Join a union?

I've always said that unions are both good and bad, right now I'm leaning towards the good side. I'm thinking I might want to join one so that I can be sure that I have someone backing me up in my troubles with this business\technology teacher at my school I work in. My reason is because in a meeting we had with the principal last week her union rep was there "observing" so she isn't playing games. Back in the day my grandpa was a truck driver and was a member of Jimmy Hoffa's teamsters and they were a powerful union, so I know I am screwed without a little bit of support if this lady is getting her teachers union involved. I've been looking all over the internet and I can't seem to find one that is IT or Network Administrator specific. Is there such a thing? Even a union for faculty of a school district who are not teachers would probably work for me. What do you think?

Wow just get another school district and move, this lady is nuts.
A union won't help you much at all in this case as it will have no influence over the school district like the teachers union would.

Again though the teachers union is NOT on her side automatically, they are there to make sure the contract the teacher signed with the district is not broken.

Talk to the administrator, no the principal, this is above a principal. Either she stays out of your way or the contract is amended for you and her to include/exclude this lab.

There is not a union for IT workers and probably never will be.

Thank God!

Aren't unions Mob/Mafia inspired rackets ?

No. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_unio ... ted_States

Power, in all forms, is corrupt.

kc, I have read some posts of yours over the past months and now. You seem to be stress with your job. It will do no good to your health, especially. Have you tried looking for other places that fit YOUR skills. Some people and place simply won't change.

Maybe it's just me, but I would think a lawyer on retainer is better to have than a union membership. At least at first glance.

In our lifetime, for our highly individualistic wants, needs and world-view, perhaps.

Labor conditions in pre-unionization America were a lot different, however. So was the sense of community.

I'm pretty sure most of us wouldn't have liked it too much. There weren't a lot of options. Whether we like to believe it or not, the vast majority of us would have been common laborers, not industrial magnates. We would have had little, if any protections or rights.

It's funny how over time we take these things so easily for granted.

I thought having an attorney might be the better option, but I'm broke and can't afford one. I have been talking with the superintendent (my boss) but her general answer is to just be patient and try to work it out with this teacher. The principal is not my boss, but he seems to think he is, the passive agressive micromanaging SOB. So far the only IT union I have found is called WashTech, they are out of Washington state and their entire purpose is to help people who have been laid off by IBM and had their job outsourced to foreign countries so they are of no use to me.

To be totally honest, I hate unions. I say that if you have a job you should do as your employer says, and if you aren't performing well enough then of course you won't be getting bonuses or raises or promotions or anything. So when ever people don't get those perks, they go crying to the union and get coddled. The only times unions are any good is for matters like if you aren't being compensated for overtime or something, but then again lots of people goof off on the clock, then work extra to get work done and try and claim overtime.

I'd like to find another job, but around here in this rural area there literally is nothing nothing nothing. And especially nothing that can match what I'm being paid right now. I kind of feel like I've been screwed over because I did what everyone told me to do. In high school, they tell you that if you want to be successful to go to college and find a job right away and I did that. But can they really expect a 17 year old kid to know what they want to do the rest of their life? I could go to school and learn to do something else, but that costs money and money is something my wife and I are kind of low on.

Alright, I'm not just talking big here but this ***** (edited after I hit submit) is close to getting punched in the face. On my file server, I have a samba share set up so that students can save their work in their home folders. Then I have a special hard drive set up just for her adobe Premiere class because otherwise the students videos would fill up the hard drive that their home folders are on, and that just now happened. Its a freaking 250 gig hard drive and it has 68M left of free space, and the student that came to me to tell me it was full said that this teacher told all the Premiere students NOT to use the video share. I am fully convinced that she is causing problems on purpose.

I just got done deleting one students videos from his video editing class, I went from 100% capacity to 61% capacity for this one student's files. Yes, I am going to set up disk quotas. I can't believe that one kid was using so much space on the server.

I just realized I don't know what you wanted to join a union for in the first palce. Today when I read back over this thread, it seems like you're just psyched out by this lady having a union rep there.

I don't think the union rep can hurt or harm you, unless your goal is to get rid of the lady. As long as you're doing your job it's not like a union rep is going to make a difference whether you're terminated or not.

Same thing here. I got the impression from your most recent posts and other things you've posted that you're having interpersonal problems with X,Y and/or Z.

I was kind of freaked out about her union rep being there, but I'm not so much any more. I was out sick yesterday and half of Wednesday, so I got plenty of much needed sleep. But I'm still just kind of pissed about that because I honestly don't think it is a union issue. Mostly I was just thinking that two can play at that game, if she can have a union rep there then so can I. I've been talking with the principal and superintendent about the current problems we are having today, and the superintendent agrees with me that she is blatantly not following my instructions when it comes to the use of computer and network equipment which is a direct violation of our Acceptable Use Policy and she will be dealt with accordingly. She's pretty much digging her own grave and eventually she is going to fall into it.