Are Bad Bosses just a joke to the AFL-CIO? Or is the topic too close to home?
You ask your boss about missing inventory and accidentally find out that your boss is stealing from your company. He flies into an angry rage, knowing you've found him out. After that, he follows you around every day, criticizing everything you do. He gets so close to you when he yells that he spits in your face—creating both an emotional-health and a physical-health threat. You try to file a grievance with your union rep. What does she do? Laugh and say, "Hey, that's a pretty good story. Why don't you submit it to our contest—you could win a one-week vacation!"
Believe it or not, the AFL-CIO, under its Working America unit, has launched the "My Bad Boss" contest. Why? They say it's to increase membership. But wouldn't membership automatically increase by word-of-mouth if they were actually solving these problems? In this Reuter's article about the contest, one union official is quoted, saying it's "an opportunity for people to get this off their chests…" Don't members already have that opportunity, every day, by going to their reps? And don't members want more from their unions than just the opportunity "get this off their chests?" Don't they want the union to help put a stop to the bad boss problem? Isn't that what they're paying dues for (or making donations for)?
So, what's the AFL-CIO going to do with all of these stories? They say they're going to offer five prizes to the worst cases. That should make you feel better about where your money's going, right? Now read the Contest Rules (which the Web identifies as being on the "disclaimer" page http://www.workingamerica.org/badboss/disclaimer.cfm):
"Entries may be used by Working America for any purpose without the permission of the participant or any consideration apart from participation in the Contest in accordance with these official rules...Working America may edit each entry, whether or not selected as a winner, and may republish it on the Working America website and in any other form."
Whoa! The union wants you to give them your bad-boss story for their own use—any way and any time they want to use it? Doesn't that article include the names of some book writers? And isn't one of those runner-up prizes a book published by the American Management Association (AMA)? And doesn't that AMA book suggest that your boss may not really be the cause of your problem? And isn't Reuter's, who advertised this contest, a partner of the AMA (it says so on their Web site: http://www.amanet.org/aboutama/partners_sponsors.htm)?
Well, let's not be too surprised—after all, unions are just businesses, too. Big businesses. Businesses that take in lots of revenue from their members and pay big salaries to their top-level people—union bosses—union managers. And union managers are eligible to join the American Management Association and increase the AMA's revenue.
So, I wonder what good ideas AFL-CIO managers might have about making even more money off their members by exploiting their bad-boss experiences rather than solving those problems?
Believe it or not, the AFL-CIO, under its Working America unit, has launched the "My Bad Boss" contest. Why? They say it's to increase membership. But wouldn't membership automatically increase by word-of-mouth if they were actually solving these problems? In this Reuter's article about the contest, one union official is quoted, saying it's "an opportunity for people to get this off their chests…" Don't members already have that opportunity, every day, by going to their reps? And don't members want more from their unions than just the opportunity "get this off their chests?" Don't they want the union to help put a stop to the bad boss problem? Isn't that what they're paying dues for (or making donations for)?
So, what's the AFL-CIO going to do with all of these stories? They say they're going to offer five prizes to the worst cases. That should make you feel better about where your money's going, right? Now read the Contest Rules (which the Web identifies as being on the "disclaimer" page http://www.workingamerica.org/badboss/disclaimer.cfm):
"Entries may be used by Working America for any purpose without the permission of the participant or any consideration apart from participation in the Contest in accordance with these official rules...Working America may edit each entry, whether or not selected as a winner, and may republish it on the Working America website and in any other form."
Whoa! The union wants you to give them your bad-boss story for their own use—any way and any time they want to use it? Doesn't that article include the names of some book writers? And isn't one of those runner-up prizes a book published by the American Management Association (AMA)? And doesn't that AMA book suggest that your boss may not really be the cause of your problem? And isn't Reuter's, who advertised this contest, a partner of the AMA (it says so on their Web site: http://www.amanet.org/aboutama/partners_sponsors.htm)?
Well, let's not be too surprised—after all, unions are just businesses, too. Big businesses. Businesses that take in lots of revenue from their members and pay big salaries to their top-level people—union bosses—union managers. And union managers are eligible to join the American Management Association and increase the AMA's revenue.
So, I wonder what good ideas AFL-CIO managers might have about making even more money off their members by exploiting their bad-boss experiences rather than solving those problems?
