Unions can be very helpful when it comes to ensuring that employees are treated with respect and that they get what they are entitled to.

Of course, unions can also be filled with petty leaders who cause problems for the company and the employees.

The union member representative in this story was the second type, but the company finally got tired of dealing with her and was actually able to get her fired.

Check it out.

Sketchy Union Member Representative gets fired for lying and deceptive conduct

So I’m​ in the HR/Payroll department for a janitorial service company that deals with a service worker union.

It’s a pretty big time US Union that has local branches. Our company is state-regional with a few thousand employees.

Why do people start a new job and immediately try to change things they don’t understand.

About two years ago, a new Union member representative got employed at the local branch. Let’s call her Ashley.

She came in wanting to make waves.

The general sense was that she is extremely proactive and will call us out on everything so we gotta step up our game!

At first, she was very communicative with the employees/members.

Nothing wrong with this. It did cause an initial surge in employees complaining to us. Some had merit, others did not.

Since the Union contract is worded kind of funky, I don’t blame a person for misreading it.

Enforcing policies can be a challenge.

Besides, our policy is to just straight-up read from it if an employee does not agree with something. Still, we try to be reasonable without showing favoritism.

Some days I would have to talk to employee after employee about what Ashley said during the recent Union Member meeting. “No, you do not have 7 days of sick day. You just used up 7.”

She was literally giving us more work to cause office inefficiency so things can slip the cracks.

Whatever, as long as I do my work perfectly, we should be fine.

I’ve never heard of these.

Something that became popular since Ashley started working was Union Leave assignments. A union employee (plural at times) would be excused from work for weeks.

The motion would be brought up by Ashley with employees “volunteering” to be picked and our company approving or denying the motion (I dubbed these employees as “the volunteers”).

We would just play the nice guy card and approve every single one.

Sometimes employees that would work along side the employee that just left on a “Union assignment” would get upset and ask how this is fair. We would just refer to the Union Contract and ask them​ to talk to the Union about it.

It really doesn’t seem fair.

We would explain that this is certainly something that The Union pushed for in the contract, not the companies. Ashley and “the volunteers” were known to be pretty buddy buddy outside of work.

When these employees would come back to work, they would push their weight around on the other employees. A two tier level of Union Employees developed and we had to step in to try to discipline.

Of course, these Employees would go crying to Ashley immediately and state they were being discriminated against because they were “more union”.

They are just manipulating the system at this point.

Another thing that was shocking was how Ashley and “the volunteers” would back up claims with a list of a couple dozen signatures.

The most serious one was one which alleged that an area supervisor was overly aggressive and incompetent. They had like 40 signatures.

“The volunteers” and a dozen employees showed up to our office to hand deliver this claim. It felt like an intimidation tactic.

I interact with most employees and get to know them, yet I hardly recognized anyone in that group, except of course “the volunteers”.

These ‘volunteers’ are just trying to get someone fired.

The supervisor was investigated by corporate HR, but they found nothing. We interviewed those that signed and we got a very different story.

Turns out the 40 signatures were just a sign-in sheet at a Union meeting. About half the signatures were union employees who were not employed by our company.

They did discuss this supervisor in the meeting, but not everyone in attendance agreed with the claim.

I can’t imagine having to deal with a union like this.

The investigation was coming to a close while our company had a big meeting with the local union due to “new issues.”

I was told to sit there, look pretty, and keep my cool because I can be a hot head. Ashley is known for interrupting while someone else is speaking.

Our regional VP would be our main representative. He is diplomatic and can keep his cool.

Our folks show up to the meeting and they get hammered on 4 new big issues. 4 of our new hires are actually full union employees sent by Ashley who were recently laid off from a different Union Employer.

We must pay and support these new hires as full union.

How can a company survive when dealing with this?

If during the interview those details didn’t come up, to bad. We got screwed big time.

The VP accepted defeat on this topic and moved on to another issues, but Ashley kept interrupting him.

He had enough. He told her to be professional, stop being so malicious, and to stop lying. My mouth was still open as he was exiting the meeting room.

Are they going to make it even worse?

“Oh that’s how you wanna play?” said the Ashley’s boss. In my mind, I thought Ashley’s boss probably knows best that if she is enabling a drama queen professional to cause havoc, she should deal with it… Or be asked to.

After a few days, the VP emailed Ashley’s boss and other Union higher ups about the fake signatures she would collect about claims, Ashley’s friends being paid through fake Union Leave Activities with “our employees money!” and the overly adversary tone she would carry in our relationship with her.

He attached employee testimonials (employees that attended The Union meetings) and emails that illustrated his accusations.

There was way more sketchy stuff Ashley did, but I just mentioned the worse stuff.

Finally, I bet they were relieved about this.

Ashley was fired the next day.

Unions can be great for both the employees and the employer, but only if they are reasonable. It sounds like this union just likes causing trouble.

Let’s see what the people in the comments say about it.

This person wants more details about what happened.

I agree with this commenter.

This person has experience with that union.

It was a little confusing.

I’ve often wondered this too.

A bad union is worse than no union at all.

Remember that.

If you liked that post, check out this post about a woman who tracked down a contractor who tried to vanish without a trace.