By Sheron McCampbell, First Student driver, Grand Junction, Colorado

I’ve done every kind of job you could imagine. I’ve worked at the phone company. I’ve taken score for softball games. I’ve cleaned office buildings. I’ve even run the concession stand at a Little League Park.

When my husband died in 1985, our son was six years old. At one point, I had four or five different jobs that I rotated in order to make ends meet. And for the past 23 years, I’ve driven a school bus in Grand Junction, Colorado.

I work at First Student. I get up at 4:30 a.m., start pre-tripping my bus at 6 a.m. and usually get home at 4:30 p.m. It’s a long day. I have a special ed route, a wheelchair bus. I drive high schoolers, preschoolers and elementary school students. I love my job.

In 2009, with the Teamsters’ national campaign to drive up standards in the school bus industry, we joined Teamsters Local 455. Twice, really. The Colorado legislature’s “gift” to us, the Colorado Labor Peace Act, makes it more difficult to have our union in this state. It means that once you vote to join the union, you need to vote again. You have to have 75 percent of the unit’s vote for everyone to become dues paying members. Our group made this happen because having union representation was so important to us.

I know the union is important to me. I’m a shop steward and worked on our contract negotiations. I am very union minded. I’ve never owned a foreign car, I try to buy American made products and I was raised that way. I am proud of my father who was an iron worker, my mother who was a riveter on World War II airplanes, my brothers who were Teamsters, my husband who was a member of the IBEW and my son who was a member of the United Steelworkers. It means a lot to me to come from a union family.

I, along with three other shop stewards and our Teamster representatives, recently negotiated our contract. I had been driving for 22 years and was only making $12 an hour. I now get $13 an hour and we have another paid holiday. We all got $150 retro pay with the ratification of our contract and regular pay increases.

Our four-step grievance process means that we cannot be fired without just cause. I know I go to work every day as I did before the contract, giving my undivided attention, obeying the rules and trying to help my fellow drivers out. If management is wrong, my grievances will do the talking for me, but I always try to settle differences without filing a grievance and go over things in a respectful manner. We are all in this together and have to work at it, on both the management and the union side.

My union has made a significant difference for me. I met our business agent, Dean Modecker, when I had broken my wrist in a car accident and the Teamsters helped me get my job back.

I had told my supervisor that my doctor was on vacation and that I could bring in my medical papers that Monday. He said that was fine, but when I brought them in on Monday, he said I was fired for failing to bring my papers in earlier. We went to a hearing and Dean found in the contract where the supervisor had given my route away before a required 12-week waiting period. I got my job back and my seniority and pay back, as well. I had more seniority at the time than anybody else.

I want to give back, which is why I’ve worked as a member organizer, helping other school bus drivers organize. There is a special thought process and feeling with people that drive a school bus. You have a connection there that you might not have with a truck driver, with someone who works at a bakery or at a warehouse. You’re transporting children. It’s a connection that puts you apart from other jobs.

When I was in high school, before the end of my senior year in 1964, a lot of people didn’t know what they wanted to do so they gave us career tests. It said on my paper that I was very good at organizing and should go into union organizing.

Shelley Goodman, who was the Teamster organizer who helped us, is also a school bus driver. She helped us immensely and I want to do the same for others. It’s hard to get some people to realize the benefits of the union until they see it for themselves. A lot of people here didn’t think they were worth something, and it’s hard to pound into people’s heads that you are worth it, you are worth much more than you thought.