Does anyone know if there would be penalties for having an organized sick-out if there is no contract yet signed? We are not bound to any no strike clause and a coworker was fired and I think naturally people are calling out sick anyway due to stress. Can we be fired for insubordination or something? What are the risks?
How many workers are you talking about? And is this a right to work state?
Not a right to work state, and I imagine it would be maybe 10-15 of us, maybe up to 20 I'd imagine
Also, there are no current policies around doctors notes, how many days you can take in a row etc. Its always been that you can take them when you need to
My local has a “no strike” agreement, (way before my time and we are trying to get rid of it,) so mass call-outs are what we do now when we are unhappy about something. Last time negotiations came back negatively, we had almost 300 workers across 12 different contractors call out for a long weekend.
Oh damn, good luck getting rid of it!! This labornotes article may be helpful in getting creative on negotiating that
That's amazing; so it sounds like sickouts are a potentially safe way to protest this issue? We haven't gotten to economics yet, so maybe it would be more strategic to do that once we get counters on that. We are all outraged at our coworker getting fired and I think everyone would be down to call out in protest for her, but idk just how much we could get away with
Disclaimer: I'm not in a union. In the US I think people could be fired for this, and possibly reinstated after a legal battle since it sounds like it might be a protected ULP strike. Not sure if sick-outs count. But laws aside, it would be too expensive to fire you all. That's why strikes work.
That's a good point. It would be almost the entirety of two different departments (our bargai.img unit) that would do it, too.
