BLACK-LISTED

[BlackSun]

Hi, though I've been reading stuff off and on for awhile, this is my first post here so if I started off wrong in any way, please excuse me.

I work in the New York unionized construction field. It appears that I'm black-listed. Naturally, how it works, when something like that happens, no one will just come straight out and tell you to your face. You just pick up the vibe by alot of strange things consistently happening.

Anyway, I believe this came about by me being an activist in the union and on the job-sites. By that I mean being an activist beyond the fake perameters that the union (which in reality are the companies' tool) operates on.

So the reason for me bringing this up (since it is a form of discrimination), I'm asking for advice on how to cope . . . especially in getting work (funds are almost zero while bills are piling up and rent is due).

Thanks, at least for having the concern to give it some attention (believe me, this is not easy for me).

[Amusing Scrotum]

I know you don't seem to have a great deal of faith in the unions you are/have been involved in -- "By that I mean being an activist beyond the fake perameters that the union (which in reality are the companies' tool) operates on." -- and you've probably got solid practical and theoretical reasons for this. Reasons which I'm certainly not going to argue with.

But still, with regards this issue, have you tried contacting your union? If you've not, then I imagine they may be able to help you some way. Even if its just by telling you, definitively, that you've been blacklisted -- which is information that, either way, could help you sort your own situation out.

If you've been blacklisted -- could you maybe expand a bit on exactly what this means? for instance, how many work opportunities have you lost out on so far? -- then I suspect, bar an outpouring of workplace support which sees your colleagues down tools until your hired again, you're going to have to look for alternative employment.

Which isn't going to be easy, especially if you've spent your whole working life in one particular industry. And if you're past the age where "retraining" is seen as an option. But you've got eat, pay bills, etc., etc. -- so you're going to need to find a money source soon.

Additionally, you could try and contact the IWW. As far as I know, they have a largish presence in New York and they may be able to help -- for instance, they have recent experience of this type of thing with regards Starbucks workers, so it can't hurt to get in contact with them.

Other than that, I can't really help any more. Though, there are a few older members here who'll may be able to give you better advice. They are, in no particular order, Luís Henrique -- he's a union rep, unless memory deceives me -- Alf and devrim -- they both have a fair amount of experience with regards workplace activism -- Communist League (Miles) -- again someone who's older than most of the board's membership, and therefore has more experience -- syndicat -- again has years of experience -- and Severian -- who again, has done more union work than most.

The last three, Miles, syndicat and Severian, live in the States, and have links to organisations over there. So they may be better help than others; but whatever the result, good luck.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

As a union rep, I can only agree with AS here: get some advice!!

Can you get legal advice too (via your union, or otherwise)?

Have you tried a Google search on this??? Some union somewhere in the US will have something on this to help you, I am sure.

The situation in the UK is totally different, where even though there are blacklists, the unions here are much stronger, and so bosses cannot get away with whatever they like (in many areas of work).

Let us know if this advice is any use!!!

And good luck!

[BlackSun]

Amusing Scrotum and Rosa Lichtenstein, I appreciate your concern and input, I really do, but I think you have a serious misconception here. I'M TALKIN' ABOUT THE UNION!!!

I don't mean to be brash, still, I can see that you have no idea of the corruption that's going on in the New York construction trade. Although I have no solid proof, all inidications points to the union being behind it. Believe me, this is not paranoia either.

Still, like I said, I really appreciate your help. I'll look up the IWW and see what happens.

Thanks again.

[TC]

you really don't give a lot of specific information so i don't see how anyone can really offer advice...you've not said what evidence you have that you were blacklisted or what you did exactly to piss people off. moreover, surely hiring is up to management not union officials even if you have to be a member of the union.

[Devrim]

Originally posted by TragicClown+June 25, 2007 01:44 am--> (TragicClown @ June 25, 2007 01:44 am) moreover, surely hiring is up to management not union officials even if you have to be a member of the union. [/b]
I have worked in closed shops, but never in a place where the union controls hiring, and firing, but they exist. I notice that your personal details that you are from London, so I will give an example from there. On Fleet Street up until the mid eighties hiring was controlled by SOGAT 82, and the NGA. I wouldn't be surprised to see the same thing in construction in NYC.

Black Sun, I don't have much advice to give really. I don't know much about practical things in the US. AS puts it bluntly:



Amusing Scrotum
then I suspect, bar an outpouring of workplace support which sees your colleagues down tools until your hired again, you're going to have to look for alternative employment.

I doubt that you are going to get this, so it looks like you are looking for a new job.

Best of Luck,

Devrim

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 24, 2007 05:34 pm
Amusing Scrotum and Rosa Lichtenstein, I appreciate your concern and input, I really do, but I think you have a serious misconception here. I'M TALKIN' ABOUT THE UNION!!!

