Main Street

Word on the Street: Dignity and a Voice in the Workplace

Emmelle Israel – Las Vegas, Nevada

I recently met with a member who wasn’t a self-described “fan” of unions. She started working when she was twelve years old and was always a hard worker who had good relationships with her fellow workers and her supervisors. She eventually ran her own successful small business and saw little need for unions if workers could solve their problems with management on their own. But, when she had to move for family reasons and leave behind her small business, she started working in corporate America, and the need for unions became clear.

She worked several different jobs and encountered the same basic problem every time: In a word, employers were “heartless.”

“Employers have all the power. The employees have no power. You’re hung out to dry, at their beck and call.”

When she worked at a daycare center she “loved going to work until management made [work] miserable.” Her supervisor started being out all the time. It was put upon the employee to stay in the classroom even if they were on their break time, even if their shift was over, and even if they needed to use the restroom. Management would not take responsibility.

Private conversations could be made into grounds for firing. At another job, she was helping another worker to get through a rough time in his life. He was going through a divorce and had a history of alcoholism. In order to prevent him from spending his nights alone at a bar, she invited him to go bowling with her and her son once or twice a week. Management interfered in the friendship, trying to cast it as an employee dating her supervisor. Their accusations made it difficult for the friendship outside of work to continue.

Once, she used a whistleblower hotline that a company she worked for had set up as a way to give workers a forum to voice their concerns about unfair and unsafe conditions at their work. She wanted her complaint to be anonymous, but the person on the other end of the line made her give her name, saying that she would be fine. She was called into her boss’s office the next day.

But, the worst example of her powerlessness at work happened when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She took off from work to have surgery, and when she came back, there was all new management. Everything had changed. She could feel the new management watching her like a ticking time bomb. They called her in to squeal on a co-worker who management had hired, knowing that he was an alcoholic. She refused to tell them what they already knew, and she was quickly demoted. There were no policies and procedures that management had to adhere to like they made their employees do. Eventually, she was let go and hasn’t been able to find employment since. And even now, while she’s still unemployed, she sees how employers hire part-time employees on unset schedules, denying them the chance to get a second job that many need to be able to make ends meet.

Although she has survived multiple surgeries for her breast cancer, this member told me that the emotional pain caused by her experiences working for corporate America without a voice in the workplace is far worse. “If you had nothing organized in your workplace, employers can do whatever they want… You need it to be a union position in order to have any say in the workplace.”

She’s not asking for any pity or sacrifices from employers. “The economy is so bad. I understand both sides. I understand budget cuts. But, even with budget cuts, [employers] can still give their employees dignity.” Even in a time of economic crisis, dignity and a voice on the job for workers are two things that employers shouldn’t be able to cut.