Any Town, USA

All union organizers, myself included, believed that we made a difference in the lives of the workers. I believed I helped, and most importantly, the worker believed it too. My promises were sincere. I knew the issues and knew how to make the worker feel included in the organizing process. The union was the workers, not me or the other unionofficials.

My job was to give them ownership and control over their campaign. Again, the illusion was that they would have a “voice”, they would meet with management and get what they wanted. Management was the workers’ enemy, and therefore became my enemy. The union campaign became the battleground, a chess game, and I never lost. My job was to do whatever it took to win, which was a simple task when I won over the trust of theworkers. The workers looked to me for the answers. I never really had any, but always provided them with the ability to hope.

Ricardo Torres – President & CEO

I would become more than an organizer; I became the “go to” person, their personal advisor, their colleague. I listened to every one of their concerns and empathized with their issues. My goal was to become afriend, a trusted colleague, while at the same time, breaking the trustbetween management and employee. When management said no, I was able topromise a “negotiation” for yes…….

Knowing my audience before meeting was my first task. I researched the workers I met with, and most of the time I was able to anticipate their needs before they walked through the door. Older employees, close to retirement would be promised a negotiation for retiree health benefits, workers who wanted less workloads, defined job tasks, equality, fairness, et cetera were promised the ability to negotiate. The ability to negotiate was THE promise. Words that the organizer chooses are embedded into the everyday culture of the union, the “promise” to negotiate. What does the union promise? Unions promise anything and everything. I even once promised a nurse that I could negotiate for a change in dress code. This was a promise that I could keep. I knew that I could “negotiate” a new dress code, but I also knew Icouldn’t win it. It really didn’t matter as long as I was victorious. Iwas trusted and confided in and always touched the issues that would win over my audience. Who wouldn’t want to hear that I could get overtime paid out after a 36 hour work week?

I knew what neighborhoods these people lived in, and how to use theirown lifestyles to determine what they may want from their job. The job that I had was to get into the minds of the workers, and not just the staff, but management as well. I wanted to know about their families, their spouses, their children, who they were friends with. The purpose was to learn what emotional issues I could raise. If there was manager that was talking against the union, but whose spouse was in a union on their respective job, I would call their spouse. Nothing and no one was off limits.

Meetings became extremely emotional, to replicate the union campaign.Workers would come to me with personal issues and their complaints about management. I understood their issues with sincerity and my full attention. I was their “security blanket”, I was the “go to” person. I believed in what I did, so it was easy for the frustrated worker to believe in me also. It’s very easy to persuade someone when you have what they so desperately want. And that’s exactly what I had. For each person I met with, I had a tailored list of answers to suit their demands for the “perfect” workplace. If the worker didn’t have an issue,I made one up for them. I made the workers feel for each other.

When someone in a meeting knew the “right” questions to ask me, I accused them of working with management and they were thrown out of my meeting, which only rallied other employees closer to me

Management never stood a chance when I walked in. They couldn’t offerwhat I had, which was a promise of hope. My promise was never to obtainthese demands but rather a promise to “negotiate” for them. It was an easy way to evade the truth. I couldn’t promise to actually get anythingfor these people, but the promise to negotiate was enough. I was persuasive and the emotional worker is easily persuaded.

I never failed. I couldn’t. Most of the time the workers helped me complete my task. I had the ability to rally employees around me to the point that they would talk the skeptics into believing in my promises. Iexploited their emotions and I knew exactly which buttons to push. I made them believe that I alone held the key to their happiness in the workplace. I promised a hope, an empty promise, but that was not my concern, as long as it was believable.

As a union organizer, I built so much hope and created so many issuesthat the workers would follow in my every footstep. At the time, I believed that I was the SOLUTION to providing purpose to the everyday rank and file workforce. I was a master manipulator and used this skill to my advantage. Campaigns appeared to be so simple to the workers beingorganized. Little did they know, they had been thoroughly researched and a game plan was carefully designed long before I contacted the firstworker to build support. I was at war recruiting an army and had my battle plans drawn out to the point that all I needed to do was lead thecharge. I was the organizer that management prayed they would never meet.