The union labels are an essential tool for enforcing contracts and protecting jobs, wages and benefits. Union officials work hard to negotiate the best contracts possible, and the labels are essential to protecting those contracts, union jobs and wages. They play a central part in preventing a race to the bottom in which contractors try to use non-labeled products or pay union workers less and less.
In other words, all union members are better off if we work together to make the label system work. By standing up and supporting each other, we stand up and support ourselves. Solidarity works. By using the labels, we protect existing union jobs, secure more work and protect union wages. And when more sheet metal workers participate in the union’s health care plan and pension fund, those benefits are better for everyone.
For individual sheet metal workers, it means more work, better pay and healthier benefits. The job you save may be your own. And the more union members participating in the health care and pension systems, the better those benefits will be for each union member.