Confessions of a Wisconsin Ex-Public Sector Union Employee

Everyone in Wisconsin has an opinion about Scott Walker's recently passed budget bill that effectively removed most bargaining rights from public sector employees. I live in Wisconsin and I have an opinion, too. Except my viewpoint might be somewhat unique, because I used to work for a public sector union.

I say unique because there probably aren't many "former" public sector union employees rattling around Wisconsin. Most people, once employed in a union position tend to hold on to their jobs because of the good pay and many benefits. And, being a union employee, getting fired from your position is very rare.

So, why did I choose to leave my union job as a social worker ten years ago, after11 years? Well, in all honesty, mostly because of the union.

Back in 1990, I was hired as a mental health counselor working on the crisis intervention unit at our local county mental health center. I had completed two years of college towards a degree in psychology and was still attending school. The position was part-time. I was a recently divorced mother of two teenagers, and I had high ambitions of moving in to a fulltime counseling position with the county in the future.

My first week of work I found a letter in my mailbox welcoming me as a union member. I'd had no idea that the job I'd been hired for was a union job. I didn't know anything about unions, so it didn't mean much to me. The union took money out of my paycheck every week for dues which, given a choice, I would have opted to use for groceries or other household expenses, instead, as being a single mother money was extremely tight.

Often I worked 40 hours a week, but because I was hired as part-time, I wasn't eligible for health insurance. I was scheduled every weekend, rotating through first shift, second shift, and third shift. I would pick up extra hours during the week, filling in for full-timers who were taking time off. Paid time off was abundant, even for us part-timers -- full timers and part-timers alike received vacation pay, holiday pay, sick pay, comp time pay, personal time pay and overtime pay, along with annual raises. We also got money put in to our retirement plans and didn't have to contribute. The full timer's health insurance was fully paid with no deductible. The paid non-working hours were more than generous, but the security of a fulltime job was what I really needed.

Time passed and after a couple of years a fulltime position opened up on my unit. I applied, but an employee with two months seniority over me got the job. That employee did have an associate's degree in social welfare, but her work performance and her attendance were abysmal. Working with her made it harder on her co-workers because she was frequently outside smoking when she was needed, and everyone else was forced to pick up the slack. But it was the union that, due to a couple of months of seniority, backed her as first choice for the position.

A few years later, another fulltime counselor position opened up. Once again I applied. A co-worker approached me one day and said, "I have a message for you from Elaine down in medical records -- 'You tell Crystal not to bother applying for the fulltime counselor position, because I'm getting it. I have seniority.'"

Elaine was a secretary in medical records. She'd been with the county since high school. She never finished high school, but had gotten her GED, and had no secondary education.

With my secondary education, years of experience on the unit, and my solid work performance history, I had confidence that I would qualify for the counseling position over her.

Yet, unbelievably, seniority ruled, and Elaine got the job. She had been right --seniority was apparently the only criterion the union considered to be important -- not education, experience, skill, qualifications, job performance -- not even the quality of services the community would ultimately receive.

I didn't remain at my dead-end union position much longer after that. I did stay with it long enough, though, to hear Elaine advise a caller on the suicide crisis line one day to just "put their problems in a jar and bury them in their backyard."

Is this the advice you, as a taxpayer, would want a severely depressed son, daughter, or parent to receive if they called a crisis hotline looking for help? Having never completed even one college psychology course, Elaine had about as much qualification working as a counselor on a crisis unit as I would have working as a brain surgeon. But because the unions, through their bargaining contracts with management, essentially dictate who will get hired based exclusively on seniority (or tenure), management bows to their demands for fear of grievances and lawsuits. And, resultantly, public sector positions are frequently filled with employees who are ill-qualified to do their jobs -- jobs that can sometimes mean saving a life, or not. This, in my opinion, is wrong.

If Scott Walker's budget legislation results in "breaking up" the union's oppressive hiring policies, it will be a positive thing for Wisconsin taxpayers and those on the receiving end of public services. I have seen firsthand what the future of our public services holds if the public sector unions continue to hold all the power, yet not much common sense.