes of donuts at the last meeting.

Seems like it might be time to take a serious look at some of our standing rules and whether or not they really serve our interests. I, for one, am proudly pro-donut!Donuts

Again you’ve let me wander completely off topic. You’ve got to keep a tighter leash on me or we’ll never get through this.

Oh well, doesn’t matter. I just noticed I’m well over five hundred words, which means I can end this post. And since I’m really not feeling it today, I will.

I kind of want a donut.