I'll say one thing for the SEIU. It is consistent in its ability to be inappropriate to the situation and to resort to personal disparagement when it fails to persuade.
The setting: An annual Christmas party at which a group of us former members of the Boston Symphony's Tanglewood Festival Chorus get together with other friends and relatives to eat, drink, and sing Christmas carols.
A man introduces himself as a neighbor who works for the SEIU. We start with a little repartee about Blue Mass Group, where he notes that I was taking some hits for recent comments. I say how I love BMG as a democratic place where anybody can participate. He looks at me oddly.
He then sidles into the topic of, "When are you going to let your employees form a union?" I respond with, "When are you going to let them have elections with debates?" And the race to the bottom is on. Pretty quickly, I say, "Look, I'm here for a party with friends, not to discuss this stuff."
He says, "I think you're a hypocrite."
Let's see. We have known each other for about 90 seconds. We have quickly figured out that we are not going to persuade each other on the merits of the issue. So he resorts to a character slur.
I'll admit that my response at that point consisted of a rude, physically impossible, autoerotic suggestion. (I then apologized to my host for swearing at one of his guests.)
The rest of the evening was entirely pleasant, with lots of joyful singing. This fellow didn't join in.
HAHAHAAA!! (as my daughter would type.) You need anger management classes, obviously. (: But what a boor, to even raise this question at an obviously social gathering. It seems politics has permeated every corner of our society these days, ruining friendships and the most basic interactions. The old idea that manners holds a society together is rapidly disintegrating - along with the society.
ReplyDeletenonlocal
The irrational demands of this Union are a major driver of costs
ReplyDeleteThe unions are out to benefit the union and not their members! You have made a true effort to protect the employees these bums(SEIU) are trying to entice.
ReplyDeleteYour core group of customers unfortunately see these union issues and assume the billboards and roving trucks display the truth. Your target audience needs to hear from you. While a large segment of your patients and potential patients might read this blog, the majority do not. You need to reach these people in other ways such as public appearences at churches, synogogues, senior center and various public functions or the unions will gain a foothold.
BIDMC is a good place and these distractions do nothing to improve healthcare. Good Luck.
I am a former employee who knows the truth about how good BIDMC is at Healthcare.