From Yahoo:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. labor movement is asking workers to move their complaints about their bosses from the water cooler to the Web.

Working America, the AFL-CIO union federation's affiliate for nonunion workers, invited workers throughout the country on Monday to share their best stories about their worst bosses in its "My Bad Boss Contest."

Top prize is a one-week vacation.

"It's an opportunity for people to get this off their chests and to see what's happening out there and to shine a spotlight on this," said Working America Executive Director Karen Nussbaum.

It's also an opportunity for the worker advocacy group, which has more than 1 million members, to pick up new members, since contestants must go to www.workingamerica.org to enter.

Standing by to weigh in with on-line comments about the worst-boss stories are author Barbara Ehrenreich, who chronicled the plight of the working poor in "Nickel and Dimed," comedian tuned liberal talk show host Al Franken and liberal commentator Jim Hightower.

Voting for the best worst-boss stories will be done by Web readers over the next six weeks. Each week's top vote-getter will be eligible to compete for the grand prize, a seven-night vacation getaway and $1000 for a round trip air fare, to be announced by August 16

Leading vote-getters as of Monday were:

-- "Russ," whose table-thumping boss at a small Maryland company nixed bonuses, cut overtime and ordered managers to "instill fear" in workers to boost productivity, all because a competing company's owner had a more expensive car, and

-- "Graphics Girl," who left her Pennsylvania media company, and was publicly berated for doing so, after 10 years, including the last five where she worked 50 to 80 hours a week without overtime pay and often without seeing her children. "I missed birthdays and health and years of seasons changing since my office was in a basement with no windows, all for nothing," she wrote.

"It's important to legitimize for people that when you're treated unfairly on the job, that it's not necessarily something you have to swallow," commented Nussbaum.

And then there was "Nobody" from California who warned others by his own example of the perils of entering the contest from a workplace computer. "The fact that my entire Internet connection is monitored by my employer prohibits me from making a contribution," he wrote.

Link here.

Warren

 

i hope someone who works for one of the unions posts up a story or two lol

 

I wonder if any of those stories are true.....



......but I'm a natural skeptic.

 

Even though unions can be frustrating the main purpose of them is to prevent abusive work relationships. I'm not looking for an arguement because of course they have their down sides too.

 

They seem true enough as in my short time of working I've seen both instances atleast to some degree. Luckily I left those places. I need to tell one of the guys I used to work with to tell his story from a few years ago before I worked there:

They had a boss that everyime he walked around for any reason he had to carry his coffee cup with him. Usually he kept very full. He was always spilling a little every time he took a step. If he came that same way and saw the spilled coffee, he would yell at the employees for not keeping the floors clean. So they eventually formed a "coffee-dot patrol" and would take turns walking behind the boss wiping up his spills. These guys are engineers and not janitors either.

 

i was thinking the same thing but then again there's some BAD bosses out there. my last boss used to give me nightmares, literally. i'm a 19 yr. old girl and she was in her late 30s and i'm pretty sure it was purely a personal issue with me. luckily, the place i work now has EXCEPTIONAL management. but it seems to me that it's more of a writing contest than anything else.... so a lot of it is probably made up, i could pull a pretty good bad boss story outta my ass if there was a chance at winning a free vacation. i just might do that...

 

My boss is just a dickhead, but I can't say he's a bad boss... I would like to see what the winning entry is. Must be an absolute nightmare.

 

My worst boss was a manager at a restaraunt I worked at for about a month back in college. He used to show up when we opened piss drunk. After my paycheck bounced TWICE due to an "accounting mistake" I moved on. The place closed about two months later.

 

that's fine, but pitting workers against "management" is just childish. Everyone wants to go home to their families at the end of the day.

 

Atleast in the area I work in not that many people have a family or even want one. Many are totally socially inept. Work is their life. They may be good at their job and eventually get promoted to management because of this but management is really the last place these guys belong. Some are ineffective others are just A-holes.