An Officer's View
A motion was made for us to poll our membership to decide if our Local should vocally support mandated Covid vaccinations. Originally I was asked to dictate why I feel we should vote against this verbal support, but I don’t feel that will accomplish the correct outcome. I am not going to comment on freedoms lost or gained, scientific results (which are TOTALLY different depending on the news you watch/read), or my personal stand either way on this issue. I think most of us already have a stand one way or the other, and I am sure they will be commented on below in this thread, but I want you all to look at this motion another way.
Unfortunately, I feel this question at its root is extremely irresponsible, as well as potentially FATAL to the health of our Local. With the many other issues we are facing just within our local (2 different arbitrations, technicians fighting for fair performance evaluations, insurance rates and surcharges, et al) that are already causing a small rift in our membership, if we allow this questionnaire to go out I feel we are sealing our Local’s fate. It does not matter what the results are, this topic is SO dividing, I fear we will lose members over the results.
This questionnaire achieves nothing other than creating a declaration for our Local. We do not win political power, we don’t win any competitions or prizes. This summer the Company announced a sweeping layoff of our outside techs, and gave them the opportunity to retire early if they wanted to. We lost 11 members during that time, and we have lost 6 more techs since then. Our monthly dues intake in the spring was over $12,000/month. Last month it was below $9,000, so you can see some of the impact this layoff has had on us. By asking members to vote on this topic, then have to hear their side lost… I am so afraid we will no longer have a Local to be a part of.
I can remember when we had thousands of members and we were strong! This company has hit us very hard, and our Local now has 319 dues paying members (count as of 9/30/21). They have slowly decimated our numbers. We do not have NEARLY the strength we once did and we see them tearing us apart every day. We are a UNION. We need to work and fight together on EVERY topic we can under our contract. In just a couple of years our current contract will expire, and the likelihood is that we will need to strike to gain any sort of ground. We cannot allow opinionated and unaffecting motions like this one to be set before us, as it achieves nothing but conflict and discord.
- Curt Jones, sec/treas 7603