are you now, or have you ever been, In a Union

ronald reagan votes yes

No, I almost joined the Musicians Union, funnily enough. Then the band I was in packed.

NUS doesn't count

so no, is my answer. was a student until this year and now technically not an employee due to insane german labour laws.

I am a Teamster.

student
writer
teacher
meatcutter

A pretty powerful one, the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario. Our pension plan owns about 65% of the conglomerate that owns the Maple Leafs and the Raptors.

do you ever go to games and yell "that's not what I pay you for!"

yeah i guess the leafs aren't struggling financially, but jeez don't sign jeff finger

Management regularly interrupts my math lessons to consult on trades.

no but soon i think

yes, my first 2 full-time jobs. it was mandatory. they both payed shit though :-/

i was compelled to join the ufcw whilst working for minimum wage in a grocery store. i guess i wasn't their primary concern, as i was not a long-term employee, but still.

also i had to get a special exemption from the united steelworkers to do a work/study thing in high school. it is surprising and pleasing that that steel mill still exists.

no, sadly. this makes me the first man in my family's post-1945 history to NOT belong to a union, actually.

maternal grandfather was a steel man from the time ww2 ended until his retirement.

paternal grandfather was a coal miner; he didn't make it until i was born

seiu 660

i was compelled to join the ufcw whilst working for minimum wage in a grocery store. i guess i wasn't their primary concern, as i was not a long-term employee, but still.

yeah that was my situation

I'm in AFCSME.

No, I almost joined the Musicians Union, funnily enough. Then the band I was in packed.

I've always wondered what those meetings are like. Do they throw down gavels and declare no songs in the key of A for that month?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3mw49mk_x0

I'm totally going to talk like that AFSCME voice over dude in the office from now on.

Nope

I did a taping for TV one time. We had to get temporarily signed into the musicians' union for about four hours. It was like getting special dispensation from the pope because you really want to fuck—and therefore presumably marry—your cousin. We made a shit ton of money, for an indie band that didn't have working turn signals on our van.

The taping was shit, butchered by hack 50-something technicians who "worked their way up."

Don't trust anything creative to unionized people, that's all I'm saying. Beware anyone who calls themselves a "technician" in a unionized "arts" scheme. That's code for "too inept to hang with real men and women doing real things."

i've been in a union but it was a pretty ineffectual one. it was in their contract that they wouldn't go on strike, which kinda defeats the purpose of the whole "power in a union" thing.

my dad has some pretty amazing stories about being the only union dude stupid enough to defend an accused communist during the mccarthy era (apparently within the union only other union dudes could represent someone under investigation or whatever - this was the machinists union iirc).

did your dad then get accused of being a communist as well?

I am in a union.

is anyone in a private sector union, or is it only public sector workers who are organised now?

i was in the NUJ for a while, let membership lapse though, not especially motivated to rejoin

I'm in Mandate (snigger) - joined when I started this new job, where most of the workforce is unionised (private-sector but non-profit). We have a pretty sweet set-up in terms of pay and conditions, everyone's still miserable tho.

mandate snigger otm, couldn't work in tesco without signing up, lol freedom to disassociate

Currently with IMPACT, they are awful awful awful.

No. Don't think I *could* even join Unison since my employer is a private clinic.

http://www.cheap-perfume.co.uk/img/products/Mandate-After-Shave-Lotion.jpg
Was also a gay pr0n mag.

Yes. Journalists union.

Don't have an awful lot to do with them tbh. Although the phone-hacking course was really helpful.

was in unison (i think) for a while, was also the press officer for a student union heh heh

I give much props to unions, but sometimes they are completely ridiculous.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-07-25/-you-re-fired-doesn-t-mean-fired-to-four-of-10-air-controllers.html

that's not the union being ridiculous: it's job is to defend its members or mitigate the charges against them. it's the FAA being ridiculous for not making the charges stick - assuming that they're telling the truth about what happened.

The agency’s public-safety mission should allow it to fire more easily than other government bodies can, Scribner said. “Any time there is a greater risk of human casualties due to government error, those employees should be held more accountable,” he said.

oh yeah? tell it to the police and then come back to us.

I am currently a member of the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers or USDAW for short.

My dad was in the IBEW, but "no" for me.

I am not currently but I was have been at both my past jobs at universities.

of the snake

City Blue

I've thought a couple of times about joining the University and College Union (UCU) but never got round to it. Missed out on a couple of strikes this year, though I think those were less rousing than I'd like to imagine.

nope, been in retail for 20+years and don't think anyone I've worked those jobs has been in a union either.

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Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

i was once a manager in a bookstore that faced a union drive, which was kind of unpleasant.

one of the booksellers was a retired teamster -- he just looked at everyone and laughed