I don't mean to be brash, still, I can see that you have no idea of the corruption that's going on in the New York construction trade. Although I have no solid proof, all inidications points to the union being behind it.
More details needed. Which union? Are you applying for work through the union hiring hall and being turned down? Are the union officials not referring you, or do they refer you and the employers reject you? You say you don't have solid proof...so I'll leave aside the laws against refusing someone work on the basis of union activity. (Basically, NLRB stuff.)

If you can find some solid indication of why you can't get work (not necessarily legal proof, but enough to convince other union members) you might be able to talk up your problems, get other workers to put pressure on the union officials, take it up on the union meeting, etc. If you're known as as a solid union activist, and if there's any smidgen of democracy at all in your union, you might be in a good position to press them to reverse this, especially if they're not giving you referrals.

This Union Democracy site talks about a couple types of construction blacklisting and how to combat 'em. (http://www.uniondemocracy.org/UDR/40-AUD%20construction%20conf.htm)

Union officials often wield substantial control over who works and who doesn't. Rick Garrett, executive board member of the member IBEW Local 58 in Detroit, noted that where fair hiring does exist, members feel free to speak up at meetings, run for office, and exercise their full range of democratic rights.
But how do you fight for change in unions where members are intimidated by past blackballing? Based on their experiences, workshop participants offered a combination of tactics: organize a core group of activists and confront business agents at meetings; use your right, enforced by the NLRB, to meticulously monitor referral lists; most important, remind fellow unionists that fair hiring is a fundamental principle of solidarity on which union strength depends. If, for example, unionists are blackballed for protesting against unsafe working conditions, you can demonstrate that a defense of a fair hiring system is a key to the defense of working conditions on the job.

Most union contracts give employers the unlimited right to reject any job applicant even those referred from the hall. The employer is not required to justify the decision; the victim has no recourse. Good stewards and good union activists who get the reputation of insisting on contract enforcement soon find that they can't get work; they are rejected without cause; the grievance procedure becomes a mockery. What good is filing a grievance, even winning, if it becomes the road to future rejection? At the last IBEW convention, delegates voted to instruct their international officers to get rid of that obnoxious provision in their contracts.

If I knew which of those you were dealing with I could maybe say more.

You could talk to people in the New York branch of the Socialist Workers Party (contact info) (http://www.themilitant.com/direct.shtml#8), I know they've done some stuff relating to the Carpenters' strikes and organizing efforts so they may know more about the construction unions in NYC than I do.

[Alf]

As Devrim says, hard to give day to day advise on a situation like that. If you are simply acting as an isolated individual with no chance of any solidarity action, you might be able to seek 'legal' redress but the costs would probably be prohibitive. However, the points you make about the union, as a tool of management, being the main problem are absolutely correct and it's always valuable to publicise real, concrete cases of this. From the point of view of left communists like Dev and myself, this isn't a problem with particular unions but with all unions in this period of capitalism. Maybe you could begin by saying more about it on this thread.

[BlackSun]

I appreciate all of your concerns and inputs. Devrimankara is basically correct. I'll try to lay it out like this, the particular local I'm a member usually sends members who are on the union-hall's "out of work list" to the construction site when opennings become available. The workers who are directly hired by the company (commonly known as "company men") is a small percentage. Right from the start, this gives the union tremendous power.

Now when you reach the top of the list, based on people before you being called out, you have a limited amount of days (20 to be exact) to be working on a job before you are sent back to the bottom of the list, meaning it'll be four to six months before you're called again. So if you go past 20 days and you're not able to hold the job long enough to reach the level to apply for unemployment insurance, you're out of luck.

Now that's the hiring process. As for getting laidoff, because you don't get fired in New York construction; besides it giving them a bad image, it's illegal for them to be shown to have anything to do with causing someone to lose their job. So, if it is done; to which I strongly believe it is, they'd have to do it in a underhanded way. That's why I'm kinda apprehensive about giving the exact name of the local because I can't outright prove it and I don't wanna get hit with libeor slander or whatever.

However, my primary purpose for bringing this up here, besides alerting people to what's going on in New York construction, is to get advice on finding other line of work in the New York area because I've already come to terms with the hard reality that I'm gonna have to say "bye-bye" to construction after being in it over twenty years.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Looks like you need legal advice.

Is it the same in other US cities?

Could you work in Newark, Buffalo, Boston, or Baltimore?

Also, try the suggestions Sev made; they might help.

[praxis1966]

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 25, 2007 10:16 am
Looks like you need legal advice.

Is it the same in other US cities?

Could you work in Newark, Buffalo, Boston, or Baltimore?

Also, try the suggestions Sev made; they might help.
That's probably not really feasible. The poor SOB is already pretty close to out of money, and except for Newark, the places you're talking about are all hundreds of miles away. Pretty difficult to relocate that far away if you don't have any money.

