Union jobs have a law which I’m not familiar with however I have had discussions with union workers and I have come to an understanding on part of the union’s process. From my understanding it is a process known as “hire or fire”, hire or fire is a set time period from the time of employment where once the employee has reached that deadline the company or union will either hire or fire the said employee. From my understanding with most unions the hire or fire time frame can be from 3-6 months after the start of employment. If the employee is hired they get full benefits and union representation, if the employee is fired they can apply for the job again. It is uncommon with union jobs that a person gets fired unless they are hired for seasonal work so other than seasonal employment, the said employee is monitored to see if they are fit for the open position with the union or company. A full time open position would have to be available in order for the union or company to even consider a new hire unless again its seasonal work for if there was no full time position open then the union or company wouldn’t consider a new hire at that time because they would have had enough man power to fulfill the work load.

I have lived in a city where this observation of the union has differed tremendously, the hire or fire system from which I though I was familiar with is not put in practice by that city. Men and women have worked for years after their hire or fire dates long expired without benefits or vacation days and they hold the title “part time worker” even when most of them work 35 hours a week. When the city manager is asked about the reasons so many part time workers are left in positions that don’t meet the everyday needs required to raise a family, the response is always “it’s not in the city’s budget and they should be grateful to just have a job”. after reviewing the city’s budget it is clear that part time workers are indeed not in the budget as the city manger has always stated but what’s not transparent in the city’s budget is where the money comes from to keep all the part time workers on for the whole year, or how many workers the city would really need to run things as smoothly as possible. From the outside looking in, people in the community say its unfair what has taken place for all these generations, while others think its as fair as the city can get without raising taxes.

To help you understand the conditions of the city worker I give the following as the best example of their wages. 8hr/ 35hrs a week=280$ / biweekly pay period 560$ a check / 1120$ a month / 14560$ a year. The cost of living in the town requires 12000$ for a studio apartment so subtract that from a yearly earnings and you have 2560$ left before taxes. The raises are close to nothing for most people who have worked for the city for the long past the time of the hire or fire dates only reach 9$hr once they’ve been in a employment with the city for four years. Are the conditions of the city worker really unfair when you take into prospective that the city doesn’t have part time workers in the yearly budget yet it still keeps them employed for years after the hire /fire date?

If the city had 400 employees but only a 100 of them are union workers and you felt the conditions of the part timers was bad that you told the city manager to hire the work force needed to clean the city efficiently. As a result he/she said the city only needed 200 workers to do the job, this meant that 200 workers would be laid off, a 100 workers would be hired for seasonal work which means they would be let go at the end of the season and that would still leave another 100 people out of work full time, would this really be the best approach?


I don’t think that in a city where the cost of living is as high as 8$ hr, this approach would benefit any man or woman in their pursuit to raise a family and/or survive on their own. It could be one of the main factors for that person first or all to fall back to the familiar steps of crime and selling of drugs because of living conditions and circumstances that are unfit for a person to grow. All cultures are different in the ways they use their resources and for some cultures $8hr is just fine, it will help build up an empire that will never stop growing. Just to help you understand, if 3 friends and their girlfriends live together that’s 6 people inside one home if all of them are working 35 weeks at $8hr, that’s 80640 a year coming into that house hold before taxes more than enough to build a future for all. However since this is not the same culture or ethnic group employed by the city, the comparison may at best be obsolete.

I worked with a man one summer when I lived in this city, he had a very big family that has grown since then yet he never complained about the money or position he had. He always said “I’m not working here forever” and when other workers complained he would say “do something about it but complaining will mess up my plans because I could lose my job if they follow the laws”. The next summer he didn’t return to the position like the rest of us had, this was because over the winter he read a commercial drivers license book, got certified and switched departments. Whenever I’d see the man he would instruct me and all others he worked with to do the same thing as he did. Soon after I quit the job and moved out of the state but when I returned to the state the same dudes who I had worked with were either working the same post or not working at all. But this man had worked his way up to supervisor and put himself in a position to where he and his kids would be well off with or without the city because they have trained him so he could go to any other job of the same sort and start off as a supervisor there making the same if not more money. 

The city job is not the best if you have others to think about or you don’t have friends and family who can help you with the necessities you will need in life but should that stop you from doing what you have to do with the job in order to better your situation? I think that for all the part timers the city job is a perfect stepping stone into other ventures in life. for the back of the truck worker, the city job can be a place where they get experience driving and operating big trucks, for the office worker the city can be a place where they learn how to do the job more efficiently and for the daycare worker the city can be a place where you can gain the trust of parents as well as children. Then if you feel the city job is a dead end job you have the experience to go into the world and do something in the same field for the money you think you deserve, or you can do like the one gentleman did and work your way up to supervisor and change the system from the inside out.