A Brother's Words

Without going into detail, we recently had an event happen at work where management communicated to us that they wanted to have an informal chat to build up relations between us and them. Immediately when a member broke ranks and talked about what an incompetent foreman had been asking members on his crew to do, management began an investigation and the whole thing got completely out-of-hand. Here following is an excerpt from another brother's open letter to his fellows (I think he makes some good points):

Brothers and Sisters,

We must understand clearly that as much as we may wish for a close friendly relationship with management, that can only be an unfulfilled dream.
We can treat each other respectfully and in a business like manner but we must remember that managers belong to a group of employees who hire and fire our members, who work their best to deny us wage increases and the betterment of our shop conditions. Sometimes the only way we can get change from them is to make safe workplace claims and even then it is an uphill struggle.
We must recognize that somebody who has the power to deny food for your table and progressive health and welfare for your children is not your friend. We deal with these other employees because we have to. Current labor law gives them inherently more power than anyone of us individually. The dynamic is never changed or suspended except at the bargaining table. Together we survive, individually we lose. The oldest tactic is to divide and conquer. We must remember that "An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!"