23 years

 23 years 

I wonder if union leadership are listening to how scared we are. I wonder if they realize how many people I see and share air with everyday, so many more than a classroom teacher. I wonder if they know how many people I see without masks at work, maybe because we forget and are human, maybe because we have different assessments of risk, maybe because some of us are just little kids.

I wonder if Field’s air filters look like Farrand’s.

I wonder if anyone will even remember they walked in my office to ask me a tech question that we worked on together for 15 minutes, when they are doing their contract tracing after being diagnosed and trying to think of everyone they talked to.

I wonder if I will bring the virus home to my high risk partner, to his even higher risk mother. I wonder if my department will be eliminated, if I will just take over classrooms as my colleagues get sick.

I am scared, and I am filled with rage that we are in this place.

It would be nice to find someone to blame.

Sometimes I do. 

But today I’m going to think about 23 years ago.

I remember how hard I worked to get in a unionized job. I remember what it was like before I was unionized, when I was delivering newspapers or working in restaurants and pyramid schemes, and applying for every union job I saw like they were the ticket to a new life.

Because they were.

At that time in my life, our $1000 union dues would have paid an entire month’s expenses: rent, utilities, 4 weeks of groceries, gas, and still had money left over for two tires, which we needed constantly. Now it wouldn’t even cover one rent payment.

But I would never have made that bargain to drop from the union even when that $1000 went so much farther -- because I knew what it bought me. I knew what it was pulling me out from.

I was sexually harassed at my sleazy pyramid scheme job. I was bullied to do illegal financial things and I was too desperate to be able to say no, and there was no one to even ask for help. No one to even consider talking to -- I was alone.

I paid hundreds of dollars in supplies, car repairs, and more for the privilege to deliver newspapers, and hundreds more in self-employment taxes. I didn’t have anyone to talk to who would tell me how to not get scammed out of my own money. There was no group advocating for us to get the company to chip in for supplies. There was barely an internet at the time, and what was there I could barely afford to use to figure out what I could legally do. I was alone.

My restaurant job threatened to fire me when I called in sick because it happened to be the day after my birthday and they assumed I was lying. Never mind that I had never called in sick, and that I worked with food and had the kind of illness you definitely don’t want a food service employee bringing to work. I had to beg them to believe me, frantically promising I’d do whatever they demanded. I was alone.

When I got my first union job, my husband and I cried with gratitude. It represented dental care, birth control, and a tiny life insurance so I didn’t have to worry about my husband going in debt if I died and he needed to bury me, and rules. The best part was the rules, the safety, the sense that I was no longer alone. That no one could take advantage of me or make me do things that were illegal or unethical.

In that first job, I still was struggling -- this time by a supervisor who wanted me to destroy all the high school library books that had premarital sex in the stories, unless it was rape, which was ok according to her religious views. I developed hives from that working relationship, I hated going to work, where I felt pressured to do things I knew were wrong and where my supervisor clearly was out to get me. It took years to resolve. 

But it did get resolved. I was better off than before, and I had never been in danger of losing my apartment, my health care, my ability to buy groceries. I always had someone listening, someone who was trying to make things better. No matter how stressed and upset I was, or how I felt like nothing was changing -- I was never alone. 

Every job since then, I have been a little more secure, a little more independent. I was able to buy a home, buy a car, to get divorced, to support myself without a partner. I did not lose all my teeth before 40 like the women I delivered newspapers with, or have to stay in bad relationships to make ends meet, or give in to bosses who were threatening me. I have been safe, because of my union. I was never alone.

I don’t love every decision my union makes as a collective, but I have served in union leadership long enough to know that there is literally no perfect decision in a group this large with so many competing interests. I know how to get more involved if I feel like my voice is being ignored, but I am also thankful for the opportunity to step back and go with the flow when I feel overwhelmed. I know that I can rely on the union as a collective, but I also know the cost of this, the price of being in a group.

Maybe other people with my experience and qualifications in the private sector would be making more money or living more glamorous lives without having to acquiesce to group decisions, since they would be independently marketing themselves to their employers. I find that hard to believe, given how hard employers work to dismantle unions, and given the stories I hear from my friends in the private sector. But even if I could be making more money or only worrying about myself and my needs in a non-unionized job, I wouldn’t want that over what I have being a union member.

Because I remember what it was like being alone. 

I’d rather be scared inside of a union of people than scared and alone.

I’d certainly rather be angry with my union behind me, sharing in my anger, than one lone angry voice.

My relationship as a union member has been longer and more reliable than my marriage, or my family. The way some people think, “I can always move back home,” that’s the way I think about being in a union -- I may not have the backup plans and security that other people have, but I have this security, I have this backup plan.

Being in a group sometimes means choices are made not for my benefit, but to benefit others. I have to keep an eye on that balance, for sure. I might need to select new leadership, or take on more leadership responsibilities. But I am a historian and I know what happens in economic upheavals to those who are divided and who have no advocates.

I know that I am not better off alone. 

I know that this was the place I was trying to get to, even if it hurts or is crappy for the moment. I trust my past self that fought to get here. 

And I’m glad that in this moment of fear and anger, I’ve got my union with me.