OK....now's the time to explain my previous post. It's a long story, so I'll probably miss some things. Our problems are being magnified by 2 major things: 1)The union has been voted into Blue Man....and the management is pissed. They didn't want it to happen. 2)"The Economy"...I put that in quotes because there's a belief that they are just using the economy has an excuse to pull some pull some lousy stuff with us. Over the last year, Blue Man has given at least 10 employees the choice to either resign or be fired. The COMPANY'S excuse has ALWAYS been that these people were padding hours....leaving at 10 after the hour while signing out for 15 after. We're their reasoning falls through is that it was written in their rule book that that was exactly what we were supposed to do...round up to the 15 minutes. Now, the one thing that all of these people have in common....they are union members who testified FOR the union in some trials, between blue man and the union, held a good year and a half ago. It is common belief that THAT is the real reason why these people were fired. That is illegal...one cannot be fired for being a union member and doing what they believe is right. Blue Man has ALSO gotten into the unfortunate habit of firing ANYONE they believe is "rocking the boat". In the last month they have fired...I kid you not...FOUR people from the las vegas production (that's absurd).... My guy Sean was among them. Their excuse was that he was on duty during a robber that took place a couple of weeks ago...not that the lack of security was a problem or that maybe there should have been a second retail person on duty. Now, what he and I really believe their reasoning is is this... a couple of months ago, he and a couple of other retail staff member walked in, on seperate occasions, on their 2 supervisors looking at porn on the company computers...one of them being child porn. He went down to the office suite and talked to two people in management. Instead of firing these two pigs in charge...they fired him. The company is cutting back hours....drastically. Over time is completely out. The lighting department is down to one maintenance work call per week....and that's with the company currently doing 14 shows a week. We have lighting instruments breaking down that we don't have the time to fix. The company is also moving our nightly call time back an hour (changing my number of hours from 8 to 7), completely losing any time that we may have to fix something that may broken down by showtime. I found out last night that there's been talk of changing the show schedule back down to 12/week. The employees believe that that would mean that they would be expected to work 6 days a week, and only make between 35 and 40 hours. One of the lighting crew members has been with the company for 14 years...since it started. He has been sitting in on the negotiating meetings between Blue MAn and the union...Blue Man has LIED to the union reps on more than one occasion about their current and past practices. Oh, and they recently fired the two lead technicians/ designers in New York who originally designed most of the Blue Man technology. They were the only people who could fix it when it broke down.These two men have started their own production company in New York and....low and behold...are NOW overcharging Blue Man to fix their broken technology. Just last night, THREE different Lighting crew members talked, seriously, about finding other jobs. "Blue Man is going down in FLAMES" is what one said. I'm REALLY glad I have three jobs...plus the union. I'm actually in better shape than anyone else in that department. Didn't see THAT ONE coming. Oh...and for those wondering...Sean'll be fine. It looks like he may be getting a full job, with AT&T, making twice what he did with Blue Man. SO.....PLEASE don't let anyone you care about apply for this job. THANK YOU!!! | 