I think what we got here is people got in over there heads and don't know what there doing. I know for a fact that when my station
got outsourced we couldnt get our AGC to return our calls much less answer any questions.
Tim I have been going over your ideas that you want to implement if you win your election. I have to say your points are very good
and could go a long way to change the lack of true leadership we have at 141. Good luck to you and your other candidates
thanks for your kind words. The platform itself is to protect the Eboard and to protect and empower the masses. It protects the Eboard of greed. Let me explain. I have seen many a good union man and woman go into office with the passion to serve members. But somewhere between the first $9,000 monthly check and the second one, they get fat, happy, soft and pompous. Essentially, money corrupts good people. And we ought not to place myself or anyone of us above that. Instead we must guard against it and we guard against it by capping out the salaries at a much lower [but still fair] rate, through the voluntary deductions which will be posted each month for transparent purposes. The President's salary is the lowest since I believe that a true leader leads by serving and being least. So, the platform helps protect the Eboard from becoming too puffed up.
Secondly, I didn't leave a good paying union job to just jump right back into the same system that doesn't empower the masses. I would have just stayed comfy where I was if that was the case. I wanted change and not just name change. The problem, as I see it, is also the way in which the union does business. Its paternal and non academic nature will always produce an environment that short changes members and limits solidarity. In fact, the present predicament where our members have slipped from middle class to lower middle class is the exact sorta thing we would expect with a dinosauric paternal and non academic system. Our negotiations team will continue to get brutalized against management attorneys and will have no solidarity behind the union. And if we put Tim Nelson up there in the same environment then there still will be no results. Not even a superhero like Superman could find a way out under this silly structure. Honestly, it will just be the mouse's wheel spinning around and round, no matter who you put up there, if the environment isn't changed through changing the way in how the union does business. Does this make sense?
I mean, the problem before us is a problem involving billions of dollars and changing the outcome is much more than needing a set of "big balls". Although the cave man mentality might be useful in swinging clubs, it is a technique that undermines the union in todays brave new world where information travels as quick as the speed of light.
Incorporating the processes of socialization is a great and proven technique that is incredibly successful in building the type of solidarity that would have the greatest chance of capturing a leading industry contract. Team building techniques where you develop ownership within the masses and the masses internalize and then legitimate the socialization process. Presently, the masses are blindfolded, muzzled and have a fence around them. The occupy 141 platform will take the union from "Members blindly following their Collective bargaining agent" to "The Collective bargaining agent serving the members". There are too many secrets right now. The occupy 141 platform puts transparency and knowledge at the most sacred. And it's flavored with the recognition that even though myself and others may be capable, we still need professionals as an additional resource to serve the membership in the professional way in which they deserve.
I have built "Houses of Solidarity" utilizing those techniques in successful organizing drives and it's the same principles that we would use on the representational side. Organizing drives and negotiations are a true battle of wit, administered academically, and applied through activism with a team that is equipped to obtain, sustain, and endure, so that leverage can be measured, produced, and gained. It's actually fairly simple if the leadership is hard working and has a dogged determination. When I was the Organizing director, I think I drove my organizers very hard, like a head coach that the players loved to hate. There were words along the way. But the smell of success and being undefeated was rewarding to all of them.
As I build this Occupy 141 team, some have stepped up, others have faded, new members will take the plow. In the end, the ticket will be encompassed only with those individuals who understand the power of the Occupy 141 platform.
Onward
www.occupyiam141.com
Tim