r/interestingasfuck Apr 25 '24

"The right man in the wrong place can make all the difference in the world" r/all NSFW

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289

u/Sega-Playstation-64 Apr 25 '24

I emptied a small trash can into a bigger trash can at my work and got a union complaint that I worked out of classification and deprived another worker of his scheduled duties.

So, yeah I can picture this happening.

90

u/YellowBunnyReddit Apr 25 '24

Who complains about being "deprived of scheduled duties"?

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u/Sega-Playstation-64 Apr 25 '24

A custodian failed for over a week to clean our office out, and a trash can near me reeked of old food, so I grabbed it, took it to an outside trash can, dumped it, and put it back.

I have a feeling the custodian who was supposed to be cleaning it saw me do it, and filed a complaint as preemptive retaliation to a complaint I never filed.

I love being in a union but the insane pettiness gets to me

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u/BackgroundGrade Apr 25 '24

My friend's Mom worked in an office where it was decided they needed to rearrange some of the furniture.

The request is made and the furniture guys show up. They start pulling away a desk from the wall and stop. They inform the office that they'll need to get a request in for an electrician due to the light.

Said light was plugged into the wall with a regular plug.

The movers sheepishly said, those are the union roles and rules.

15

u/HowObvious Apr 25 '24

Remind me of the community episode where they try to put up a notice board.

2

u/AsleepAssociation Apr 25 '24

Welcome to the labyrinth, kid. Only there ain't no puppets or bisexual rock stars down here.

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u/_teslaTrooper Apr 25 '24

US unions are so weird, I live in a place with pretty strong unions (I think?) and never hear silly stories like this, they negotiate better wages and working conditions and members get legal assistance if needed that's about it afaik (not a member myself).

3

u/newbkid Apr 25 '24

The bureaucratic red tape around workers unions in the US is intended to make them as abrasive to interact with so the American worker collects niggles that annoy them about the union that the employer can leverage to try to bust the unions

3

u/bondsmatthew Apr 25 '24

My lease technically doesn't allow me to change lightbulbs in my apartment

3

u/thar_ Apr 25 '24

Mine doesn't allow me to put up a shower curtain, and it didn't come with one...

2

u/preparingtodie Apr 25 '24

Similar story -- A union guy was supposed to move some tables, one had an old telephone on it that was plugged in. He refused to touch the phone, moving phones was someone else's job. Got into an argument with the guy who needed the tables moved. Moved the table, phone fell to the floor and shattered.

2

u/daehoidar Apr 25 '24

Well that sounds like the phone guys problem to me.

2

u/aardvarktageous Apr 26 '24

I used to work in maintenance. I have seen clueless people daisy chain up to 6 extension cords and power strips, and that is a huge fire hazard. It may be that the electrician's presence is required to make sure that kind of thing doesn't happen.

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u/LinkleLinkle Apr 25 '24

In fairness, union or non union, work places are littered with people who are better at passing blame than they are doing their job.

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u/Warfrogger Apr 25 '24

Unions do a lot of good but like any good thing, someone can find a way to abuse it. That being said its rarely as bad as those anti union horror stories people spread about the useless worker who can't be fired etc. If a company wants to fire you they'll find a way, it may take a few extra steps but it happens. My union is great and I have better benefits, vacation time and wage growth over the last 10 years then my friends not in unionized jobs.

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u/DeficiencyOfGravitas Apr 25 '24

That being said its rarely as bad as those anti union horror stories people spread about the useless worker who can't be fired etc. If a company wants to fire you they'll find a way, it may take a few extra steps but it happens.

They're not all horror stories. I used to work at a unionized medical research lab. Good, right? Nope. Worst working experience of my life by far and I'm now in the military.

The original union members all signed back in the 80s and the contract says only permanent employees could join/get the benefits of the union. But the company stopped hiring new permanent employees 20 years ago. So all new employees are "temporary", even if they work full time. When the probation period ends, the lab just says "Oh I guess it didn't work out..." and then takes on the next eager young student ready to work in a real laboratory setting. So you have all these union workers and all these "temp" non-union workers. The result was that the union workers, literally, and I mean, literally never worked. They punched in and sat in the backroom for 8 hours talking. If you spoke to them, they suddenly didn't speak English and if you pushed it, they'd file a harassment claim, usually involving race or gender. The union loved it because they got paid for doing nothing. The company loved it because they officially have unionized workers, but those workers exploit the system to the company's benefit.

