representin'?

[wickedflea]

My union can eat a bowl of dick. I was supposed to get a raise back in January, but because negotiations were about to start, they held up all raises. When the negotiations finally end, they'll pay us retroactively for what we should have gotten. That should result in a nice lump sum, but I'm starting to wonder if the negotiations are ever going to end. It's been over five months, and it sounds like they're just now beginning to talk money. God knows what they've been discussing all this time. Anyway, the email update that the union sent out last week said that they're proposing a yearly 10% raise for all employees in my labor grade.

Yeah, right, I thought. The agreement we're working under now calls for a 2.9% raise. Sure enough, the union just sent out an update with the subject header, "Yale Proposals Revert to Old Ways." The university proposed 3% raises. Sounds like we have a long way to go.

The union has already pissed me off once today. I found out that I can't take on indexing projects for which we normally hire freelancers because the union would categorize it as overtime and make the press pay me time-and-a-half, which they of course can't afford to do. So, even though I would be willing to do it at the normal rate, I can't because I have the fucking union on my side. And for this kind of representation I'm paying thirty bucks a month?!? If that union dude shows up at my house again, this time I'll let him in and tell him some very useful information.

A bowl of dick, I say. A gang of whang.

Comments

[buscemi.livejournal.com]

Would you get in trouble if you dropped the union?

Re:

[wickedflea.livejournal.com]

I'm going to look into it, but I think my chances of being able to drop it altogether are about nil. I remember hearing something like you can choose not to join the union, but you still have to pay them a fee (I dunno how much) because they represent you whether you like it or not. Which probably means that I have to abide by the terms they negotiate whether I'm a member or not. It's so weird -- it's twisted up like a little weiner package.