Chapter 16

Rick came into my office

"I think we may have a problem!"

"Good Morning to you too! What's up?" I said

"Sorry boss; Good Morning, How are you this morning, I hope your weekend was a good one, How is Shannon and Michele" he sarcastically said with a bit of a grin, then his face turned serious "I think the Edson office may go Union."

I grinned back at him then turned serious; I thoughtfully replied "why do you think that first and secondly have we done anything to cause this?"

"The union organizer is staying at our hotel," Rick stated "and no I don't think there is anything we have done to cause the problem; we pay better than anyone else, we have better benefits, we supply housing, as far as I can see our employees should be really happy."

"Ok, first things first let the hotel staff know that we don't want them spying on our guests, and also I was a member of a union before and if our employees feel they need a union then they should have one, we must not be listening to them, maybe we have gotten too big and out of touch with what our employees want or need." I explained.

"I thought you would feel that way, The union organizer was bragging to the hotel staff that he was going to organize our workers and end the McDonald Enterprises tyranny in it's tracks so they weren't spying on him, I think the guy must be an idiot." Rick told me.

"Oh, well isn't that the brightest thing you have ever heard of. Do we know which union it is?"

"Yes it is the Millwrights union." Rick said.

"Have you let Julie know there is a problem?" I asked.

"I called her and asked her to come up to your office as soon as she can. She was in a meeting when I called so she said she would be up as soon as it was over" he replied.

"Why don't we phone the Local president and invite him here for a meeting?" I asked.

"Ok, I have the number sitting on my desk right now, what would be a good time?" Rick responded.

"Invite him for lunch and I will get it catered to the conference room, find out how many people he wants to bring." I said.

Rick left to make some calls and I called the office manager in Edson and asked him if he had any idea why there was unrest there, He didn't but I could tell he was pretty uneasy about the whole thing, I told him it was business as usual and not to try and stop it at all, I explained that the employee had every right to union representation if they felt they needed it, I also told him to ask around a little and find out what the problem was so we could have it fixed as soon as possible, I didn't want to have a reputation for being tyrannical. Rick called and let me know there would be three of them coming in so I got on the phone and ordered lunch for five, one of the things I learned pretty early on was that in all management/union meetings management always liked to have more people than the union guys and it set the tone of the meeting as unfriendly, I didn't want to seem unfriendly or overbearing.

Julie came into my office while I was on the phone.

After I hung up the phone I told her that her job might get tougher as I explained what we had been talking about, I informed her that we were going to meet with the union but I wanted it to be just me and Rick at first for lunch so they didn't feel like we were ganging up on them but that she should be ready to come in at any time. I also asked her if she had any insight as to what had everybody in Edson so unhappy.

Julie told me that she had been in Edson for a couple of days last week talking to a few people and she didn't think there were any real problems, the guys complained about the overtime meals we were supplying and Julie had called a couple of the local restaurants to have them each cater a complete lunch to the shop so the guys could pick which company would supply the meals from now on. There were a couple of complaints about housing, mostly things that had to be addressed by the town so she had directed the Realty group to look into it.

At 12:00 sharp the elevator doors opened and the union men came in to the receptionist, she showed them into the conference room right away, the food was sitting there in Buffet tables, Rick and I sat at one end of the table going over a project we were going to be working on. I stood and introduced myself and Rick, I invited them to grab a plate and have something to eat before it got cold.

Once we all had a plate of food the president Stan asked.

"What time will everyone else be here?"

"This is it for now, our human resources person may come later but we need to talk first." I replied.

No one said anything so I started,

"I guess you are wondering why we asked you to join us for lunch?"

"I think we can guess" Stan said.

"Ok, then let me first tell you that I have nothing against unions at all I was a member of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers union myself and I kind of liked the security it offered me at the time. Now on to business, I hear you have an organizer in Edson talking to our employees there?" I said.

"That may be true, we do have an organizer in Edson, but I don't know that he is talking to your employees right now, he is talking to unhappy workers that is his job" Stan replied defensively.

"Look guys we didn't ask you here to threaten you or anything, I hope we can come to an arrangement that will make your job easier and lessen the impact on our employees, we don't want to start a war or anything." I said.

"Ok, what do you have in mind, but please be sure about this; I will not call our organizer and tell him not to talk to your workers!" Stan exclaimed.

"No I am not asking you to do this, obviously unions do not organize happy workers so if you are talking to our people then we have not done our job correctly, what I am suggesting is we will schedule to shut down our operations for two hours on the day of your choice and even supply a hall for you to meet with our employees in order to get all of your membership issues out in the open, I just think it is counter productive to have you guy sneak around to talk to everyone, after Edson I will offer the same courtesy for all of our office's." I stated.

They all looked stunned, they were waiting for the other shoe to drop, and it can't be as easy as all this could it?

Stan started with "could we do this after regular work hours, I will take you up on the hall but it would be better after regular office hours I think."

I looked at him thoughtfully for a second then realized what he was thinking. "Is it because of the wages, I didn't mean we wouldn't pay them. If that is the problem we will give everyone two hours paid time to meet with you at the end of the day, that way if it takes longer than two hours they can stay after the meeting."

Stan studied me to see if I was for real.

I continued with "We will even go as far as letting everyone know that there will be no repercussions for attending the meeting if you want."

"So let me get this straight, you will tell everyone that it is all right to attend the meeting, supply a room for the meeting and pay everyone for attending the meeting, what about the people that don't attend the meeting?" One of the flunkies asked.