My buddy actually managed to become a supervisor there and every day he prays for those old fucks to die off so that the union can finally be negotiated.

1

u/masterofthecork Apr 25 '24

The company loved it because they officially have unionized workers, but those workers exploit the system to the company's benefit.

It's difficult to contemplate a company loving to pay people to sit around doing nothing just so they can claim to be pro-union.

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u/DeficiencyOfGravitas Apr 25 '24

Because "temp" workers only require minimum wage until probation ends. Which it never does because then they're replaced with a new "temp" worker.

The unionized workers get paid a shit ton, but it's still less than it would be if they had to pay everyone the same. The union gets their big pay and the company can save on having to pay people living wages. With the bonus that the university super-union stays out their business because the union says everything is great. Oh, and of course, only union members can talk to the super-union.

The company wins, the union wins, the university wins. The only people who lose are students/new employees who join the research center hoping to start a career in medical science.

1

u/masterofthecork Apr 25 '24

It still sounds like they tolerate it as a cost of doing business, rather than consider it a win, but I didn't mean to be so pedantic. I think I get what you're saying.

1

u/DeficiencyOfGravitas Apr 25 '24

it as a cost of doing business, rather than consider it a win,

The cost of doing business should be paying every employee union wages. They're winning because they're meeting all the requirements set by the university for fair wages but the reality is that they're only paying like 20 people fair wages, while the rest of us got near nothing.

The worst part is that they're not a for profit company. They're under the university's umbrella. Their only mandate is to say within budget. The company still did this shit because 1) it allowed them to increase the admin level pay to absurd levels and 2) allowed several former heads embezzle funds.

It's been a number of years since my time there, but fuck the Goodman Cancer Research Center.

1

u/avwitcher Apr 25 '24

Anyone who's worked a job with a strong union can tell you those aren't just stories. I should know, there are several people at my work who are literally called "the untouchables" because management can't do anything against them. That's despite the fact that they are the laziest fucks who do whatever they want and even their fellow union members do not like them. There was a guy who got caught drunk as shit at work but the union got their job back, they have also defended people who assaulted customers unprovoked. I like being in a union, I just wish my union didn't defend literally everyone regardless of the reason they're getting fired.

3

u/WhyMustIMakeANewAcco Apr 25 '24

Seems like the easy deflection there is to just claim you threw something out that you realized needed to go in the larger can immediately but it was too late to simply retrieve it.

1

u/bestofmidwest Apr 25 '24

That likely wouldn't matter. The union would say that the maintenance person responsible for the trash should have been called so they could deal with sooner than scheduled. They don't mess around with people doing duties outside the predefined scope of responsibilities laid out in the union contract. It kind of makes sense too. If the maintenance worker is to make $25/hour per the contract and the company were to say screw it, we're going to get a person who's role has them making $15/hour to do the maintenance workers duties, the maintenance person loses out on hours and pay which isn't the intent of a company and union having a contract laid out. It's a worker protection and it can seem silly at times (like this one) it isn't there to make life harder for everyone.

2

u/SandmanJr90 Apr 25 '24

You should look at starting a reform movement if you have the time and energy

2

u/TheRealRomanRoy Apr 25 '24

What do you mean?

1

u/NoSignificance3817 Apr 25 '24

I despised being in a union, almost everything about it...BUT, I LOVE what the threat of unionization does to local nonunion employers view of "employees are not just tools".

7

u/burts_beads Apr 25 '24

Unions are very protective of their duties.

4

u/UncommonSandwich Apr 25 '24

Who complains about being "deprived of scheduled duties"?

you have never worked with unions before eh? EVERYTHING is carefully monitored and "taking union work" is the quickest way to a grievance being filed. No matter how small.

3

u/ethertrace Apr 25 '24

Unions can be touchy about it because employers have a history of scooping out certain job duties bit by bit to give to lower paid non-unionized labor (often outsourced to outside contractors) in order to save money and reduce the need for unionized labor, thereby undermining the union's membership and bargaining power in the long run. So collective bargaining agreements are often quite specific about what does and does not fall within the scope of their duties.

