Union Dues

When hubby and I first started dating, he was in the union at UPS. He's from a big pro-union family and it never occurred to him to pursue management until he wanted to get married and needed to get a promotion to afford school, life, me... I have never been in a union, so I was just happy to graduate from having to pay union dues. Recently the MO district merged with the northern Illinois/Iowa UPS districts. Two local unions were threatening to strike if they didn't get what they wanted, which includes a REALLY great salary and a cap of 8 weeks of vacation. No agreement was being reached, so yesterday Hubby's boss told him to pack his brown uniforms and be ready to head out in a caravan of 15-passenger vans to Chicago this morning. It felt as though he was being shipped off to a battle, packing all his uniforms and kissing his family good-bye. It is actually pretty dangerous, crossing the pickett lines in a hostile environment. They didn't even allow personal vehicles to be driven for the protection of people's vehicles.

Add to that the possibility of driving a big brown package car in Chicago when you don't know your way around and all UPS provides drivers is an old-fashioned paper street map guide. (Isn't that crazy?!) Thankfully a friend loaned Hubby his GPS system to use. So after all the drama and the sad good-byes this morning, there was a "handshake agreement" made and no fill-in helpers were sent. But the thing I'm wondering is this: how does it make sense for my husband, who is in management and not in the union, to go to Chicago to step in for people making a lot more money and getting a lot more vacation time than he is? If the union is supposed to look out for the non-management folks, who is it that is supposed to look out for the management folks? Seems to me that any time there is a complaint from a person in management, he is told to find a different job that makes him happier. I would love for someone who understands all of this better than I do to explain it to me.

The good news is Hubby doesn't have to go. yeah!!!! The bad news is we can't have pb&j for dinner every night this week--and I don't get an "I'm sorry" Giordanos pizza upon his return.