Thursday, February 5, 2015

Union organizers sent packing at Packard Square

From the Daily News:

TWO QUEENS siblings have filed a federal complaint alleging they were fired from their jobs as doormen at a Long Island City luxury building for spearheading a campaign to join a union.

Andres and Kevin Galarza, 20 and 22, of Jamaica, said they were fired last month by a manager at the Packard Square complex in Long Island City, where they had been working for about eight months.

“He told me he received a call from the owners of the company, and he didn’t want my brother and I to work there any more,” Andres Galarza told the Daily News.

Both men said they were at the forefront of an effort to get the doormen at the three-building complex on Crescent St. to join SEIU 32BJ, hoping improve their benefits and $8.75-an-hour pay.

25 comments:

Anonymous said...

Those troublemakers got what they deserved. Good riddance.

Anonymous said...

A whole union making collective demands of a building to stand around and do nothing under a tight contract with political weight vs. a lawsuit by two people with little to no backing who probably don't have the money to fight back... Sounds like the manager made the best move in the building's interest.

Anonymous said...

Where's the eric Gioia joke

Anonymous said...

So where are the pols standing up for the 'little man?'

And yes, we do not need Bloomberg jokes here people.

Anonymous said...

There is no 'right' to form a union. There is no 'right' to keep a job if you are making trouble for your employer and the people who pay them.

Those rabble rousers will get government jobs!

Queens Crapper said...

There absolutely is a right to form a union. You'd better get yourself a textbook.

Queens Crapper said...

NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS ACT

Anonymous said...

A unions only job is to extract maximum wages and benefits for the least amount of work possible.
To say that unions are the scourge of NYC is to put it in minimal terms.

Anonymous said...

Good advice but that poster needs to get a brain first and he might figure out that slavery is also against the law.

Anonymous said...

Well you can join the union, free to do so, but so is free an owner to let you go.

Anonymous said...

I like that National Labor Relations Board link. It states you have the RIGHT not to join a union as well.

Try doing that if you are a NYC teacher or construction worker!

Bad employers, bad unions, the workers always get the shaft.

Anonymous said...

And without unions, you get $8.75 an hour jobs with no benefits. The end result of that is working people who can only afford illegal converted and/or overcrowded living conditions.

Anonymous said...

"And without unions, you get $8.75 an hour jobs with no benefits."

And with them we get people doing $8.75/hr quality work for 3x that salary and can't fire them for slacking off because the process is too expensive.

Excellent oversimplification.

Anonymous said...

I thought labor unions were for 'skilled' labor.

What skill does a doorman have?

Do they get a bachelor's degree in Door studies?

Are they certified in Door management?

Remember the days when entry level work taught you how to show up on time, do a good job, then move up the ladder. Making a career out of these jobs that are one step ahead of automation is part of the problem.

Remember President Obama saying that removing the tellers from the banks (and replacing with cash machines) was part of the Bank crash?

Some jobs are not meant to be careers that support entire families.

When I lived in NYC the doormen were all young guys, most in day or night school, some waiting for firemen or police spots. It was a flexible job they could show responsibility on.

Those two young men in this news story should set their sights on moving up in the world, not just the top of that building.

Anonymous said...

"Unions are good for society"
Said the lazy, scheming slacker as he handed in his union application.

Anonymous said...

"Unions are good for society"
They sure are when you have to preform manual labor for years and years until your body wears out.

Anonymous said...

"Unions are good for society"

Not in racketeer city's like New York !
Union workers drive up prices, then slack off and it cost you a fortune in lawyers, aggravation, flack and sabotage once they get into your building or business.
Racketeer City unions getting into your business is like bedbugs and cancer.

Anonymous said...

@body wearing out anon
You call sitting around on your fat middle-aged ass, smoking cigarettes, eating donuts and joking around with other union dirtbags while a single guy hammers away at a nail "manual labor"?
Youre right about one thing though, being a sleazeball does wear your body out.
PS. I heard that the worksite deadline got extended by another month, apparently theres lots of hard manual labor left to be done (putting up a single plaster wall up while everyone else listens to Howard Stern).
Its no wonder none of the asian, carribean or latin construction companies hire you sloths, why would anyone want to pay 3 times the amount for a third of the work ethnic workers could be doing?

Gary W said...

"Unions are good for society"
They sure are when you have to preform manual labor for years and years until your body wears out.

From punching tickets on the LIRR

Anonymous said...

"Unions are good for society"
Yes they are !
Unions are the people who brought you weekends plus 8 hours for work, 8 hours for sleep, 8 hours for what you want to do.

Anonymous said...

"Unions are good for society"
Without unions, workers will lose many of the protections against abusive employers. Wages for all will be depressed, even as corporate profits soar. The American Dream will be destroyed for millions. And we will have a government of the corporations, by the already powerful, for the wealthy. - Kenneth Bernstein

Anonymous said...

Unions arent out to make an honest dollar though, thats where these pro union arguments fail.
They are as manipulative and greedy as the robber barrons and political machines who inadvertently lead to their creation.
Good concept, horrible reality....I used to be pro union as well (since I too was told since grade school that unions enable fair and good-faith dialogue between workers and managment) but that was before I hired the bastards.

georgetheatheist said...

"They are as manipulative and greedy as the robber barrons[sic]..."
--------------------------------

Why fall into that semantic anti-entrepreneurial trap? They weren't "robber barons" - that's a Marxist appellation. They were Captains of Industry.

Anonymous said...

George, you know why the anti-entrepreneunial rhetoric — it's what the poster was taught in the government schools. Also kinda noted by the poster before you.

Anonymous said...

Unions help bring workers out of poverty and into the middle class !
The anti union comments here sound like a bunch of middle class aristocrats.