The telco I work for has a strong labor union, with a solid work contract. There is however a hostile relationship between management and the union on a lot of issues, and partially because of that and to slash costs the company has a policy of giving employees exactly what they need to to stay in minimal legal compliance with our work contract and never more. This year we learned HR is willing to ruin your wedding if need be to enforce their policy, which they call "Contractual Obligations Only".

A few months ago, a union member working at tech support fell in love with a girl from Sales CSR. After a very brief courtship, they decided to do something I would generally not recommend, getting married ASAP. They were happy and in love and wanted to be on honeymoon within a few weeks top. They both had a very short list of people to invite to their wedding so they were okay with arranging it at a few weeks' notice.

This called for them to take vacations on short notice, which the work contract mandates given a notice of 10 business days. Usually, people think of it as 'two weeks notice', but it's not always that simple. They both gave notice for 2 weeks of vacations they'd need 2 weeks later to get married and go on honeymoon. They bought plane tickets, notified their small circle of friends and family, arranged for the ceremony and all that. Because the company is slow to process short-notice vacations claims, it was just 3 days before they were supposed to go when the bad news came down from Logistics: her vacations claim was approved, his' was denied. If he did not show up to work the next week without medical reasons, he could now lose his union job.

Logistics were technically within their rights. The two claimed on the same day, with exactly two weeks of notice, but failed to account for a holiday occurring in the next two weeks (which is not a business day). Her claim went through because her non-standard schedule (Tuesday to Saturday) gave the company an extra day to consider her claim, giving them the required 10 days - whereas his Monday-Friday schedule made him one short.

Non-refundable plane and vacation tickets, friends and family all planning around this event in a short timeframe, it was a perfect storm to make this a horrible experience for the two lovebirds.

I won't deny these two planned poorly and on too short notice, but it caused some outrage anyway when the story reached the floor and the break rooms that day. Even after being informed it was for a wedding, Logistics would not budge on refusing him his vacations, citing the 'Contractual Obligations Only' policy.

The guy I work with, Henry, was crushed by this whole mess ruining his dream wedding. Since I had been a union steward years before, Henry asked me if there was any way to bypass the 'ten business days thing'.

Maybe, sort of. Beyond normal vacations, holidays and sick days, there are extensive work contract provisions for 'special days off'. These include leave the company has to grant you without prior notice for everything ranging the death of a close relative to being sued or called for emergency national service. 'Special days off' are paid leave too, but things like death, being sued or being called for service hardly seemed to be things one could make happen on the spot. Still, there is another provision in the work contract that says if you have a paid 'special day off', you can - without prior notification - demand your leave be extended by up to ten unpaid work days that they must grant without question. That's typically to give you extra time to grieve if your relatives died but it applies to all special days off. Since the kid had no dying relative, seemed to me like the only way he'd get this done is by being sued and claiming his right to extend his leave by 10 unpaid days, which he'd have been thrilled to do under the circumstances. But there's no way to get a legal summon to appear anywhere at 48 hours notice, even small claims courts have months of backlog.

Because it was so ridiculous, people actually called the union office to ask union executives to plead with the company so he could attend his wedding. I was one of those calling, and I spoke briefly with the Union Veep for Call Centres (old friend) except I knew it would be impossible to get a letter of agreement (only way to bypass the company's COO policy) in such a short time frame and I specifically asked him about 'special days off' clauses and the provision on 10 days extensions. He later told me privately that my questions gave him the idea how to force the issue.

The next day, Henry got a perfectly legit legal summons to appear in front of an arbitration board over a civil suit in 48 hours, on Friday, the last day he was supposed to work before his previously planned vacations. Henry, flanked by the floor's union stewards, bought the paper to his manager. After lengthily confirming with HR, said manager confirmed he now had Friday day off to deal with his legal summon - a day entirely paid, to boot - and that it was indeed his right to extend this by up to 10 unpaid days off without notice. To comply with their own policy, because Henry was being sued, they had to respect work contract minimums. Henry demanded his 10 extra days, and the matter was settled; he could attend his wedding and go on honeymoon without risking his job. He now had it written on paper.

The news spread like wildfire that Henry had his vacations after all, but nobody really knew how or why. Most never will. It's probably for the best that way. Courts are normally clogged for months if not years in these parts.

The Union Vice-President for Call Centres made it happen after getting several calls about this situation from angry members. In this country, your union dues are deducted from your paycheque automatically according to the Rand formula so disputes between unions and their members over dues are virtually unheard of. One exception: unions who believe a member is getting income from their employment that is not accurately reported on their pay slips may sue for back dues and damages. This can be done in arbitration rather than small claims court if the employer is named as a defendant. And our union executives have an easy time calling for immediate arbitration if they deem an issue worth it. This was it; the Veep had been so moved by the story of the guy not allowed to go to his own wedding that the union filed for immediate arbitration of a thoroughly bogus civil damages claim, triggering legal summons to both Henry and the corporation's lawyers.

Friday that week, Henry showed up downtown to answer in a small closed session before a labor arbitrator - paid on the clock as per the work contract - to an allegation he had received work-related revenue from the company on which no union dues were paid. In the opening seconds of the session, the union 'apologized for making a mistake' and withdrew the suit.

Two pissed off evil corporate lawyers were in attendance. I'm told one of them said if we 'tried this again' there would be a suit for wrongful proceedings. Apparently the arbitrator understood what was going on well ahead of the session but still refused to acknowledge anything had been done in bad faith. You don't make many friends when your company policies are this stupid.

This did not change the fact Henry was now authorized to go away on unpaid leave for 10 days for his wedding and honeymoon. Henry and his sweetheart are happily married.

