Union Organizers are 'Salespeople,' says UNITE-HERE

What may seem to be obvious to some, a major union has confirmed for all: Union organizers are salespeople. Their job is to "sell" workers on becoming unionized.

This now-undisputable affirmation was the topic of a recent lawsuit filed by union organizers against their employer, UNITE-HERE, for overtime pay.

Trenette Savage, a union organizer with UNITE-HERE, along with seven other organizers (who either withdrew or had their suits dimissed) sued her employer for overtime pay.

According to Savage's attorney Gregory Lisi (as reported through Portfolio Media), people in Savage's position, who sometimes work 80-hour weeks, are exactly the type of employees that the FLSA is meant to protec.

“Their job is to go around and do the grunt work for the union,” said Lisi. “They don't make any policy decision for the unions or anything like that.”

“It's a funny case, in that the unions are supposed to be protecting their workers,” Lisi added. “But in this case, they're not.”

However, according to UNITE-HERE's motion for summary judgment (view here) Savage is an exempt outside sales person.

“Although union organizers are not usually thought of as salespeople in the conventional sense of for-profit retail sales, the essential duties of the position are functionally equivalent to those making outside sales people exempt from overtime,” according to UNITE HERE.

TELL US SOMETHING WE DIDN'T ALREADY KNOW...

MAYBE MS. SAVAGE AND HER FELLOW ORGANIZERS SHOULD HAVE JOINED A UNION INSTEAD OF WORKED FOR ONE.

If bloggers of the world unite into a union, does this mean I have to be a scab?

If you've been reading the news on the net lately about unions (see EmployerReport.com), you may have seen where some whackos (there's just no other word for it) on the blogoshpere want to form a union. (If you don't believe us, go here and check it out.)

According to Leslie Robinson, a writer at ColoradoConfidential.com who seems really detached from reality: "Maybe we could get more jobs, bona fide jobs."

Here's the problem(s)...

Since blogging is primarily a voluntary spewing of one's creative juices on subjects of a vast array with no particular employers (in most cases), who (or what) is this bloggers' union going to be negotiating with?

And since most (like us) work for free and often for our own amusement, who (or what) is this blogging union going to be negotiating against at what bargaining table??

And, if there is no agreement, do the bloggers strike?

If so, who (or what)?...Themselves???

More importantly, does anyone really care???

Lastly, if the bloggers' union strikes and we keep writing, doesn't that mean we're scabs?

Oh...This is too rich!