It is not the first time that our outlet has addressed the issue of awarding flags and incentives to workplaces, a moment when, alongside the deserved recognition of collective effort — usually after a year of work — mistakes occur so frequently they seem scripted.
I am not mistaken in affirming that the national vanguard flag of a workplace belongs to the collective of workers. So why, in general, is the banner handed to the director of the entity and not to the secretary general of the union bureau or section?
Most of the time, the director’s name is announced to receive the moral recognition. Perhaps to minimize the blunder, he calls the union leader, takes him by the hand, and together they receive the flag amid applause.
It may seem a detail, but it reveals a deeper problem: the union does not occupy the place it should, whether because it has not earned it or because it is denied that honor.
If every time financing is needed, if when organizing the flag ceremony it is the administration that provides the money and “calls the shots,” if the director acts as lord and master, or if for almost everything the director is considered the main figure, then others — including the union — lose their rightful place and become secondary, almost like an appendage of the administration.
On the contrary, and I have also seen it — though much less often — whenever a union bureau or section, especially its secretary general, acts with ethics and firmness in representing its members, standing without submission or false commitments, and demanding what is rightfully theirs, then mistakes like the one that prompted this commentary do not occur.
