Many people apparently don’t realize that Labor Day is a celebration of the contributions of labor unions. So today’s question is, have you ever been a union member?
I was very briefly a member of the United Auto Workers, which was the union at the bookstore I used to work at. Yeah, I know that doesn’t make much sense.
One reply on “Lunchtime Poll: Happy Labor Day!”
I’m a union member, and I’m very grateful to my union. Something went very wrong at work-things were short-staffed, there were other stressors, I was given insufficient information in order to correctly handle a situation, and someone got hurt. I was the Person-in-Charge at the site and, as a temporary employee, I was also the most disposable of all the actors. If it hadn’t been for my union, I would have been fired, because putting all the blame on me would have meant that they wouldn’t need to make any changes to prevent a similar situation from happening in the future.
(And I’m not saying that none of the blame should have fallen on me, but my actions were in accordance with the information I had been given, so some of the blame does rest on those who were more familiar with the situation and did not give me the information I needed to prevent the injury. I should have done better, but the permanent employees should have done better, too. There were multiple failures, but as far as I know, I was the only one facing discipline, which is what I have an objection to.)