This is what things have come to in our world. This is by far the most WTF thing that happened at the company this year as far as I'm concerned.

TLDR: Company refused vacations on a technicality out of spite against the union even though it meant ruining two employees' marriage and honeymoon or forcing one to quit. The union responded by using a different technicality to force them to grant another kind of leave by levying (then throwing out) an undeniably and blatantly fake suit against the groom and the corporation.

In the 15+ years I worked at the Canadian telco I'm still employed by, I only had to go through one strike. It was bitter and nasty. Company used every last dirty trick in the book, including baseless media smear jobs to make us look bad. We were publicly and baselessly accused of network sabotage once they had issues with their networks, but in truth the only reason their network was failing all over the place then was that they were trying to use lousy contractors to handle regular maintenance while actual professionals were on strike because they were trying to contract-out nearly half our union staff. Company successfully leveraged that nonsense into close police surveillance; I literally had to march with a policeman on a horse four feet behind me at one point.

Though union solidarity was high during these hard times, someone seriously betrayed the local at the height of the strike. He was a union employee with serious seniority who had been elected as a steward. While a simple member of the union might not feel genuine loyalty towards the union, you don't usually get elected as a steward unless you stand for what the union believes in. Walking away from that means you're willing to drop those beliefs to say the least, and sadly that's exactly what happened. Militant members immediately called it outright treason and I don't feel they were wrong.

We were about 4 months into the strike, and the situation occurred when a manager decided to try something outright illegal. Union staff on strike was picketing the skyscraper where I still work at today, cleanly and orderly with all access points freely accessible as by law... when that manager got on a balcony and using a loudspeaker shouted..

Manager: "Hey, any of you losers want a real job? Drop your f****** cardboard, walk in and resign your stupid union job, I'll get you something."

That's of course utterly illegal. You can't offer non-union positions to lure people on strike away from their jobs in this country. Though union lawyers later successfully got a ruling in our favor over this incident in arbitration, one guy actually did instantly follow up on that offer. If it had been a simple member it wouldn't have been a big deal, but a frigging elected steward? He seemed intimidated by the close police presence but nobody expected that. We were almost all at a loss as he literally dropped his cardboard and walked in.

The union Veep in charge of all issues related to call centers was picketing with us and he had just the right song on hand, at a second's notice once he saw this happen. This steward's last name happened to be Robin, perfect match for one of the best jokes in 1975's hit 'Monty Python'. It's a well known song and a great joke about cowardly behavior. He knew an incident like this would damage morale, and to prevent that he just started signing it out of the blue!

Veep: "When danger reared its ugly head, he bravely turned his tail and fled! Yes, brave Sir Robin turned about and gallantly he chickened out! Bravely taking to his feet he beat a very brave retreat!"

Almost everyone on the picket line got the joke and started signing along within seconds.

Brave Sir Robin ran away
Bravely ran away away
When danger reared its ugly head
He bravely turned his tail and fled
Yes, brave Sir Robin turned about
And gallantly he chickened out
Bravely taking to his feet
He beat a very brave retreat
Bravest of the brave! Sir Robin!!

Morale on the picket lines held up and instead of being a demoralizing moment it became a joke worth remembering.

This guy eventually became a mid-level manager and sticked around for the long run, but there are people whose sole job is to lick envelopes who get more respect than him at this company. Any time he's alone with a union member in an elevator he gets a nod as we 'respectfully' call him "Sir Robin". Nobody would still care so many years later had he not pretended to care about union values when convenient - until upholding them became scary. Everybody can live with someone else having other beliefs, but literally breaking a picket line like that when you're being taunted to - pretty unique.

There'll always be incompetent employees around here, but I'll always respect them more than I will the guy who felt a RCMP cop on a horse was a more pressing concern than his continued loyalty to the oath he had sworn when he won that steward position.

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SOLIDARITY!

The page here is saturated with pro-union activity: https://www.reddit.com/r/walmart/

Walmart is the largest employer in the world, but not the only one. The torch needs to be passed around. One store or person at a time can be defeated, but getting huge swaths of the economy moving in the same direction can turn the tide.

Let's seize the moment.

I work at Ford, Michigan Assembly Plant, Local 900. Half my plant is officially on strike. As we go through this process here’s some financial figures to remind us of what we’re doing.

Here’s why we fight, and here’s Fords greed.

Fords profit last year was $23.66 BILLION dollars. Mind you, that’s not revenue, that’s profit. That’s what’s left over after the company pays all its costs.

Even during Covid, one of our slowest economic times in recent times, Ford made a profit of $14.39 BILLION.

Ford currently employs 57,000 UAW workers.

If Ford Motor Company DOUBLED our wage, it would cost the company roughly $3.81 billion.

That’s right folks. If ford all payed us double our salary, all year long, they’d still have made out with almost a $20 billion dollar profit to reward shareholders and fund buyback schemes.

We aren’t even asking for double, we are asking for a fair, middle class wage.

And FOMOCO should be happy that that’s all we’re demanding, because in all Honesty, we are due a hell of a lot more than what we’re asking. We’re due more than double what we’re asking.

Remember brothers and sisters, all profits are just the extra value of YOUR labor that the company keeps for themselves.

These companies want to keep us in line, they want to make us feel like we are lucky to work for them. No it’s the other way around, they are lucky to have us do the work.

I’m posting this on a couple different pages, including my timeline and non union pages, and I just want to say, if you aren’t currently in a union, look into what resources are available to start one at your place of work. If every working class person had access to collective bargaining we could change this world. We wouldn’t be drowning in debt. We wouldn’t be priced out of a housing market. We wouldn’t have to toil away all year long with the only luxuries you can afford is a handful of dinners and an Xbox.