Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Union For A Day

UNIONS! We love them and hate them! Me?  I understand their purpose but question their usefulness for the most part.  I am able to speak from experience on this matter as I was a union member for exactly ONE day...

The Story: I was hired as a grocery bagger at the Kroger supermarket in town and my starting wage was a hot  $3.45 per hour which was ten-cents higher than the minimum wage of $3.35. How did I manage to successfully wrangle such a deal? The Union, Man!  See, when I first started the local union rep explained to me how they had negotiated a "premium" starting wage for new employees and since they went through all this trouble to do this for me that they were going to deduct a mere TEN-CENTS-PER-HOUR in union dues in order to continue fighting for me, their fellow brother.
What?
So the union fought for an extra dime per hour for starting employees just so they could pay the union dues? That can't be right, can it?  You bet your ass that's what they did, and after my first shitty day on that job I was thankfully contacted by a local restaurant(non-union) which offered to pay me better hourly wages and tips. I called up the Kroger store and told them the situation and they told me that I would have to meet wth the union rep(again) to sign a paper which would formally release me from the union. Yeah, right.

With that in mind, dear reader, I leave you with this classic union commercial from the 1980's. Enjoy.