I’m a heavy duty mechanic currently working at a municipality. We are unionized, and currently in contract negotiations. It doesn’t look promising for us in the contract, as in we probably won’t expect much in terms of benefits or even a pay raise.
The main reason for this is because the city tries to negotiate the contract for everyone, the drivers, the labourers and tradesman together. We are skilled workers, we went to school and our job is dangerous on many levels. Currently, our salary is approx 36$/hr, the top drivers makes close to 32$/hr.
We are required to fix all of the following types of vehicle; heavy duty trucks (dump trucks and snow removal trucks) front end loaders, small tractors, tracked snow removal vehicle (model is called prinoth sw4s if you’re curious), heavy duty pickups, riding lawn mowers, street sweepers.
I can say, maybe 5-6 years ago it was a good salary, but due to the shortage of skilled workers, most dealerships have caught up, and some have even passed us in salary and benefits, also, their employees only work on 1 type of equipment.
So is a union really necessary now? Am I paying for nothing? Everyone seems to know tradesman are in demand now, yet my union does nothing to show my importance to our municipality. We are 6 mechanics keeping a fleet of 150+ vehicles BARELY on the road.
We’ve made our case many times to management, no one cares, not even our union, it’s always the same outcome.
“We are working on it”
Funny how both management and our union rep says the same thing.