In the 1970s I was an airline ticket agent. My job was not union, but we had a LOT of union benefits, because of unions in other parts of the industry. We were paid time and a half for any time worked beyond eight hours in the day. The rest of the week didn't matter, meaning we didn't have to work beyond 40 hours in the week to get the overtime for that one day. We got time and a half on Sundays. Even if it was our scheduled day to work.
Right now those are the only things I can recall, but I know we got more union based benefits that I can't quite call up. The job itself was brutal. We NEVER got weekends or holidays off, or even days off in lieu of the holiday. Essentially we worked five days a week, fifty weeks a year. Period. All of you who've had office jobs with weekends and holidays off have no idea what you have. Plus, I was dealing with the travelling public, who are at best, difficult.
The up side was free travel. And yes, I mean free. Sometimes there was a service charge, but not always. Plus, airline employees always looked after each other. We were almost always boarded in first class, and that was back when first class was worth it. Oh, heck, in the 1970's travelling in coach wasn't that bad.
My father was a member of IAM, the machinists union, back in the 1950s and 60s. While he was hardly a gung-ho union guy, I absorbed the basics of being a union member. When I worked for Ma Bell, back in the mid-60s, I belonged to the CWA (Communication Workers of America). I'm only a bit sorry I haven't had a stronger union connection.
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