E Pluribus Union

When I tried to bring a trade union into the dump the Big Cheese hit the ceiling. He threatened to decapitate anyone who joined IHOP (International Hetero Offerers of Porno). His rantings spooked most of the dump employees I was recruiting into my cause. I had promised them that this union would campaign for a fair salary (at least the national minimum wage), bring us health care coverage (except for any precondition – proven or suspected), and guarantee us at most a 60 hour week. I had been making good progress with them until that rat, Vernon, blurted out my plans over his third martini, when he was lunching with the Big Cheese at the China Sky.

When he came back from lunch, smelling of tangarine beef, Cheesey took me out behind the toxic drop-off site and tore me a new sphincter. He screamed that I had been his protégé, that he had had great plans for my recycling career, that he had been planning to cut me in on the kickbacks, and that I was like a big brother to him. I smiled slyly and claimed that Lardass had no basis for his allegations. It was clear that Lardass had my union campaign statements confused with my attempt to get the deadbeats here at the dump to be more productive. I had been only talking in hypotheticals to them and that I had no intention of bringing a union into the dump. After about ten minutes of this type of mendacity, the Big Cheese walked away muttering to himself.

I knew then that, if were going to be successful, I would have to cause a union vote very, very quickly. I called the National Labor Relations Board to send in observers and passed out flyers to all the dump employees as they exited the dump gates that night. The vote was set for January 30th and the NLRB promised an overwhealming show of force so that Cheesy couldn’t drive the backhoe over our cars, or send Harvey out to threated our families. The day of the vote came and, dispite the fact that Cheesy and Harvey were wearing huge hogs for sidearms, over 60% of the employees voted. (The ones not voting were mainly the “sonnys,” those who were related by blood to Cheesy.) And, of those voting, over 95% chose to be represented by IHOP.

I was elated. The Big Cheese was dispondent. The day after the election I asked to talk to Cheesy to put forward our union demands. He refused, gesturing that he no longer could understand English and proceeded to talk to me in Klingon. According to the NLRB, I then had to get an official Klingon translator to proceed with negotations. After five hours of Googling the Internet, I could find no such licensed linguist. So we, here at the dump, fell back into our old ways. The Big Cheese does slip me a twenty now and then though.