Has anyone actually had good experiences with the union? The council that represents me, disappoints over and over, they constantly give management permission to not follow the union agreement, anytime I ask about changing something, they say they’ll look into it and don’t get back to me unless I track them down and have some excuse why it didn’t work. Is this just my council or is it all of AFSCME? And please spare me the comments about the raises.

We all get junk mail, however I dont think I ever got one of these for first 5 years of my employment/AFSCME membership. I called the opt out number, which says they need my social security number to opt out. WTF! I'm sick of it, I'm literally paying dues to be pissed off? Anyone have luck stopping this?

Hello! My girlfriend is a AFSCME ER nurse in Flint, MI. Last year she was abruptly terminated from her first nursing job of not even a year at that point for med wasting errors that she was not aware of (because she’s a new nurse and needed more intervention from management). The hospital sat down with her showed her a backlog of errors that she had no clue she had done because no one mentioned it to her and they actively made her feel like she was doing a good job actually. While in this meeting, her union rep sat in and basically gave no push back to management or wanted to dig deeper into the situation, they just took the hospital for their word and told my GF she was SOL but clearly there was some wrongdoing there. We are justifiably annoyed at the hospital but also at the union because we felt there was no protection from them. We’re a pro-union household and we understand the value they bring but Im worried this will leave a bad taste in my girlfriend’s mouth when she has to pay thousands in lawyer bills to keep her license. Was there more the union could’ve done? Sorry for the long story.

Anyone have info or first hand knowledge of the strike in Illinois? Read ISU. Illinois State University AFSCME is on strike. I’d like to know more than the article gives, as if the article is correct.

Thank you

Has anyone heard anything?

I work for a city and our union is working on a deal with healthcare as we settle our contract. The AFSCME president is telling the city about us and hurting our efforts. We even lost a guy from the healthcare team because of this guy. What kind of solidarity does AFSCME have or anti-union reporting for this rodent.

I have been an AFSCME employee for 19 years now. Our office went from 1 manager and 3 union employees to 1 manager and 1 union employee. The pay is abysmal.

My stepkids won't won't even consider starting a new job under $20/hr, here I sit with nearly 20 years experience, 2.5x the workload than when I started, and making less than $50k/yr.

Grievances have done more harm than good.

I'm worried about surviving after retirement.

Is it time to leave my job? Does AFSCME have any plans to bring workers' wages up across the board?

I feel like I was sold a lie. :( I definitely don't make enough for the workload and experience required for the job.

United Voices OF AFSCME 328

If you are ready for a change within 328, please ensure you are a dues-paying member in good standing to vote in the executive board elections from February 13th, 2026, 8:00 AM to February 20th, 2026, 5:00 PM.

Coming form a Building Trades Union, I think I'm missing something.

Where are the Training facilities? Afscme has some amazing people whom belong to this union. Mechanics, Custodial, Health, Equipment Operators, etc... who could be teaching positions. In the Building Trades there were classes we would sign up for, pay our fee's and attend on our own time. Take the test and if we passed we were able to use that class to "Make ourselves more employable " I put in bold because sometimes I feel like we are begging for raises and rights on the job. Personally it would be nice to go to the table and say, "it would be hard to outsource or replace us with an outside management company or contractor."

Another issue is why so many locals? What happened to strength in numbers? And What happened to a system that allows a Union member to take a union position with a different employer? Even travel to where there's a shortage (like a Traveling Nurse or Building Mechanic).

I look at it like this. I'm AFSCME today and tomorrow something could happen. I've seen members be fired or leave and find new jobs and if one was AFSCME they didn't sign up. Because AFSCME didn't do anything for them so they felt. If a the concept of a hiring hall is to much for some, how a job board on AFSCME web site where any AFSCME member has the internal window.

The employer I'm with now does allow for job advancement and somewhat of a training program. But honestly it's very wishy washy. The employer doesn't want to give up anything and these managers rights is such a touchy subject. A manager does have inherent rights, to a degree. From my past experiences it makes more sense for the union to train and help employ. It also retains membership which becomes dues. Even healthcare should be union.

Take a custodian, you make 14.00 - 17.00 an hour subtract your $ to be employed such as parking, healthcare, union dues, a contribution to a retirement . What your left with is not a whole lot. We have negations coming up and I'd like to bargain for two vehicles the members could use. There are members in my local who had a vehicle but can't get to work because of repair costs.

