My job just got benefited!

[lunatica]

31. Unions rock!

I’m a proud Teamster who was lifted out of years of having to shop at the Dollar Store to make ends meet when my union negotiated a five year contract that increased our pay by 15% over five years. When that was over they negotiated another five year contract that increased it by 19% percent.

Just to show you how amazing that is, in the same 10 year period the rest of the administrative workers (in UC Berkeley) got two one time raises. One was 2% across the board raise, and the other was 3% merit only raise to be distributed within the department among all the non union represented staff. That was a hard slap in the face to the staff. That included all the supervisors, student assistants, lab management, HR, Payroll, Purchasing and Accounts payable, an army of internal grounds keepers, electricians, janitors, shuttle drivers, food preparers and servers and office staff for each department. Many of them belonged to other unions, but ours which represented the clerical workers is the strong one.

Congratulations!