What propitious timing.
My younger daughter got a job a few weeks ago with a major national grocery chain. She's on the bottom of the totem pole, a "courtesy clerk," a schlepper. She rustles shopping carts in the parking lot, she cleans the aisles, she does scut work.
My wife and I were so proud of her when she got the job. She's still in high school.
The grocery chain has a union contract. Every employee is required to join the United Food and Commercial Workers union pay union fees (h/t laborish in the comments) to the United Food and Commercial Workers union within a month or so of being hired.
Yesterday my daughter went down to join the union.
I drove her out through a pouring rainstorm to the nearest branch office of the local. We found the office in a very modest two-story suburban building. My daughter sat down with a nice lady who spelled out the lowdown on dues and benefits, gave her a hard copy of the contract - a contract which, we found out, was due to expire in less than a month, but the renewal of which, we were told, was being negotiated as we spoke - and filled her in on the mechanics of the union-negotiated compensation structure.
It was fun to eavesdrop on the conversation between the nice union lady and my daughter. (I was sitting nearby, pretending to absently flip through a union magazine but really taking it all in.) My daughter was on her best "responsible teenager" behavior, attentive and respectful, and asked a few questions when she wasn't clear about something. The nice union lady was very patient and thorough, going over anything my daughter needed clarification on.
She also explained a little about why a union was a good thing. She told her that my daughter's generation would be the first in living memory for which opportunities for advancement and the standard of living would not be greater than for the previous generation (i.e., mine).
When she got to the part about whether my daughter wanted to contribute 25 cents a week toward the union's political activities, the nice union lady glanced nervously over at me. Her nervous glance can probably be explained by the fact that at first blush I don't come across as a DFH; more like a stiff corporate type. (True story: I once was at the hair salon with this same daughter, and when I got up to get my haircut, leaving my daughter in the waiting area, she somehow became involved in a conversation with a 60-ish lady who assured my daughter that I was certainly a good conservative. I had not exchanged so much as a glance with the woman.)
The nice union lady went to some trouble to explain to my daughter that while they were not overtly partisan in the candidates and issues they chose to back, the fact was that most of the time the candidates whose election would most benefit the union members' interests were Democrats. I think that amplification was more for my benefit than for my daughter's.
She then looked over at me and admitted - perhaps because she thought I'd be more sympathetic - that she herself had just changed her affiliation to "Independent" within the past few months. I refrained from telling her that I had changed mine to "Independent" 20 years ago.
There was a brief pause as my daughter considered the thought of parting with some of her hard-earned dollars to support the union's politics.
Then she said, decisively, "OK."
I almost busted my buttons, but I suppressed a shit-eating grin.
There wasn't much more for my daughter to do. The nice union lady had my daughter sign a couple of forms (which amused me, because no contract signed by my not-yet-18-year-old daughter is enforceable by the other party), gave her a few more publications, shook her hand and wished her well.
We walked back to the car, not bothering with the umbrella; the rain had slacked off to a mere drizzle. My daughter was excited - mostly about the discount movie tickets she now was able to purchase. I was tickled pink.
As we drove home, she told me about her thought process regarding the choice to allow the 25-cents-a-week deduction for political activities. "I wasn't sure if I should say yes, since I can't even vote yet," she said. "But then I thought, this would actually probably be the only way I could be involved politically right now."
I was so very proud of her at that moment. I told her so. And I took the opportunity to give her some context. I told her about what was going on in Wisconsin and how it was really significant that she was joining a union at this moment in history, and how a lot of selfish corporations and selfish super-rich people (and I made it clear there are other kinds of super-rich people as well) are trying to eliminate unions and the benefits they bring. I explained that there were seriously RIGHT NOW Republicans looking to eliminate child labor laws and the 40-hour work week; she got that immediately, having recently studied the Industrial Revolution and the rise of the labor movement in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
I told her how around the time I was born, one out of every three Americans was in a union, but how that had dropped since then to one in fourteen, and how it had been possible for my dad to be the sole breadwinner for a family of 10, with full medical benefits and a pension, and that that had been the norm for many people back then, when unions were strong.
I heard someone on the radio the other day - maybe it was Randi Rhodes; I'm not sure - say something about how what really pissed off the Kochs and the Walkers and the Limbaughs about the whole Wisconsin fiasco was that it has made being in a union cool.
I think my daughter is pretty cool.