is why the workers voted against the UAW.
Many years ago I was an airline ticket agent. We went through several rounds of attempts at unionizing us, which continued long after I left that job. What usually happened was that the company would make grandiose promises to keep us from voting for the union. Promises which were never kept.
I'm a union supporter from way back. In my youth I belonged to the CWA, Communication Workers of America, back when I worked for Ma Bell. Years later I was almost a Teamster, but didn't last long enough in the job. And that was because I left the job on my own, not for any other reason.
When I was that airline ticket agent, at National Airport in Washington, DC, even though we were not unionized, we benefitted enormously from unions. This was back in the 1970s. Here's what I'm talking about. We were hourly workers, of course. But any day that we worked more than 8 hours, we were paid time and a half, even if we didn't work more than 40 hours that week. Which actually never happened, given our schedules. But that's not important. We also got time and a half on Sundays and holidays, again regardless of how many hours we worked that week. It was a job that involved a lot of involuntary overtime, as flights ran late or were cancelled for whatever reason. I recall making a significant amount of money in overtime in the early years, and even later on when I could avoid some of the involuntary overtime, I still benefitted from the more than 8 hours in a day and the Sunday and holiday time and a half.
My father was a union employee also, although he never really talked about it. IAM. International Association of Machinists. He was not at all active in the union, and certainly never talked about it, but I grew up knowing he was a member.
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