How Our Union Is Dying: Fear, Favoritism and Flattery

The elected leadership for ATU Chicago essentially functions as a protection racket for CTA mismanagement, the politicians and the billionaire warmongering bloodsuckers of the Poor. They enrich themselves through Fear, Favoritism and Flattery of the ATU members. 

 

It is not exceptional. Our union is just another organization of workers that has been functioning under the diseased ideas of Business Unionism. 

 

I thought it was clear at the membership meetings. No, I have truly seen it up close, unmasked and totally in-the-raw at the January 2024 Executive Bored meeting when I was expelled by our new union president and escorted by the Chicago Police Department. 

 

The radical secrecy within ATU Local 308 manifested itself again just recently with a strange phone call.

 

After being told I would get the ATU-CTA agreement regarding reinstatement of unvaccinated coworkers with redacted personal identification information at the January 2024 membership meeting, Brother Vice President Mark Weems called me to say I could only examine this agreement in his office (afforded to him by our sky-high monthly dues). I retorted that we could use PDF technology to redact all identifying information and that the members are not going to believe me if I don't show them the document. 

I have been in this time-wasting trap before with former Secretary-Treasurer Deborah "Get Cosey With The Boss" Lane.

I have other ways to get what the members need to know. 

However, a few hours later after I refused to blow my day at the office, Brother Mark replied again, this time with the signed agreement that I originally had been requesting. He even collaborated with me to redact a few lines on my PDF editing software. To Brother Vice President Mark Weems: I sincerely thank you for your cooperation. Now I can share with the members what they need to know.

What made the call strange is when I answered my phone, the first thing he said was "I do not give you permission to record this conversation."

Really? I was busy eating and reading a user manual for a new vacuum when he called. So I laughed and told him something like: "Well then, you should know that I am eating a salad during this phone call."

 

Ask yourself: Is it strange that one feels the need to preface a phone call—on a topic you know nothing about—with a statement like "I do not give you permission to record this conversation"?

 

When one speaks the Truth, they have no fear of a recording, a quote or assault.

 

Even if I was recording it, what does he have to hide? Ironically, these career union officials tell me not to do what they do all the time. I honestly didn't even think about doing it! But after that experience, I cannot help but remind myself to try one day.

 

As a man who strives to be a Muslim, I always refer to the Scriptures and the teachings of Holy Men who walked the Earth long before me. I may not be recording the words of union officials, but I serve a God who does! 

 

Not only does the God record their spoken words, but he records their unspoken words and acts to help our oppressors while enriching themselves. They may keep us in misery and seem immune, but they pay the price through the loss of health, peace-of-mind and an eternal hellfire of paranoia and fear.

 

Business Unionism mandates that officials use all manner of contrivances to continue sucking our blood—including violence and collusion with mismanagers to fire you if you attempt to correct or disobey them. 

 

They control us through the three F's: 

 

Fear 

Favoritism 

Flattery 

 

Fear

This is the most-utilized tool in the Business Unionists workshop of horrors. With it, they indoctrinate us with slogans which make us question our natural revulsion to their backwards thinking: "We can't tell the company what to do," "Be happy you have a job" and "The difference between a union and a company is that you elect a boss." They insist on building cozy relationships with the CTA mismanagement and shove lies down our throats like "there is a no-strike clause in our Contract" and "your coworkers are too lazy/greedy to strike." In cases like ATU Local 241 president, Brother Keith Hill, they will actually sue members. In his and the ATU Local 308 presidents, they will also call cops on you, try to run you over with their car and run in your face to threaten violence.

Favoritism

When you are loyal to, and function as a rubber-stamping super soldier of secrets and slime for the elected people, you will receive many perks: Get-out-of-jail-free cards for writeups, time off work for "union business" and special inside information. When you do the opposite, they turn to Fear.

Flattery

Business unionists recognize talented members with righteous intentions almost instantly. They sniff them out through magnanimous platitudes, gaining sympathy for their plea for "help" and/or a "steward class." Sometimes they will groom members for future elected positions. They rely on loyalty and have no love for union democracy. If you sense their strawberry-scented bullshxt, they will count on you to either walk away in frustration or become an opponent. Their opponents become targets for more Fear and Favoritism. The cycle continues. 

What can we do to overcome the Three F's?

 

Making or joining a new union that functions as a totally democratic organization that is controlled by members is a possible solution. However, that requires intense organizing and mass effort. It also requires two very, very important votes within the Illinois Labor Relations Act (slightly different from the National Labor Relations Act): One to decertify the ATU and one to join the new union. 

 

That first vote can literally kill our jobs if enough people to not vote for the second one.

 

Voting and hoping for new candidates will not work at all. You may get one or two who care, but the rest of the bootlickers will expel them and consolidate their corrupt base. I think I am great example of this problem.

 

You got me in Local 308 for now. But our officers are punishing members who are sympathetic to me. In fact, our new president has told me I will not be paid for the 6 days a month I am supposed to visit the Maintenance Shops as per Section 15(c) of the Local 308 bylaws.

 

I see the writing on the wall: They don't care that we are dying at work as long as they, themselves, benefit from our dues money and kudos from our terrorist employer. 

 

They are obsessed with silencing and/or liquidating my position as officer, my membership and—in their fantasies—getting me on the unemployment line or buried six feet underground. 

 

If you continue making excuses to not get involved, I am on my way out one way or another (not by my choice).

 

They do not care that the mismanagers and uncoordinators are benefiting from our suffering. They do not care if one thousand of us died at work today. Stop believing that they care about us more than their positions of power.

 

If you don't start standing up and taking responsibility for our union, it will no longer exist. There is no outside savior for us. The solution is for us to get involved and overthrow the business unionist regime month-by-month—Just like they organize to remove one little officer like me. We must organize to overpower their boss-worship cult month-by-month. 

 

You are wasting time trying to make me change my personality, words or appearance. Focus on the man/woman in the mirror: Stop burdening me with how you want me to be as a person and add your unique presence and voice to the revolution to take control over our union. 

 

Telling me to be quiet so they won't get angry is like trying to pour oil on a fire to extinguish it. If that is how you think, then we have already lost.

 

Our union is not a personality cult. It is our democratic organization that can be used to punish the terrorists who make our lives miserable in the name of profits-over-people.

 

Revolutionary Unionism is the key to unlocking the chains of the Three F's.

Business Unionism is dying. You won't be able to blame me for the problems because I warned you many, many times. I have shown that sacrifice and success is possible. However, to get momentum, you are going to need to do it too. 

 

A simple way to participate is to be informed. Join my Virtual Union Hall and sign the petition to demand that my fellow union officers focus on fighting our terrorist employer and quit picking on me, and drop their stupid charges. 

 

As the late South African revolutionary Steven Biko once said: "It is better to die for an idea that will live, than to live with an idea that will die."