It’s true. My first job was as a cashier at Kroger. I remember looking at the pay tables and being shocked. You could make impressive money as a cashier at Kroger… if you worked there for 30 years. Virtually no one I worked with had even worked there for more than a few years either. Meanwhile, I earned just above the federal minimum wage and multiple hours of my weekly earnings went to little more than protecting my “right” to “no-call, no-show” for six straight days in a row before being fired. I never did this. It seemed unfair. Others did and I had to work that much harder on those days.

One day a union rep stopped by. He was very well-dressed, and he had this beaming smile. He gave me a t-shirt. That pretty much summed up the benefits I experienced.

I remain pro-union, but every time the subject comes up I think there’s a lot more nuance there than people would like to admit. My Dad, for example, has worked at a union job for over 30 years. Ironically, he’s a Republican. He makes decent money now, but the job is very labor intensive, and the healthcare sucks. He’s repeatedly turned down a promotion into management because he’d be out of the union and earning a salary that is not that much higher than what he currently earns per hour. He’s also told me repeatedly that kids just don’t want to work anymore because the turnover rate is high. Many starting out, especially those with dependents, complain that it’s not worth it for what they earn. He holds that although it’s not great it’s enough. Recently, in an attempt to persuade him to take a promotion, he learned that the healthcare plans offered to management are 2-3x cheaper for better benefits than what the union has negotiated. It’s been pretty crazy to watch his opinion slowly begin to shift.