Editor's Note

At the union plant, vacation benefits increased with time at the company, maxing out at seven weeks. I was surprised to learn that the union rules for selecting vacation time allowed the most senior employees to select ALL their weeks first, working its way down the seniority “totem pole.” As the company had a reasonable restriction on how many employees could be out at any one time, this meant that the younger employees were always stuck with the worst vacation times. One person, in particular, said that he would basically never be able to take summertime vacations with his school-age children. Didn’t seem fair to me, but the union seemed to value seniority over fairness.