Image provided by: SEIU Local 503; Salem, OR
About The Oregon state employee. (Salem, Oregon.) 1944-195? | View Entire Issue (Oct. 1, 1949)
18 some sort of. rabble-rousing tactics. Apparently they overlook the pertin ent fact that State employees are a rather intelligent class of people, who can read well, and that honest; ap proaches to them, with articles based on truth will get better results; al though I would guess that the result^ of such an approach would be of real assistance to our own OSEA, for our record is clean! It must be admitted in all honesty and fairness that some parts of their articles are well-founded. For instance, they admit that their S C & M E dues are much higher than those of the Oregon State Employees Association (about 500% higher), but point out that there are over 200,000 members affiliated with them— the strength in numbers, etc. One naturgM wondgrs why, with H H | $400,000 monthly in come, they should feel obliged to abuse our little self-governing, dem ocratic Association. One might well ask, for whom is, this tremendous sum of money raised, foi- whose strength, at whose expense and for whose bene-- HH Who HAS Helped the State Employees? The Oregon State Employees Asso ciation was^yreated in 194^xby a small group of State employees who had previously been affiliated with the A F of L, and who took themselves, out of it because they were not treated 'with the respect that had been prom ised them, neither did they receive any of the help that was promised. This small number of disillusioned employees formed the present OSEA, which has always undertaken to do for the State employees, thru employee, actions, those beneficial things which ;other groupsj promise, but seldom de liver. It is not ¿necessary to list here the improved conditions under which all State employees now work, as com pared with 1943 and earlier. Any em ployee who has been ip the service for two or more years knows what has been done for all of us. There is no one who can deny that your OSEA hgts been in the forefront of what has been Accomplished, and is largelyiXre-; sponsible for it. Ask any administra tor! We have always conducted our selves in a creditable manner, we have not resorted to threats, intimidations, false accusations, name-calling/’ ' or other questionable methods of getting results. We, the « OSEA, enjoy a repu tation for honest and fair dealing, pre senting our cases . on their m eriSandg^ dealing with intelligent people on intelligent basis. Our methods succeed! The OSEA exerts no dictation on any of its members, and exerts no coercion on any employee to join its ranks. You do. not have to be a member, of the OSEA to hold your job! Thé-'OSE A could not and as a matter , of principle would not, if it could, threaten any one wifÊ a walk-ôut, sit-down, slow down or other such practice to obtain any of its-' objectives! What intelligent employee in State service would; like to change jobs with the coal miners, for instance? We Are N ot Mad A t Anybody There are people who love to feel that somebody is mad at them! Of such are our martyrs, and self-pitying peo ple with large inferiority complexes! Probably it makes: them feel BIG think that someone is mad at th em ^ P Well, disappointing though it may be, The Oregon State EmpJpjB M Associa- tion “ain’t mad at nobody’^as the say ing goes. Why should we be? Nobody is hurting us, we -liatfe/; received fair attention to our presentation of em ployees’ problems, we are respected. We have no c a f ^ f o r anger, although there have been times when our pa- ;||ence has been sorely tried. The writer has no quarrel , with, labor uniqnj?; the S C & M E, the members affiliated with them, or even with their Organ ization Committee who prepared the two articles we have discussocl here. Some of us are of a forgiving nature, and I do not believe that that Organ-. ization Committee was- very well in formed of the fac||p| and therefore had to fill in space with- the help of some- oneOimagination; possibly patterning^Wy the language on other such periodicals readily at hand. I owe- you readers^an^apology Tor having taken so much of your time, if you HAVE readfhis far. When the subject is fully analyzed, there wasn’t really much to get excited about, was there?.. I
