General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: In 1981, I was a full time stock clerk at an Ohio Big Bear grocery store making 12.60 an hour [View all]llmart
(15,613 posts)I grew up in a suburb of Cleveland and dated a guy who worked part time at a grocery chain on what was called the "night crew". Back then, the shelves were always stocked when the store was closed so workers weren't interfering with customers. The store opened every morning with all the shelves neat and fully stocked. He was in a union and because he worked night crew and weekend nights he got time and a half and double time on Sunday. He wasn't even a full time employee. He was a college student and it fit well into his schedule.
At the same time, my stepmother was a nurse in the ICU at a major hospital. She made considerably less than he did and she was a full time nurse. She tried to get the other nurses to join a union and very few of them would. She was a widow and the other women were married, so they had their husbands' salaries to rely on also. She would get furious because they were willing to accept low pay. I can't imagine how angry I would be if I knew some college-aged, part time guy stocking soup cans at the grocery store was making more than twice what a nurse saving lives in the ICU was.
My point is that there have been so many examples, especially in the South, where people have tried to organize and the employees vote it down because of the propaganda that's put out about how unions are corrupt, or unions make you pay dues, blah, blah. An awful lot of people don't want to unionize even when they know they're being shafted.