Is Profit Sharing a Good Demand at Contract Time?
Channel: Richard Mellor
Date: 02/12/2023

I got on my local union's negotiating team in 1982. I was very green, a new rank and file activist in a blue collar local. I think my classification at that time was pipeline laborer. I worked for a water company in the San Francisco Bay Area and retired from there some 29 years later.  That experience taught me a great deal. 

One thing I learned in the following months and years and two more sets of negotiations including one month long strike, was that rather than raising demands that are "realistic" which means acceptable to the employers, the labor hierarchy and their friends in the Democratic we need to put forward demands that express our immediate needs. 

There's nothing unreasonable about a shorter workweek, health care for all, or a national public transportation system , affordable living conditions either. What is "reasonable" to the bosses are lower wages, no unions, increased production and competition.

My point in the video is to draw attention to the demand for profit sharing that is common in the private sector; it seems reasonable form our point of views as workers but it is not. It's a trap. So, if you agree with this short clip, please hit the "like" button here on You Tube  and on share and "like" it on Facebook