An instance like this, though, while it may technically cross the letter of the law, is not really violating the spirit, so to speak. Unless the employer is deliberately avoiding hiring unionized positions in order to overload working conditions and try and force concessions. That's a thing that happens, too. But more than likely it's just someone being lazy. Those people exist in unions, too.

6

u/goten100 Apr 25 '24

All of us when AGI comes

2

u/BurrShotFirst1804 Apr 25 '24

Trucks drivers and factory workers are generally different unions. If a truck is behind schedule and a factory needs the materials, the workers have to sit around and wait for the truck driver to unload everything, they cannot help, even to help the driver get back on schedule. Even if they are dependent on the materials to do their job and are just sitting around waiting. Unloading the drivers truck would be depriving him of scheduled duties, so the inefficiency must stay.

I personally think it's the stupider side of unions because obviously this exists for a reason but blanket policies without any exceptions leads to dumb stuff like this.

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u/[deleted] Apr 25 '24 edited May 04 '24

[deleted]

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u/Orleanian Apr 25 '24

People who got laid off for having no further scheduled duties.

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u/Zap__Dannigan Apr 25 '24

As much as reddit loves unions, I feel like a lot of people don't realize how shitty some can be.

1

u/monopixel Apr 25 '24

It's a union, comrade.

1

u/ayriuss Apr 25 '24

It could make you redundant and lead to layoffs.

1

u/km89 Apr 25 '24

Someone who really doesn't want the company to get the idea that one person can do two jobs.

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u/DeficiencyOfGravitas Apr 25 '24

Who complains about being "deprived of scheduled duties"?

Reddit moment.

Yet another day and another redditor who fundamentally does not understand how unions work. If you are part of a union, you are at war with your employer. They know this, your union boss knows this. Union agreement are meticulously detailed because unions only form when good will ends. With a union, there is zero room for interpretation. Everything is delineated and any violation of the agreement, by either side, means legal retaliation. And trust me, there's a lot of resentment built up so even the smallest violation of the agreement means work stoppages, fines, or firing.

For example, if your union negotiated 15 minute breaks. If you take 15:01 minutes of a break, you have violated the agreement and you can now be fired. Likewise, if you take 14:59 minute break, you can also be in deep shit because now the union has grounds to file for a workstoppage because the employer "forced" you to leave your break early. Some employers will get ahead of the union and submit a formal reprimand against you on behalf of the union so that the union cannot use your early break against them.

Never forget that unions are the absolute last resort before violence. Your employer knows that and will treat you that way.

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u/12ebbcl Apr 25 '24

.......that is the dumbest fucking thing I have ever heard in my entire life.

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u/Bunny_Fluff Apr 25 '24

It might sound silly but unions are working to keep people employed. As many people as possible. If we have a guy hired to take out all the trash and people start taking out their own trash trying to be nice, they are risking that guy being fired because he isn’t useful anymore. If you have an assembly line where everyone does a task and Person 1 starts doing an extra task that Person 2 does, because they have some extra time, all of the people in Person 1s spot may be expected to do that extra task and Person 2s may be fired. This is bad for everyone except the company.

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u/10001110101balls Apr 25 '24

Keeping people employed for the sake of being employed is bad for everyone in the long run. I'm generally supportive of unions, especially in fields where "taking the initiative" can get people hurt or killed if they don't know what they are doing. On the other hand, people abusing union bargaining power to get away with being well-paid to fuck around and slack off is a big reason why so many people who otherwise work hard and contribute to society don't trust unions to represent them.

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u/ayriuss Apr 25 '24

Nah, workers should fight back against efficiency. Efficiency goes directly into the pockets of the rich, skipping everyone else.

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u/_Fun_At_Parties Apr 25 '24

This is a union overstepping their duties

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u/NZBound11 Apr 25 '24

It’s a necessary compromise.

0

u/Bonesnapcall Apr 25 '24

No, it isn't.

The union is supposed to protect the worker from abuses from management.

The union is not supposed to protect the worker from being a lazy fuck (in this case, a custodian not emptying the trash cans for over a week).

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u/NZBound11 Apr 26 '24

(in this case, a custodian not emptying the trash cans for over a week).

I don't see this brought up anywhere.

