Right-To-Work
July 28, 2016 at 4:25 p.m.
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Today the Republicans want to restrict the unions’ capability to hold corporations accountable for how they treat their employees by passing RTW.
It takes two things for the union to do this and they go hand in hand. One is members and two is money. Without either the unions’ ability to take on the corporations unlimited cash resources become a moot item.
The following is but one example of this abuse by the use of social security numbers. In 1981-1982 the company told all the employees an ID card with photo and SSN would be have to be worn at all times. A local union here in Warsaw grieved this abuse, saying this SSN was for social security money to be deposited in.
The union arbitrated and had a partial win in the SSN could not be made public. The SSN issues did not end with this one case but continued for what was to be 10 to 12 long years of disputes and four more arbitrations, each one building upon the proceeding one.
It was the last one that union finely got the issue not completely laid to rest, where both could live with. It was found out by accident that the corporation had made available to Radio Shack all 70,000 employees SSN to be used for verification purposes for employee discounts.
It was grieved and arbitrated. In this case the corporate headquarters sent in their lawyer to fight this issue. The company’s argument was this SSN data base was their property and as such they had the sole right to sell, give away, to make available to any 2nd or 3rd party the contents of this data base, (the union asked how about foreign countries) the company said including foreign countries Mexico, China and others.
This data base contained not only the employees’ names, addresses, phone numbers, and SSN, but also their customers as well. The company said this data base was a very much secured data base. It was proved to be false when the union presented a print out of paper five or six inches deep, a printout containing thousands and thousands of names and addresses, phone numbers and SSN.
The company verified the information as true. The arbitrator ruled for the union, and included the results of the other arbitrations, in his ruling. This data base of SSNs even though the company maintained it, was, for social security use, these numbers belonged to the employees and not the company, as such they could not be used for any other use without the employees’ or customers’ authorization.
It has been estimated that around 280,000 to 300,000 employees and family members were protected and approximately 70 to 100 million customers all benefitted from this ruling. Congress later passed a law where every man, woman, and child in this country also benefitted from this one local union’s willingness and what proved to be rather expensive employees rights in a work place. A law where no business could ask for a customer’s SSN for ID purposes. No SSN could be used on a drivers license.
Marvin Gunter
Warsaw, via email[[In-content Ad]]
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Today the Republicans want to restrict the unions’ capability to hold corporations accountable for how they treat their employees by passing RTW.
It takes two things for the union to do this and they go hand in hand. One is members and two is money. Without either the unions’ ability to take on the corporations unlimited cash resources become a moot item.
The following is but one example of this abuse by the use of social security numbers. In 1981-1982 the company told all the employees an ID card with photo and SSN would be have to be worn at all times. A local union here in Warsaw grieved this abuse, saying this SSN was for social security money to be deposited in.
The union arbitrated and had a partial win in the SSN could not be made public. The SSN issues did not end with this one case but continued for what was to be 10 to 12 long years of disputes and four more arbitrations, each one building upon the proceeding one.
It was the last one that union finely got the issue not completely laid to rest, where both could live with. It was found out by accident that the corporation had made available to Radio Shack all 70,000 employees SSN to be used for verification purposes for employee discounts.
It was grieved and arbitrated. In this case the corporate headquarters sent in their lawyer to fight this issue. The company’s argument was this SSN data base was their property and as such they had the sole right to sell, give away, to make available to any 2nd or 3rd party the contents of this data base, (the union asked how about foreign countries) the company said including foreign countries Mexico, China and others.
This data base contained not only the employees’ names, addresses, phone numbers, and SSN, but also their customers as well. The company said this data base was a very much secured data base. It was proved to be false when the union presented a print out of paper five or six inches deep, a printout containing thousands and thousands of names and addresses, phone numbers and SSN.
The company verified the information as true. The arbitrator ruled for the union, and included the results of the other arbitrations, in his ruling. This data base of SSNs even though the company maintained it, was, for social security use, these numbers belonged to the employees and not the company, as such they could not be used for any other use without the employees’ or customers’ authorization.
It has been estimated that around 280,000 to 300,000 employees and family members were protected and approximately 70 to 100 million customers all benefitted from this ruling. Congress later passed a law where every man, woman, and child in this country also benefitted from this one local union’s willingness and what proved to be rather expensive employees rights in a work place. A law where no business could ask for a customer’s SSN for ID purposes. No SSN could be used on a drivers license.
Marvin Gunter
Warsaw, via email[[In-content Ad]]
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