roo_ster pretty much got it, except they were drug screened.
705 Teamster Joke:
What did Jesus say to the 705 Teamsters at the last supper ?
"Don't do anything until I get back."
Working air freight logistics in a union environment is like being thrown in with a pack of wolves. You either have to become the alpha male/female or get eaten by the rest of the pack. Right, Wrong or Indifferent that's the way it was. I had just left Pepsi after they sold off their restaurant division, so I was happy to have a J-O-B.
I was up to my eyeballs in alligators with my own group of 25 aholes drivers. But, yes I did comfort and give advice to Ms Feminine Studies on how to ignore the crap they flung like Chimps in the monkey house. One sign of weakness and they were on you like sharks. Withstand the onslaught and show them that you're not going to take their crap (and/or give back as good as you took) and they eventually accepted you as their leader. You definitely had to earn respect, it was NOT given simply because you had a fancy title. They didn't care where/what you studied or what you did before (yes, they even ate JMO's* for breakfast).
It was a hell of lot easier to order men to charge machine guns then it was to get these jerk-offs to do what they were being paid exorbitant^ money to do. But once you earned their respect it was amazing what they would do for you.
Writing them up for "being mean and saying things that hurt another Sup's feelings." Crap, I had barely enough time to do my job much less get into a "paper war" with the shop steward. (General rule was - you do one write-up, I'll file 10-15 grievances, and they had nothing but time on their side. Think tort lawyers, only worse.) This was the same place that I had four tires slashed during contract negotiations, other sups had their windows smashed, paint pour into and on their cars, another sup had his car burned. (Like I said they respected and liked me.)
I even managed to get two of my worst fired. I even had drivers thanking me for getting rid of those two. That impressed the shop steward, business agent, and even earned me/the station a visit from the 705 local President and his "entourage".
Something about Lenin, or was it Stalin, and sticking in the knife until you hit steel, comes to mind.
*Junior Military Officers
^The average Airborne driver made more in a year then us Sups'. It generally took about three years for a new driver to make full-time, then another four to make top scale, and they were limited to a max of 20 hours of OT a week (DOT rules= 60 hours max.). Supervisors, on the other hand were not bound, by such trivialities.