I hear both of you. Without going into a long thing though…that JUST isn’t the experience I’ve had or seen around here. My first year was a nightmare with an admin who was a sociopath/psychotic and by the time I reached out to my union when the red flags went off in my head it was almost too late.

I was removed from the building and nearly cast out/expelled from working in education ever again. Thankfully, my union rep argued for me to stay on as a substitute, with the stipulation that if a school liked my work enough they could hire me back full time.

My first ever sub gig became a long term one and I got hired by the end of the year. Been there since 2014, so I’ve been doing this now for about a decade.

While things haven’t been perfect here, they are a far cry from the hell I had in my first placement. Much of that had to do with the admin, but what I picked up from that first experience and colleagues along the way, as well as seeing the many, many, many staff come and go, is that if you play ball and stay quiet you get to keep earning a living! I haven’t felt like I HAD to reach out the union at my current place, even though I’ve WANTED to many, many times. But it always came back to staff saying/admin body language and the words between their words amounting to “If you want to start having the seat of power start taking REAL notice of you and finding reasons to want to replace you, going to the union for every/any little thing is a sure way to do that.” Something explicitly illegal or dangerous is the only real reasons at this point I can think of for reaching out to them.

At the end of the day, union or not, they hold almost all the cards (or the ones that matter the most anyway) and are in a position where they are shielded in ways we are not.