“As a union rep, try not to be judgmental,” the workshop presenter said. “Don’t jump to conclusions, don’t condemn people for not being exactly like you, don’t interrupt or become aggressive. Try to speak less and listen more.”
At which point I realized this is not a job for me. The part where I speak loudly, swear and denigrate people’s intellectual ability I’m good for. I’ll be a total overachiever. But the rest? I’m useless.
“The part where I speak loudly, swear and denigrate people’s intellectual ability I’m good for. I’ll be a total overachiever. But the rest? I’m useless.”
Well, Clarissa, if you’re a firecracker, exploding and making lots of sound and fury at a union meeting before immediately flaming out and dissolving onto silent fragements, I’d say that you’re probably a typical public institution union member.
Unions in private companies can still make a legimate difference in worker-management relationships — although several years ago they totally DESTROYED the one-of-a-kind General Motors – Saturn automobile management-union relationship back at the factory near my hometown in Middle Tennessee that was supposed to be a model for enlightened management-union relations in the future.
Fortunately, “right -to-work” laws that are currently being pushed hard by the Trump administration are rapidly diminishing the effectiveness of private unions.
But most public unions — like the Teacher’s Union in Chicago, with its strangle-hold refusing to hold bad teachers accountable and fighting reasonable school choice like vouchers — are far more perncious and tenacious. Hopefully our new Secretary of Education will move swiftly to correct those unconscionable failures to put students first.)
You have my sympathy in your struggles with Rauner. But you need to defeat him at the box office — not in union meetings.
(Well, it’s a full moon tonight in Arizona, so I have more exciting things to do than post blogs on this website that rarely get answered. I’ll say, “Goodnight, now,” and answer comments, if any, in the morning. ‘Bye.
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This is a very good union. Our non-tenured instructors have been unionized for a while, and I’ve seen the union defend their rights very effectively.
Useless professors are already protected by tenure, so the union won’t do anything there.
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A conservative literary critic and college professor
Clarissa's Blog 
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