r/union

University of Alaska staff announced a vote to form a union on Wednesday. The union would represent 2,300 permanent staff across the three universities and a dozen community campuses. 

“This is an exciting day for staff at UA,” said Mike DeLue, a researcher with the International Arctic Research Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. “We did our research, discussed and debated, and overwhelmingly chose to unionize. As soon as the result is certified, we’re ready to sit down with the University and work constructively on addressing the issues that motivated us to form a union in the first place."

Hey everyone, hoping to get some honest insight.

I recently interviewed for an organizer-type role with SEIU in Chicago and I’m trying to get a better sense of what the day-to-day actually looks like beyond the interview.

They mentioned 20–40 calls/day, occasional weekends during campaigns, and that it’s not super metric-driven, but I’m curious what that actually translates to in reality. It pays fairly well, is mostly remote and is dealing with internal campaigning and calls only.

For anyone who’s worked in a similar role (SEIU or other unions), I’d love to know:

- What do your actual work hours look like day to day? Is it really 8 hours or does it regularly go over?

- How intense are campaign periods?

- Are there unofficial expectations around call volume or productivity?

- How much autonomy do you really have vs. feeling “on” all day?

- What does burnout look like in this role, if it happens?

I appreciate any help and am trying to be realistic about work-life balance before making a move.

Appreciate any insight, especially the stuff you don’t hear in interviews.

Has anyone held a decertification vote to switch unions?

I volunteer as a negotiation member for our rank and file. By doing so I've cultivated a pretty good relationship with most of the members. As a whole, we aren't happy with the last negotiations, current contract and union representation in general. We are currently 3.5 years into a 5 year CBA that we were strong armed into. Our union is less than supportive of our negotiations and appears to be in bed with "the office" personnel.

Examples of this would be for our last 2 contract negotiations, the union was so late with scheduling the meetings that we had to vote for a 1 year extension each time just so we could keep a CBA in place while negotiating. The union also holds/carries the health, dental, and vision insurance for non union (the managerial) positions in the company. I would assume this is legal, but definitely feels like a conflict of interest having the union so buddy-buddy with management. Lastly, we voted (overwhelming, like 85% in favor) to strike during the last contract negotiations. After the strike vote the union absolutely didn't have our back and tried to talk the rank and file out of striking. Our dues are paid from each paycheck, so if that money was to stop, so does the flow of money going to the union. Again, kind of seems like a conflict of interest when I know other unions pay dues upfront and I feel like that gives the union less of incentive to talk us out of a strike. No one wants to be on the picket line, I get it. But we all felt slapped in the face when they started to back down before we did.

I digress. Anyway, we are searching for a new union. I've been getting private messages from quite a few members about the steps required to change unions. I'm calling the NLRB next week, not sure if they're open Monday because of Easter. But I figured I would post to Reddit and get some quicker answers for the guys. So if anyone here can simply explain the steps that would be great. I read how the voting would go from the NLRB website but one thing that wasn't clear to me was when/how do we vote/choose/pick our new union? Thanks Reddit.

TLDR: please explain to me the steps to switch unions

I'm a shop steward in hospitality. It's been a rough year at our hotel. I'm the only active steward out of 4. We've had a string of inconsistent representatives / business agents. I need help and want to encourage some participation from the rank and file members. I want us to organize, I want people to feel empowered. I have a small core of senior, committed individuals to start a committee with and we have a meeting on the books. I have the start of a plan, such as an agenda, materials to distribute, preliminary guidelines for how we should operate, ideas for short term and long term goals. But I want to know if any other union brothers/sisters have attempted or succeeded at this? What did you do, what structures and timelines were helpful, etc.?