Unions are important. It isn't perfect, but there are serious benefits to being in a union. It also helps to have upper management that actually values their employees. This isn't to brag about my job, it's just to emphasize that these are the things that increase employee productivity, moral, and ultimately profits. I also had to take a huge chance with it and in the end it's worked out well.
When I started working for this company I was hired to split my time between two departments. I was offered a decent pay rate. It was obvious I was excelling in one department and doing OK in the other. So, they inquired if I wanted to move fulltime to the department I was excelling in. Only thing with it, was because of the union moving to the other department came with a 12% pay decrease.
I put a lot of thought into it, and had very open conversations with management that I wasn't thrilled at all, and did feel “baited and switched.”
Ultimately, I made the decision to stay and give it a shot. For me, personally, it gave me a chance to pivot my resume fully into a role that I had personal experience in as a hobby but no professional experience in.
At the time of hiring no one else would hire me based on, “not enough professional experience,” despite being skilled or would offer me minimum wage for a position that was advertised at significantly more than minimum wage.
Plus, I figured since it was union it had good benefits, and why not at least see what happens in a few months?
Sure enough, I quickly learned all aspects of the department I moved into. At the first review my boss & management made it clear that they loved and appreciated my work, one of the individuals in management informed me that I had caused a stir with the board members, because upper management had to explain that I was a unicorn because I made the decision to stay. That not many people at my skill level do that.
Upper management was clear with me that they were fighting hard for a raise. That they knew they would NOT hold onto me much longer if they didn't pay me more.
So far, they've made good on the payment promise. 12 months since hiring I'm at the same rate I was originally hired at and management is working on getting me to a higher pay rate than that within the next 6 months.
I personally have a medical condition that really causes a lot of difficulty for me generally speaking. Work has made every accommodation I've asked for. Including that if I knew I needed to even with no notice, I could head out early or come in late, no questions asked so that I could manage aspects of my disability that comes up unexpectedly.
Now, an excellent opportunity arises for me in my personal life. There's been progress with it and some new advancements have been made for my medical situation, however I need a few months off of work on disability to deal with it. I know there are protections in general for this. Plus, I have protections with the union.
Upon approaching management about the situation, they were disappointed, we have a bunch of major projects that I'm an important piece of, but that they know I need to do what's right for my personal life.
So, I'm taking the time do deal with my medical situation.
Also as a benefit of my union contract, apparently once I get SDI, my place of employment will pay the difference from my paycheck, and so I can expect my entire salary for the time I'm taking care of my medical situation.
In addition to the things mentioned above, I often joke that we use ANY excuse to celebrate just about anything. We do celebrations for people's work anniversaries and birthdays to the point where we now just group it by month now, and everyone chips so we can get outside catering and we take an extended lunch break (typically 1.5 hours) to enjoy food and socialize as an office.
Every so often there's a nerf gun fight that'll break out… which I mean upper management turns a blind eye to…. So long as it doesn't go on for hours upon hours, usually they break out around the last 15-20 minutes of the day. Especially on Fridays.
At the exact same time it's not a constant party and our jobs are fairly complex. We work off of each other's strengths and accommodate for weaknesses, IE: despite being knowledgeable with just about everything in the office, I somehow have a tendency to forget just about everything when taking calls, so we're slowly working on that with practice.
A coworker who came into the job with excellent phone/people skills is not very skilled in microsoft office, “excel? never met her!” Kinda situation, so, we've slowly been introducing her to different aspects of it.
There was a coworker who ended up being let go. To her benefit she was excellent when it came to answering the phones and had potential, but would go against company processes and guidelines. Often skipping steps and causing problems of that nature. Management worked with her closely for 6 months and ended up letting her go. I later discovered she deleted over 150 company files and didn't say anything about it. Those files would have been recoverable IF she had said something when it happened.
We don't get many Holidays off and even during Christmas, we simply have Christmas Day off. We have a system where if you want more time off during major holidays you need to submit a request at least three months in advance and it's approved based on seniority/staffing coverage.
So it's not perfect all the time, but in my opinion it's the kind of environment I wished more American corporations would take note of.