A union is a group of workers that are a part of a collective bargaining agreement (CBA) or Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). This essentially means that the terms and conditions for salaries and benefits were negotiated on behalf of a group of employees. Some water utilities could have one union while others could have up to three, four, or more.
The number of unions present could depend on how many employees there are. Unions are common in both public and private water utilities. They are not exclusive to any one. The purpose of a union is to negotiate on behalf of a group of employees, grieve certain actions by employers, and defend their group of employees from adverse decisions made by the employer.
A union allows employees to voice concerns and seek changes in the current CBA or MOU. This is later voted on by all members as they are seeking to do what is in the best interest of all members, not just one or two.
The more common concerns and changes that are often requested have to do with direct and indirect monetary issues. Direct monetary issues include regular pay, bilingual pay, and on-call pay to name a few. Indirect monetary issues would be vacation, holidays, and sick pay. There are other concerns that come up and can be requested to change or be included, but this was illustrated as an example.
Nonunion employees are the employees that are not covered by a CBA or MOU. They basically represent themselves and need to go to management or human resources to request changes or voice concerns. Some hard to recruit and stellar employees may be able to request and negotiate better terms than other employees. This is because if supply is low for certain roles, but demand is high than employers need to compete for the few talented employees that are there.
Nonunion employees would look at their employee handbook or personnel policies to find the rights they have. These rights could include sick, vacation, and holiday pay. They also could include any additional pay they could receive such as bilingual or certification pay. All important things, nonunion employees should familiar themselves when being with an organization.