Working with a useless union

THERE IS no difference between no union and a useless union.

I work at a completely dead-end job in a privately owned grocery store that happens to be unionized. I pay nearly $10 per week to the union and make only 20 cents above minimum wage after being employed just under a year. My wage is $7.60 per hour and will stay there for a while.

The fact that I wear a corporate uniform I despise is beyond the point. I don't despise anything more than the treatment of employees by management, which has fired employees for all kinds of reasons like being a few minutes late too often, or giving a few cent discounts here and there.

Some of the recent employees who were fired were the most customer service-oriented people I have ever seen and were never given a second chance after minor mistakes.

It is very hard to go to work on a daily basis without feeling cynicism and misery. On top of this, I would have to stay with the job for a minimum of two years before being eligible for any kind of health benefits, which would cost a high amount considering the low wage I am given.

We are constantly busy and offer services that other competitors don't--and yet we are still given such a low wage. On the other hand, a certain very anti-union competitor offers its employees $10 an hour to start and, after an accumulation of 450 hours (about a year of work), their workers are eligible for health benefits.

What it all comes down to is that I don't consider the union I am in to be a real union or what a union should be. Actually, the union spends a lot of time lobbying the Democratic Party and at least as much time making top-down negotiations with capitalist employers--in the same way that the Democratic Party has been doing with Wall Street for so called "reform."

It is time for people to try to take back their union. If not, I see the potential for unions becoming a liability--like the one I am in.
Name withheld, Rhode Island