Crossing a picket line
 

What would you do if you're faced with a situation where the company that you work for "strongly urges" you to cross a picket line to deliver a load, but you feel uncomfortable doing so ( for whatever reason ) ? What options does one have in such a scenario ?

Check with local authorities and see if it is legal to do so.

Do your job. If they wanna be cry babies, let em.
If it gets real nasty, call the cops and your supervisor.

What makes it tricky is the part that I forgot to mention in the original post...I belong to a union myself !!

Never cross a picket line if your union, just sit at home if you don't feel like marching around on the street. Good way to get yourself killed at worst and at best loose all your buddies plus getting booted from the union if you cross the line.

I am not for unions myself, but if you're part of the union, you're expected to back up your union brothers and sisters. That's part of the reason you're in a union. So I agree with Mr. Ford....take the time off.

I would not cross it.

Weather im union or not.

I had a buddy who's dad was in a union for Bell Atlantic. They went on strike one year and he decided the heck with the union after a month of striking. He went back to work because he was nearly out of money to feed his family. It took his work friends a long time to forgive him over crossing the line and some never did forgive him even though he did it for his families sake. The next time they went on strike, just before the Verizon take over, he sat at home for all but one day of it. He walked only one day just to make it so his buddies didn't think he was crossing again.

What's the company going to do, fire you? If they fire you, they have to fire everyone else and that gives the union more ammo. The company will threaten you with being fired or when you do come back to work they are going to make it tough on you or whatever else they can think up, just let your union know when they start doing that stuff and you will be fine. Maybe take a day and walk with a billboard to show your in to your fellow union members but other than that, chill out at home. :D

Do not check with the local "authorities", because it's NOT a legal issue; it's a loyalty issue. Besides, the cops don't know what's going on at a private employer until they see people lining the street with picket signs.

If you cross a picket line, you will forever be labeled a "scab". That term came about a long time ago, and a federal judge ruled that it's appropriate. Back in the day people could incur physical harm for crossing a picket line, and nobody in the picketing crowd would have seen anything. Nowadays, with unions becoming fewer and farther between, I doubt you would encounter bodily harm, but, still I guess going to work for the company that is trying to screw their work force, while said workers go without pay to keep their bargained benefits, depends on you and your own conscience.

I am in a union on my current gig, but it's a weak union and next contract we will probably be hung out to dry. We probably won't gain anything, and it will be considered a victory if we keep what we have now. But at the very same time there are alot of things I do not like about our union and unions in general. Chief among them, is their liberal persuasion and the fact that they want me to vote for Obama. I would rather be urinated on and set on fire than vote for Obama.

Long story short, you can cross if you want to, that's between you and yourself; me, I would not cross a picket line, whether at my own place of employment or any other place that was on strike.

By the way, unions typically only go on strike during contract negotiations, when the company side of the bargaining table is being recalcitrant. Strikes at other times are single issue strikes, commonly referred to as "wildcat" strikes, and are extremely rare.

As for someone above posting that their buddy went broke and scabbed across a picket line, here's the deal on that: if you are in a union shop, you KNOW when your contract comes up for renewal, years ahead of time. You KNOW ahead of time, based on conditions at your shop whether or not a strike is imminent - sometimes a couple YEARS ahead of time. Having said that, wouldn't the smart thing to do be to start saving money for the possibility of a strike? I would. I am doing that now.

I agree with Mackman, I don't care what my company urges me to do, i would never cross a picket line, union brother or not.