The question is what do I have to lose by us going union, here are a couple of reasons just off the top of my head.
1. The company is already running on tight profit margins now, unionizing the workforce would make us less competitive. The first contract may only involve pay and benefit increases and then next contract talk they start asking for work rules in addition to further pay raises, it never stops, the unions never stop asking for more and with each concession the company gives, our non-union competitors get a little larger piece of the LTL market as the company's profit margin shrinks more and more.
2. You guys can say what you will, but IMO, a guy who busts his butt day in and day out, moving freight and hustling on the dock is looked upon by management more favorably than a guy who is lazy. I don't brag about myself, but I what I'm about to say, I think others can relate. I come to work every day and kick ass. My numbers are consistently high as in stops per hour, mm per hour, and a small percentage of docked freight vs. loaded freight. I have higher numbers than 2/3 of the other guys and some day, I'm going to make a mistake where a manager will have to choose to give me a discussion letter or an LOI. I've already seen where my track record has helped to reduce the amount of negative paper going into my file. While this may not change with a union shop, the results of my effort does. Now, the slacker is on the same platform as I am and management is no longer able to consider things like productivity and attitude when disciplining a driver. I like feeling that my hard work counts for something. Unions encourage mediocre performance because of a reduced of fear of being disciplined or even fired, I don't want to be lumped in the mix with the slackers in my barn. I happen to think that it's important for the health of a company that there is a certain amount of fear amongst the workforce that someone could lose their job, it's an important tool that a company can use to get a slacker off his back and start working up to minimum acceptable standards. Go ahead and laugh at me cynics, I don't care.
3. It's no secret that those who hold power within the Teamsters leadership donate money collected from dues to the PAC's of political candidates. That's BS, I will decide which candidates I support and which ones I won't.
To sum it up, the risk of my company going out of business in the future goes higher, so I risk losing my job. I lose my pride to union mediocrity. I lose dues money to political candidates that I would never donate to given the choice.
I don't know exactly what you mean when you use the word "cares," but I think they do care as much as they can in today's tough marketplace. They are raising money right now for the Con-way families who were damaged in Joplin, MO after the storms came through. At our barn, the company always does something to comfort an employee who loses a loved one. An argument could be made that because we took a paycut and lost the 401k match, that the company doesn't care about us. To me that's a selfish and simplistic argument because non of us drivers have any clue as to the big picture the company has going forward. Some of you guys who have some time at this place have become insulated to the changes in the job market that have occured over the last few years. It's not like it was, where you quit one 20+ dollar/hr job and go find another one. The labor market is tight right now and employers know it, the timing for talking about organizing is bad.
When I hired in, I didn't expect the company to "care" about me as it's no secret that any large publicly traded company's first financial obligation is to it's shareholders and top money makers. The money works it's way down the chain to the labor force, as it should be, since the labor force has the least amount of financial risk involved with the company.
