3- Why not?

 So last time we found out that XBM was running and threatening to fire everyone on staff (aka the Business Mangers).  This is something that *could* happen but most Business Managers understand that their agents are the ones the members trust.  Most Business Managers are decent people and not in it for themselves; most but obviously not all.  

A few of the Business Agents decided that this wasn't okay.  They worked their butts off for their members.  They had gotten jobs and back pay back for people who were unjustly fired.  They worked with companies to create programs for retention of employees.  They had put their heart and soul into their jobs.  How was it ok that they could help protect the jobs of others as Business Agents of a Union, but they themselves have no protection?  They decided that whatever happened with the election, they were not going to sit by and watch someone on a power trip tear apart the union they helped build.  

They came up with a simple idea- why not start our own union?  So they began.  In their limited free time, they studied contracts, they researched what they would need to legitimize their union.  They each had written contracts for others.  They decided that it didn't matter who won the upcoming election, it wasn't right that they had no protection.  That needed to change.  Of the 10 Agents in the Local, each and every single one signed cards to show their intention to join the new union and have their jobs protected from unjust firing.  

A few weeks later when HBM was elected, they figured as someone who had been fired and couldn't fight it because he was an at-will employee, he would be supportive of his Agents being protected.  They figured that since they work for a union that focuses on organizing new members into their union, that the higher ups would be happy that they organized for their own rights.  Boy were they wrong!  

Numerous people from HBM on up were livid that the Agents were practicing what they preached to others.  HBM said that he wasn't going to "clean house" and fire everyone but now that they were organizing he felt like he needed to.  Again, this only applies to the Agents as the Office Ladies are protected by a contract that is negotiated with the Local. The Office Ladies' jobs are protected through that contract and a "just cause" clause.  A just cause clause simply states that the employer needs to have just cause to fire an employee.  There has to be a fireable offense for someone to be fired.  Sounds simple?  Apparently it is not! 



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