A March 3, 2023 article in The Wall Street Journal ("Late to Work? Thank the Transit Union - A labor group in New York blocks a common-sense schedule update") aroused memories. Long ago I was hired as a hospital administrator at a huge, greatly troubled medical center facing bankruptcy which the federal government pressured to change. To say that I was unprepared for this task would be an understatement since I had no managerial experience and the city was historically corrupt. I joked that the local daily newspaper was read to see which of one's friends had been indicted. But I was unemployed and had unexpectedly been offered the post, likely because I wrote a book and had good credentials.
I tried my best, wanting to be a modern enlightened manager, speaking to the union representative in this light and intending for us to work together to improve things. Though congenial, he had none of it. For his workers, the hospital was a great job, they gossiping with each other and doing little else all the working day. Abandoning my warm friendly demeanor, I became a tight-lipped hardass and the setting became professional as I instituted needed education and procedures. I also began getting neck pain by the end of each day, interpreting this well-known symptom of stress as my employees giving me a pain in the neck.
Incidentally, I have no present animus toward unions, having been a member of both the Teamsters and the IBEW (International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers), and learning of many incompetent managers and unneeded worker suffering through mine and my patients' experiences.