Employers and workers adversaries? Yes

Employers and workers enter into the employment relationship with different goals and objectives just like us in the TWU Local 100. Generally the primary concern for the employer is profits and the survival and growth of the firm. However this principle does not fit with our employer which is a public sector.

Workers on the other hand enter into the employment relationship for two reasons. The first one is to obtain as high of a wage or salary income as possible, and the second is a sense of accomplishment and an outlet for goal directed behavior.

Are the objectives of our employer and us workers in conflict? Yes. That may be a simple observation, but there are a range of reasons that show this observation to be true.

In a capitalist economic system as ours the employment relationship combines elements  of both cooperation and conflict. The incentive for cooperation between us workers and our employer comes from the fact that each side needs the other. Without a work force our employer cannot operate or provide a transportation service. In addition it will not be able to exist without providing wages and jobs for the workers.

A recent illustration of this principle can be seen in the profession of doctors. Traditionally doctors have been self employed giving them little interest in unions. An increasing number of doctors however are being employed by health maintenance organizations (HMOs) as salaried workers. The competitive pressure on HMOs to hold down costs is forcing management to reduce physician’s  fees and increase each doctor patient load. The result is an increasingly adversarial relationship between doctors and HMOs and a new found interest on the part of doctors in unionizing.

We are aware our employer is a high conflict employer and our current boss loves to run business in a way that breeds conflict with an adversarial relationship between management and labor by attempting to obtain glory at the expense of labor. Our boss considers us as a source of labor that should be purchased as cheaply as possible and used only as long as management deems it fit. This type of behavior from our employer tries to keep labor cost down by paying wages and benefits as low as the market would allow. Also our employer provides little training  for workers by neglecting working conditions to hold down labor cost. Lastly  our employer is working employees for long hours or at an unreasonable speed thus allowing for workers to be laid off at the management’s discretion.

We here in why did you join the union must stand strong. We workers must not despair because we can clearly see that Samuelsen is getting along with the management and exploiting us. We must not allow this behavior to occur any longer. Remember the future is ours, use your power of voting to send Samuelsen and TBOU back to work.