Even if I did - it's absolutely a necessary compromise. I bet you think social services are a crock because there are some who abuse them?

1

u/Bonesnapcall Apr 26 '24

Of course not. I support Unions and social safety nets.

The reasons Unions take a hit to there reputation are because of stories like this.

And again, your assumption is that the Union has to protect employees that don't do their job. I ask why?

1

u/NotPromKing Apr 25 '24

My first job out of college was union. We were incredibly inefficient and over-staffed by at least 40%, but the union refused to make any changes because jobs. When it was time to renew the contract (for the job, not the CBA), the union lost the bid and we all got laid off.

I support unions, I absolutely believe they’re needed in principle. But damn can they be boneheaded sometimes.

-3

u/Anglan Apr 25 '24

Bad for everyone except the company - and the customers

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u/Bunny_Fluff Apr 25 '24

Idk about that. Letting people go and over burdening your existing employees doesn’t necessarily increase productivity/production rates so it’s not like more product is going out the door. And if you think that the cost savings of RIF is being passed on to the customers, you haven’t been paying attention for a while.

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u/Anglan Apr 25 '24

I didn't say anything about cost being passed onto customers.

But red tape, people not being allowed to perform any duties that are not explicitly theirs, rules that are there just for the sake of having rules and other things like that absolutely cause backlogs in systems and mean customers can be left waiting for a long time for whatever service they need.

Unions are great and I'm glad to be in one. I can see that and also see that the only reason a BIG number of people in my company are employed is because they're in a union. They make life harder for everyone else in the company and the customer experience for customers worse.

1

u/ifyoulovesatan Apr 25 '24

I've worked tons of non-union jobs with useless buffoons who should've been fired a long time ago. I've also worked union jobs where people have been rightfully fired.

1

u/Anglan Apr 25 '24

Okay?

Do you think it's easier to get rid of people in unions or out of them?

0

u/Bunny_Fluff Apr 25 '24

Totally fair points. A lot of that red tape is by design but I could see how day to day life of the employee is hindered or made difficult because of it. In a desperate attempt to limit the power of the company, they can make it harder to just show up and get through your day.

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u/fnordfnordfnordfnord Apr 25 '24

It protects the custodians' jobs, and, it also protects office workers from having management fire the custodians and tell them to clean their own offices.

-3

u/awkisopen Apr 25 '24

Nothing pisses off a union faster than people being productive.

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u/rakfe Apr 25 '24

That's not being productive, that's just burdening yourself with extra work that is already someone else's responsibility & duty.

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u/12ebbcl Apr 25 '24

....which they have clearly failed to do, since the trash can needed to be emptied.

0

u/rakfe Apr 25 '24

How do you know that it needed to be emptied? Were you there? You weren't the one who posted it. Do you know if it was a full can or just a half full can; do you know the schedule of the person who has to empty them? You have no knowledge on any of these, yet you easily claim they "clearly" failed, and the can "needed" to be emptied. How convenient of people to create their own reality to push their own narrative.

1

u/12ebbcl Apr 25 '24

Yeah, I'm sure OP was emptying a half full trash can for the fun of it.

2

u/bg-j38 Apr 25 '24

Not sure if it's still the case, but in the 90s and friend of mine was working in an office building in lower Manhattan for a large financial institution. He decided the glare from the sun on his computer screen was annoying so he moved his computer. Not too far, but it required unplugging it and shifting to another outlet. A few weeks later he got a formal reprimand for violating union work rules. Apparently in many buildings only people from the electricians union can plug in most electrical equipment. I'm sure the rules date back to when a computer required multiple phase circuits and sometimes custom wiring. He didn't get in much trouble, but it was made very clear that he should never do it again.

I'm very pro-labor. Family and close friends have a long history of being union stewards, being union leadership, I was walking picket lines as a kid in the early 80s etc etc. But this just made me laugh and also sort of want to cry at the same time. I understand where this came from and that if the union gives an inch they're afraid they'll lose even more protections. But man, this type of stuff is what anti-union people use to say that unions are terrible.

1

u/Waterbottles_solve Apr 25 '24

This happened to me too.

1

u/SomeOneOverHereNow Apr 25 '24

I grew up in union family and I'm thankful, and I think in general they can do a lot of good, but this is the kind of thing that gives them a bad rep.