By Marcus Oladell, First Student driver, East Hartford, Connecticut

My name is Marcus Oladell and I’m a driver at First Student in East Hartford, Connecticut. I’ve worked for First Student as both a nonunion and union employee. Forming a union with my coworkers made a major difference in my life—in all of our lives.

I always knew that our working conditions could get better if we stuck together, formed a union and got a union contract. And we did just that. Each contract is different, and our contract reflects our priorities.

Here’s what we achieved:

Wage Increases— The company wanted us to work 8 years to get to the top of the pay scale. We negotiated 6 years into our contract.

Holidays— We have 5 paid holidays. We had ZERO holidays before our Teamster contract.

Medical— We negotiated that the company offer medical at a group rate. We had NO medical options before our Teamster contract.

Funeral Leave— We have 3 bereavement days. We had ZERO days before our Teamster contract.

Civic Duty Leave— We have 5 days of paid leave for jury duty. We had ZERO days before our Teamster contract.

Life Insurance Policy— We have $5,000 in life insurance. We had NONE before our Teamster contract.

I tell everyone I can about the difference that forming a union has made. We negotiated into our contract what was important for us. For the first time, we leveled the playing field with our employer. We now have a fair procedure so that our concerns are addressed.
Favoritism was rampant before, but now we have a seniority system and fairness in our workplace.

I remember very well what it was like to be nonunion. I would never go back to that again. I encourage you to join together to better your lives as well—by forming YOUR union with the Teamsters.