At any rate, you more or less did touch on something I was thinking. I don't know too much about the union situation in NYC, but it sounds like Black Sun is going to have to find someplace else to work if he wants to stay in construction. I was thinking perhaps Trenton or even Philly, if not Long Island or something along those lines. It seems to me that you should be able to find something in the area.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Praxis, I do not know the situation in the US, but in the UK one can get free legal advice from the Citzen's Advice Bureau.

I know those cities are a long way away, but so is Philly.

[BlackSun]

Again, I’m grateful for all your consideration and recommendations. Severian, you, Rosa Lichtenstein, praxis1966 and the rest offered some good advice. I’ll check out the New York branch of the Socialist Workers Party and see what happens but my primary concern right now is to start working again ‘cause I definitely don’t want to be forced to check into the local homeless shelters and have my personal valuable stolen . . . or to even sell ‘em off just to eat.

As far as an actual lawsuit, I could deal with after I get situated but I doubt if I’ll even bother. It’s not about fear or anything like that. It comes down to will I be able to prove it. And within the atmosphere of the present day union and the construction industry in New York, that’s highly unlikely. You just won’t believe what has transpired over the past ten years. They systematically got rid of a lot of the union officials who gave a damn about the members. And as for the regular members, these days they’re so docile, it ain’t funny. I know I may seem really pessimistic but I’m really being honest.

Anyway, thanks and if anyone have more to add please do.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

I am sorry if you misunderstood me, I was merely referring to legal advice, not a lawsuite!

Let us know how things work out!!

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 26, 2007 04:47 pm
my primary concern right now is to start working again ‘cause I definitely don’t want to be forced to check into the local homeless shelters and have my personal valuable stolen . . . or to even sell ‘em off just to eat.
Right, of course you need to find some other work 'cause it'll take time for any other solution. I know there is some non-union construction in New York....and I hope other jobs.

I hope you don't give up working on this just because you're working on something else. It's not just that you should have the right to work in the trade you know: it strengthens the bosses and bureaucrats, intimidates other workers, if they can run you out permanently.

****

One other thing about going after the union bureaucracy: it often helps to aim your fire at the employers - and let the bureaucracy get caught in the crossfire, sorta.

For example: (this could be all wrong in details, since I don't know the specifics, I'm just trying to give an example of the general idea):

If the union hiring hall is referring you and the employers are rejecting you - even if you suspect the union bureaucrats are encouraging them to reject you. Aim at the employers, who you know for a fact, and can prove, are involved.

Ask other workers to demand the union take action and get the employers to stop rejecting you. This has the advantage it doesn't seem like internal union factional conflict, which people will have different opinions on. It's straightforward, a union fighter being punished by the companies. Get people who support you to go to the union meetings where you're going to bring this up, or whatever works.

Then if the bureaucrats start feeling the heat to do something, if they are behind the problem all along - well, so much the easier for them to stop it.

Again, the specifics could be all wrong for the particular situation, but the general approach I and others have found useful in different situations.

***

I definitely see what you mean about legal stuff not being much use without proof, but if you can manage to find a lawyer who'll take the case on "contingency", it won't cost you anything if it doesn't work - the lawyer just gets a third or so of the money if you win.

[BlackSun]

Wow Severian, what you've said really hits home. I certainly won't give up on dealing with those low-life back-stabbing union sellouts. And what you suggest about go after the companies really brings alot of things to mind.

Thanks.

[BlackSun]

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 26, 2007 11:06 pm
I am sorry if you misunderstood me, I was merely referring to legal advice, not a lawsuite!

Let us know how things work out!!
How things work out.

Well, for weeks I've been filling out applications attaching my resume with a cover-letter (something new for me or anyone who has been in unionized construction as long as I have). The vast majority was done online which makes things a whole lot easier but there seems to be just one catch.

I've got years of experience and certifications up the wahzoo for the field of construction or maintenance, yet, nothing is happening. Now, although it's a very strenuous situation, I really would think anything of it being out of the ordinary. However, there's are websites for two majority utility companies that have jobs posting that totally fit my qualifications and for some strange unknown reason, until now, I couldn't get past a certain point to apply and submit my resume.

Playing on a nagging hunch, Sunday night I called a friend to check the websites for me. I didn't tell him everything, just asked him to do it (go through the steps of applying until it gets to the finally point then quit). I called him back and he said it was going great up to when he canceled at the very ended.

Yesterday I decided to go to the public library and use the computers there to see for myself. Sure enough, I was able to go all the way through with the applications with no problem.

Now, it may not be anything to it at all. Maybe it's just something wrong with my computer but I doubt it. Putting this in conjunction with everything else that's been going on lately . . . well, I'm not gonna give up or give in.

So that's what's been happening so far, life in the NWO.

[RedKnight]

The union might be mafia controled.

[BlackSun]

That have occurred to me but I'm not worry about it. Not to say that I think I'm Superman or something but that really doesn't bother me.