U. S. Labor Day

I’ve been a member of a union for the past twelve years, and I like it.  Why?  Because I feel I have some support in counterbalance to the influence my workplace has over my life.

 

Up until 2001, I had never belonged to a union.  My uncle, the mine-worker, had.  And I remember hearing my relatives complain that the union was “always going out on strike.”  Maybe they had reason to.  My uncle worked in a very dangerous profession and he and his colleagues deserved respect and the safest possible working conditions.  There are many dangers in coal mining:  Black lung, mine collapse, etc.

I lead a slacker’s life in comparison.  I work in I.T.—“Information Technology”—in an office, sitting around roughly eight hours a day on a standard daytime shift.  What can I complain about?

Still, anyone who can be “hired and fired” can be treated like dirt.  I remember my earlier job at a large semiconductor company in Silicon Valley.  The company asked for volunteers to get together and discuss ways to improve worker morale.  I made a few suggestions and mentioned the possibility of the group serving as workers’ “advocates.”  I was told that this sounded a little too much like a union.  I’d grown up with a positive opinion of unions, so I asked “what was wrong with that?”  I didn’t get an answer, just polite (or maybe uncomfortable?) smiles.

I don’t remember much happening with our suggestions.  Of course, I had also thrown in a few remarks about how maybe managers shouldn’t behave in quite such a “macho” fashion in their Monday morning discussions of the weekend football games—since some people weren’t interested in football or in encouraging “macho” behavior.  More polite smiles.

Previously, at a large telecommunications company, I had sometimes worked sixty-hour weeks—but gotten paid double-time for it.  But I never got asked my opinion about it.

Now—in the union—we can make our opinions known.  We work according to a contract that has been negotiated and agreed to by both the union and by the administration.  If the administration doesn’t live up to the agreement, we can take it to the Public Employment Relations Board.  Workers are not at the complete mercy of the administration.

And I like that.

Happy Labor Day!