Recently, I’ve been going through some old things I’ve written. When I was a Bellman, when things were getting rough in the end, I wrote down some of the things I was having a hard time with. I found one example of Union Stupidity that really stood out!
Culinary Union Stupidity
How come the official Culinary Union’s Twitter account blocked me when I was asking questions about union stupidity? I guess they need an echo chamber, like when I wasn’t informed about the Culinary Union vote at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas.
How fair was that to me? I was an on-call luggage attendant at the time. There was a period of almost a week in which I was not working. During this time, the Union held a vote at the Cosmo to see if the bell desk and some others would be represented by them.
Signs were posted about the vote, but not at any time while I was there. I saw the signs the next day I went to work.
How was that fair to me? Voting is extremely important to the unions, as shown here by the Culinary Union 226’s voting endorsements. Side note: They are urging their members to vote for Governor Steve Sisolak. Sisolak is a terrible leader. I’ve never seen a governor half as bad as him. You can listen to Juan and I talk about him in our podcast, Oh! It’s on! With Juan and Sean!
Bellman Job Positions
When I was a bellman, there were three positions one bellman could hold.
- Inside Bellman – This was the coveted role because it required the least work and you potentially could make the most money. Inside Bellmen literally just sat in a storage room until a guest called for a bellman. They still made their regular hourly wage. Most guests would tip inside bellman the most because he was the one going to the guests’ rooms, either to pick up or drop off bags.
- Curb Bellman – This bellman worked at the Bell Desk or on the porte cochere (hotel entrance). This position didn’t get tipped as much, and you would know when a bellman wouldn’t get a tip because many of them pouted when it happened. You were also (supposed to be) on your feet the entire shift. If you weren’t at the desk, you were (supposed to be) outside assisting guests with luggage.
- Graveyard – This bellman worked both inside and curb since the amount of work for a bellman was allegedly less.
I was an on-call bellman for a while, so this meant I could fill any of the three positions. However, rarely would I get to work inside, because if a bellman did miss work, it was usually during the time the bellman was suppose to be on the curb.
The Culinary Stupidity Comes In
Once the Culinary Union was voted in, boy howdy, the ideas of union stupidity came flowing. You can see somethings I’ve already talked about here.
However, one of the dumbest things to me was when the idea that there would be bellmen assigned permanently to the three positions. As it was, there were two teams of bellmen, and they would rotate every week, which is most fair.
And that’s not all! Not only did they want to make it permanent for those three positions, they wanted to break up the Curb Bellman into two positions – one at the desk and the other out in the porte cochere. The desk was inside and money came to the desk. The porte cochere was outside where all the car fumes was, and you actually had to work to make tips.
So they basically wanted to make a group of bellman “suffer” outside while the other two groups basically got to hang out and do the easy work and make most of the money.
Fortunately, this proposition of union stupidity never came to be. If it was like the vote on delivering chocolates to the rooms, it would have needed to be unanimous. As it stood, the bottom probably 10-20% of Bellman would never vote for such a stupid idea because they would just permanently be outside on the drive making way less money.
In the End…
In the end, it’s all about seniority. Seniority is still the laziest, stupidest way for the elite to benefit them. You literally have to do two things to obtain seniority:
- Don’t do something dumb enough to get fired.
- Don’t quit your job.
Seniority doesn’t even require you to get better at your job or take on more responsibility. You simply get it by not being ambitious and not getting fired. Why is that a good thing?
Oh well, just more union stupidity good workers are willing to put up with.
Featured image is from https://pixabay.com/illustrations/logos-brain-smart-thought-profile-990390/, but I edited the text!
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