On unions and needs of elder people
Thursday, 13 Mar 2025
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Imagine how useful those meetings could be if the information coming up was more than those same ten guys specific issues.
“Bob,”
“Grant,”
“Jeremy,”
‘Al,”
“….”
“….”
“….”
“….”
“….”
“Dick still don’t work?”
“….”
“…. Yup,”
“… yup”
“Kay, meeting adjourned.”
I try to stay active in my Union but meetings are hard for 2 reasons. They are always held late in the evening in the middle of the week, with the hall being over an hour away from my house it means I have gotten home after midnight when I have to get back up for work at 5am. And there’s a few bitter old fucks with an axe to grind against… Anything? Everything? They endlessly complain about tedious points of order and they are the first to blatantly disregard those very same points every fucking month. Their whole purpose seems to revolve around derailing productive discussions and complaining about everything while offering no solutions what so ever.
It’s the same with any community meetings, bar extreme situations serious enough to warrant working people with jobs and children going to some village hall at an annoying time on a weekday. Parish councils, unions, local town halls etc. The only people with the time/lack of other responsibilities such that they care about local or union matters are old people with nothing to do except sit at home and gripe about stuff they see happening outside their window.
There’s a gag in the Thick of It film (British political satire) about the protagonist, an MP with an important cabinet position, avoiding having to talk to his constituents because they’re all weird, irritating old people with problems that seem trivial compared to major international political affairs. He avoids them and avoids them until one of their problems gets just big enough to go to the press (compoface type situation) and he gets fired from his important cabinet job and essentially sent back to his constituency and his irritating weird constituents like a lost soul flung into purgatory.
On the one hand, you should go to these sorts of things to have your say. On the other, the old people moaning about viagra and kids playing in the street and whatever are also viciously resistant to change especially if it comes from younger people.
Source: my dear old mother is on a Parish Council and it is : A. entirely the same 10 old people rotating roles + the very well meaning and polite local vicar, and B. full of drama and infighting and mysterious ancient power dynamics forged between people who have been on that council since the 80s.
people who only care about the benefits for them complain about people who care about the union as a whole, well i never.
i wish complaining about stuff you don’t care to learn about wasn’t the human default
Theres a joke in Brooklyn Nine Nine that their station’s union rep only goes to the meetings because they have giant deli sandwiches…
The last time I went to a union meeting there was maybe 25 people in attendance. Over the course of the meeting, I slowly realized I was the only non-officer in attendance as every person got up to speak with prepared slides.
The new union president also cried during the land acknowledgement.
In general: yes, get involved in local community organizations. This is good.
But also… I’m a grad student, and the TA’s at my university have a union, and there is so. much. drama. I’m very happy we have it, because we get paid a lot more and are not struggling with a high cost of living like we would be otherwise, but the union people are bitterly divided over relatively small tactical differences that they all take very, very personally. Oh, you think we should cut a deal and walk back from our demand of a 65% pay raise? You must be a reactionary who’s in league with the management!!
My friends who are grad students at other universities say they have the same problems, like a whole meeting getting derailed when someone uses the phrase “nuclear option” and someone else grinds the whole meeting to a halt over “not using imperialist language.”
I think union leadership almost by definition selects for people who are confrontational, and… yeah, it takes all types I’m glad they’re there. But also, I am NOT going to get tangled up in my union’s politics!
I literally just picked up 18 viagras for my estrogen induced ED
We must fight soft for viagra .
I’m a staff member with a union and I’ve literally written comms that say “Does Joe speak for you?” Because participation is so low most of the time that elected leaders have only the few loudest members to base decisions on, plus their own knowledge of issues. PARTICIPATE! Volunteer, take surveys, attend meetings, and for god’s sake, VOTE!
Since unions are democratic, they are what you make it. If you think your union is corrupt, you need to be in it to reform it. Slamming unions because of corruption is silly, it is the fault of individuals within them.
I have a decent union job, I stopped going to the meetings because there was very rarely discussion on anything actually important. Last meeting I was on they were going over policy on union stickers, it’s either nonsense like that or an hour of brown nosing from guys telling the leadership how great they are lol.
You guys have unions?
Similar thing going on at my workplace.
The discourse amongst a not insignificant part of my coworkers is that the leadership is ignoring the us, making big decisions and changes that affect us without informing anyone beforehand, and never do anything on their meetings but drink coffee.
Thing is though that the leadership group has an open invitation for almost all their meetings, so anyone who want can tag along and see what they discuss and actually do during the day. Then there are weekly information about the last week, and monthly workplace meetings where there is time dedicated to discussion and input. They basically beg us to be involved in making the workplace better for everyone.
None of those complaining attend or when they do dont pay attention.
Its by no means a perfect job or perfect bosses, but its no where how terrible as the naysayers want to make it out as.
Basically how HOAs work.
Get your Viagra from Cost Plus Drugs! It’s $18 for 90 pills, no insurance required.
Op didn’t mention the most important thing: the mayority of those meetings are incredibly boring, and you really have to force yourself to give a shit
Unless you are of a particular bureaucratic disposition you will be ready to sell your sister into chattel slavery after about 2 or 3h
This goes for neighborhood councils, HOAs, etc as well. When we’re younger, we’re all overworked, tired, hungry, and poor, and it’s designed to be that way. Because then we’re kept too busy and distracted to participate in things like union meetings. But your voices are needed if things are ever going to change.
If your HOA is full of nimbys, then it might be time to throw your hat in the ring, even if your beat after work, even if you’re running on fumes. Because nothing is gonna change unless you make things change.
Let the retirees fuck more than six times a month.
Always attend union meetings, HOA meetings, town halls etc. let your voice be heard
It’s a major pain in the ass for me to make meetings (I live in a separate time zone, a couple hours away from the hall, so I usually have to take time off of work and find someone to babysit), but I still feel it’s worth my time to make that commitment. Sometimes I have to stand as the voice of reason against terrible opinions and ideas, because construction workers typically hear the loudest/angriest person in the room and view them as some “all-knowing authority”. Doesn’t always make me popular, but at least I’ve stuck to my principles. Aside from that, I try to be as involved as I possibly can with other sub-committees and such, because things can quickly turn to shit if you simply neglect the processes.
Oh THOSE unions…
Did they get their boner pills?
I mean, from the union leadership’s prospective, getting those dicks to work seems like the #1 priority.
How else are they supposed to find out about fucking around?
My retirement plan is dying early. I’m a smoker and alcoholic and fat. Fuck you, old-age poverty!
You are the union
All these complaints and feable jokes come down to one thing…
They get away with this shit because you’re apathetic and let them get away with it… 🤷♂️
Do better!
I stand with the unions. 100% .
Seems like learned helplessness.