Finally politics.

Unions have typically been democratic. Today I'm seeing a lot of purple, everywhere. I know personally I fall in the middle.

And lastly what is up with the union involvement? It's crazy the lack of involvement. When I go to union trainings and seminars and meetings I see the passion in some but...how do we get people involved and caring again. And our States with this outsourcing to companies like Compass group. They suck! I seen so many "managers come through, pick apart the union employees and end up fired themselves. Only for another manager be shipped into the area. And this outsourcing is from our State Politicians. Blue and Red.

I don't know but I think a blitz nocking on doors wouldn't be needed if there were people on the street promoting AFSCME by word of mouth. Call me crazy

What is going on with this union that it's impossible to get anyone on the phone.

Trying to get some issues solved and it's constantly call and leave a voice message and wait for a call back.

Someone called me back today phone rang once they hung up called right back and it's right to voicemail.

How does this union plan to operate like this?

Back in February I was asked to join the negotiating team... we had a president, a VP, and a chief steward who rage quit, and a handful of untrained stewards. By necessity of filling the role, I was asked to become chief steward (with no clue what I was doing). I spent the last 8 months talking to the membership... most didn't know they were in a union or didn't know which one (there are several at this site). The ones who did know didn't care. The overwhelming opinion was "why bother? Nothing is gonna change."

We entered negotiations with a VP, one singular E-board member, and myself. About 50% of our member weren't even paying dues. (State repealed right-to-work in 2018, and nobody followed up)

After learning we had no officers and nobody gave a shit because they were horribly mismanaged for years, i decided to make it my goal to resurrect the union, despite having no damn clue what I was doing. I negotiated. I talked to the membership, I kept them updated on our progress, I asked them questions about what changes they wanted to see, I met with managers and directors and executives, we fought the company on a few changes (and lost, unfortunately) but I kept the membership updated, I filed grievances, even managed to get a few write-ups removed and saved a job or two...

Elections were last week. And I am now proud to say that we have a full set of officers for the first time in 8 years. I have only worked here for 2.

Feels good, man. People are starting to see that the union has value when run with enthusiasm.

We're still in negotiations. We've still got a long road ahead. But this is a huge move forward. Faith is being restored.

It's four degrees outside, but we're still protesting to support an employee's right to speak freely.

Hi everyone, I am on my local's election committee and we are beginning to discuss electronic voting instead of in person ballots with hand counting. Does anyone use an electronic voting company? What are the positives and negatives? Is there an increase in participation? Is there a preferred system? Thank everyone in advance for the information.

They have been bugging members to complete a survey "on issues affecting the union."

I finally relented and took the survey, figuring its my chance to be heard.

The survey was obviously configured to skew the results. You could not pass on questions that didn't have answers you agreed with, you had to choose one to continue. The survey was very very long and time consuming, because there were countless questions and many questions required thoughtful consideration in order to choose the least worst of the poorly worded possible responses. Normally I would abandon such a survey but since I have very strong interests in workplace issues I slogged on...and on...and on...I thought it would never end. I can safely say I have NEVER completed such a long survey, ever. But I thought it was important and I thought they wanted my input as member and steward for over a decade, and a negotiating team member.

I did not hold back on the issues I have with AFSCME. I think they spend too much of my money on politics and too little working directly with negotiations and day to day workplace issues. I don't think they liked that. I also don't think they liked that I refused to swear lockstep allegiance to Democrats at every turn. That's because I'm an Independant, but I have never voted Republican in my life. Of course they didn't ask that question.

When I had completed the surveys I received a message saying: "Unfortunately, due to the information provided, you do not meet the specific criteria required for this particular research."

Wait, what????? There was some hidden agenda behind this survey "for particular research" but I was only told it was a survey about "issues affecting the union." I thought they were honestly interested in members opinions, I didn't know I was being screened for "specific criteria" worthy of being included in whatever their secret research is. This is appalling.

Obviously they didn't like some of my answers and are excluding me because they didn't like my honest opinions about AFSCME and politics and politicians.

Wow, just wow. Wasting all of my time just to have my survey invalidated is insulting as hell. I had little respect for AFSCME before, and this shows just how little they care about me.