Do you remember your first job right out of college or high school?
I sure do.
I was just out of Wake Forest University and looking to put my passion for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender equality to work. I was very lucky. I found a job right out of college, in Washington, D.C., working for a national LGBT rights organization.
I thought I was walking into a gay youth's paradise. Little did I know it was more of a hell.
It wasn't a hell created by malicious bosses or boards, but a hell created by overburdened schedules, and little attention to the needs of the gay folks fighting for the rights of other gay folks.
You see, I worked at an organization that openly and frequently criticized Fortune 500 companies for not offering domestic partner benefits. But as things would turn out, my organization didn't even offer its own all-gay staff domestic partner benefits.
As employees, we talked with management for over a year about adding DP benefits and other employee benefits, heck, we even formed a non-manager's working group.
Nothing changed.
I know it wasn't malicious, but it was still a problem. Just because the organization was overburdened with a huge mission, didn't mean it was okay to deny the almost all-gay staff domestic partner benefits because we couldn't find the time to fit it on the agenda.
Something needed to change.
It was time to form a union.
From there on, it was a life of secret meetings with union representatives and one-on-one secret conversations with other staff about the need to form a union. Then, out of the sight of management (you know this stuff can get you fired, unfortunately), we got a majority of staff to sign cards wanting to have a union represent us, and our interests, at work.
We created our first contract: domestic partner benefits, gender identity non-discrimination, and a salary scale.
That should be it, right?
If only it was that easy. After two years of "scheduling" conflicts, negotiation stagnation, and creative efforts at salary withholding and salary increasing, we finally got a union contract.
I hope I don't sound like a total clichŽ when I say the three-year ordeal taught me a lot about life.
In U.S. culture, it's hip to talk about diversity and ensuring opportunity for people of color. I learned, in my first job, that empirically, people of color held positions of little salary, while white workers seemed to disproportionately receive so-called merit-based pay raises. I also learned that I'm tired of "talking" about diversity.
There's a simple solution: form a union.
With the signing of our union contract, we ensured, as a staff that people couldn't be brought in for the lowest bid. There were salary scales, and raises based on seniority and not the whims of management. In this instance, we created a system where all people, regardless of race or gender, had equal salaries and knew when their next raise was coming.
I learned that contrary to media images of the giving corporate CEO, that your employer doesn't always have your best interests at heart. We were gay staffers working for an organization that fought for our rights, but did not offer us the benefits it was fighting for.
No one could change that for us, without us raising our own voices.
The solution was simple: form a union.
In an instant, we finally had domestic partner benefits, and protection from employment discrimination because of our gender identity or expression.
I am beyond thankful for the lessons I learned in my first job right out of college.
Everyday now, I get to see people around the country, fighting through their unions to better the lives of themselves and their lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender co-workers and families.
Through their unions, they are fighting for old favorites like domestic partner benefits and new concepts for family-recognition in their pensions, and removal of restrictions in healthcare plans that affect transgender employees.
I have no illusions about unions; they struggle with the same problems of homophobia, transphobia, and ignorance that are present in other parts of society.
However, I also have no illusion that the one institution in my life that has done more to offer practical solutions to racial discrimination, the inclusion of families of all sizes, and homophobia and transphobia with teeth and backbone, has been my union.
As a worker, I am proud of the blood, sweat, and tears that I put into my work, and I am proud to be a union man.
Jeremy Bishop is executive director of Pride At Work, AFL-CIO.