User talk:Rgcroc

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Reply

I've read through the (very long!) explanation you've given me: thanks for taking the time. I can see you want to help improve this page. For my own part, yes it's totally true that I don't know a huge amount about the union busting business in the States, or the reputation that Mr Burke has built up there. My objections to your changes were a bit more simple though. I can see you're involved in the business and know what you're talking about. But it is not up to you to delete well sourced material. Let me repeat that: it is not up to you to delete well sourced material.

There are two issues here as I see it: first you're trying to change the wording of the first section, making it a bit more flowery and with more z's. I'm not even going to start on that. For one thing, it's just not that important.

Second you want to alter the list of jobs TBG has been involved in. This last bit is fine by me: if you have some information which you feel is accurate, then by all means put it in. The problem is that you say, you've checked a few things out and you think there's a conflict. The right approach in these situations, I think, is to put up the information you have and say in the article that there is a conflict. I think that in this business especially, there are always going to be conflicting interpretations. If I come to Wikipedia and want to read about the Burke Group, then it's useful to know that there is a dispute, and read that in the article. But if John Logan (or a newspaper or anyone) has written something, and there's a source for it, then it isn't up to you to just delete it, and say it was wrong, because you checked I'm afraid. I'm sure that's really annoying, especially if you're right and the reference is wrong: but it has to be so, and I'm sure you can agree on that. And you've got to put up your own references for your own conflicting interpretations. Also, you can use this tool if you think something is unreferenced - ^{[citation needed]} - and this will point out to readers that something's dodgy.

p.s. If you know more about other companies, which you obviously do, please go ahead and put up pages for them! This is all about growing knowledge. :) Wikidea 10:51, 24 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your feedback. It is fair. First, you say I am trying to make the first section more flowery and "its not that important". I differ. It is important. Sentences are quoted from TBGs website then annotated to say something else. Adding citation numbers give the reader an impression of verifiable truth but only upon scrutiny do you find the spin. Wikipedia is not a blog and as such must be entirely without spin or agenda. I believe it is important to make the top section "factual" not flowery. It is also important because Wikipedia posts overtake google searches and most readers rely on its veracity and have no idea it is written by people who have never met or interviewed their living subject or may have an agenda. I have not deleted "well" sourced material, just "poorly" sourced material culled from biased source supported by the TUC and/or AFL-CIO (Logan and Levitt). This is not NPOV. Some of Logan's data on Chinese Daily News extracted for your post belongs only within a Chinese Daily News article. Logan intertwines several cases without pointing to which was TBG and which was not which misleads. He mixed courts also. A reader or author unfamiliar with US courts and law is lead astray. It appears the labor portal wants TBG to pay for the sins of all so called "union busters" and I understand the emotion, but it must be factual to TBG. The contributors to the Burke article in Wikipedia have married statements from generic articles about an industry and transposed to point specifically to one company that has a reputation for standing outside the industry. This is evidenced in Levitt's book by his total exclusion of TBG as explained previously. Writing about living companies requires a higher degree of truth. Lawyers cannot rely on hearsay or spin resources or quotes unless they were specific to the subject. I've attempted to edit what 'appears' as TBG but is not. You suggested I bracket things to show they are dodgy? OK....I'll try my hand at that. Writing about living individuals and companies as though they are inanimate cartoons is dodgy. Bracketing requires cooperation from the wiki editors who revert without reading explanations. Material is easily checked by emailing to TBG's website FAQ page. Wikipedia contributors should avail themselves of that resource. Please reference the article you listed from Huffington Post written by Vince Beiser and scroll to the end to see he retracted inaccurate statements. That same "hearsay" is repeated in mainstream news gathered from same sources and advanced by people who have no understanding of law, or international differences in its application. It is often "opinion" based on union politics or press releases by unions disguised as newspaper journalism. The CAC recently recognised this and retracted their opinion of Burke's "unfortunate track record". There is a cultural divide not explained in the article. US vs UK union members must ALL pay dues. UK workers can be union members without union recognition but not so for US union members. This site was posted without accommodating for worldwide consumption or differences in government over site. It is too complex to explore in this reply. John Logan writes to a UK audience of US cases without describing differences in law. US elections are overturned by our government oversight agency (NLRB) because it is law that supervisors not be members. This is different in the UK. If unions urge supervisors participate in card signing in the US, unions are cited with ULP's for attempting to inflate numbers. Yet Logan wrote of the NLRB overturning the CDN election without explanation of the law and made it appear TBG caused it. UK readers don't understand this but US readers do. He sequenced events cleverly to paint colorful pictures and incendiary reading without objective explanation. As for FlyBe, UK companies and Burke urge ALL to vote. If a ballot or vote results from their efforts, it is a triumph for the workers to have the opportunity to vote their future. To say in the FlyBe section that workers' vote for recognition was a Burke "failure" reveals little knowledge of the process and little respect for workers or their employer. Burke philosophy is that any opportunity to vote an "informed" decision regardless of the outcome is a triumph for the worker. As for LIS, the Operations section LIS is transposed as TBG. It is not. LIS and TBG have their own articles of incorporation filed in Sacramento, public record. LIS should have its own post if you want to write of it. It is not TBG. Money paid to LIS is posted in the DOL government site where all payments are posted by law. There are no payments to TBG. Logan cobbled events that occurred at CDN simultaneously under different jurisdictions but attributed all to TBG. It makes for interesting colorful reading but lacks truth. My goal is to extract contrived statements for unbiased fact absent annotated editorialized spin. Sorry for the length....I'm trying to work this out----Rgcroc (talk) 18:56, 25 July 2008 (UTC)rgcroc--Rgcroc (talk) 18:56, 25 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]