Grass Roots Politics

Thanks to Uncle Ken for bringing us up to speed on the Christmas lights issue.  It sounds like he has been handling it well so far but, as I said, he needs to keep after those people or they might stall around until it's too late to do anything about it.  I know it seems early enough now, but Christmas has a way of sneaking up on people of our age.  I read in a book once that's the way you know when you are no longer young, when Christmas comes too soon. As for me, I find this topic quite interesting, it's a fine example of grass roots politics.  Most people are more concerned with national politics than they are with the local stuff, but the local stuff is where we as individuals can have more of an impact.

I know that I wrote the story of my grievance backwards.  That's because I didn't plan to include the back story at first.  I suppose I could have done some cutting and pasting after the fact to put it in chronological order, but I didn't.  The disputes we had about overtime at the paper mill over the 23 years that I worked there would make for a long and complex story, maybe even book length, but I will try to summarize it for the purposes of this discussion.  The issue wasn't about overtime pay, it was about the way overtime opportunities were offered, and who was obligated to take it if everybody else turned it down.  After years of trying to formulate a one-size-fits-all procedure, we finally decided that each department should have it's own.  As department steward, I was involved in negotiating the procedure for papermaking.  I subsequently bid out to another department, giving up my steward's position in the process.  Years later, when I bid back into papermaking, I was once again elected to be the department steward.  While I was gone, the work systems in the entire plant underwent an extensive redesign, which is another long and complex story in itself.  Papermaking was the last department to be redesigned, and they were having a hard time adapting to the new system.  One of the reasons I bid back was that, having had experience with the new system and also papermaking experience, I thought I might be of some use helping them with the difficulties they were having.

There was an old union saying: "If you don't have it in writing, you don't have it."  Well it seems like, even if you do have it in writing, you still might not have it.  I won the first grievance on paper, but not in the real world.  I won the second grievance in the real world, but not on paper.  It all came out in the end, but it took a year to make it happen.  The reason I told this story in the first place was to caution Uncle Ken not to declare victory and go home prematurely.  Just because they say they are going to do it doesn't mean they will do it and, conversely, they might say they're not going to do it and do it anyway.  Like the old saying goes, "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty."

I included the second part of my story, which maybe should have been the first part, to illustrate my long held opinion that written procedures should be followed until such time as they are repealed or amended.  When something like that is allowed to fall into disuse, no good can come of it.  Of course people are important, but they are often unreliable.  Written rules are needed to serve as checks and balance against the impulsiveness of human nature.  Changing a written rule takes time and energy, hopefully insuring that it won't be done for light and transient reasons.

Meanwhile, back at the border. Yes, it's still there:

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