Researcher - Anonymous employee UNITED HEALTHCARE WORKERS WEST Employee Review

1. pay, benefits, retirement, and time-off are amazing 2. virtually no other organization has had a greater impact on workers' lives the last few years, the Fairness Project alone increased wages across the country by more than $12 billion 3. you have a lot of autonomy 4. high expectations and room for growth

1. social justice organizing is extremely stressful and you can quickly burn-out if you don't take care of yourself 2. Because of the amazing work being done, we're in the crosshairs of all of corporate America ... that can be stressful as well 3. needs to be more effort put into staff development

Great healthcare, working with members who really are all that and more

Management. I left UHW after I was asked to reduce my 14 hour a day workload but also to remove nothing from my schedule. This came after being penalized for using 2 days of PTO sick time over 3 months (on days I was too sick to work) and endlessly critiqued for asking for help in my position. For context, this was my first representative job (previously was an organizer) that they pushed me to take instead of an organizing job, and I was nervous to have so much responsibility for my members. I really wanted to do well. I was told UHW wouldn't let me fail, I would get all these weeks of onboarding and training, I wouldn't even be in the field for a month - all nonsense of course. My supervisor was stretched so thin by staff (understandably) leaving that she never supervised me even once in the field, but had a lot of critiques about how I was managing my time once I brought up feeling overwhelmed by the workload. She didn't know what issues I was working, what leaders I was developing, or even what hospital my leaders were at (I repped more than one facility) and gave trite advice like "learn to block out your time" when the real issue was that I needed and asked for support managing the grievance process and bargaining prep without letting things fall through the cracks. I was extremely worried about this due to the high volume of issues and workload and complete absence of any support - not from my supervisor, not from ODD who is supposed to onboard...it was just me at my facilities fighting daily battles with management yet not having all the necessary tools to do so effectively and efficiently. I quite literally was told that this problem, which so many staff had quit because of, was all in my head. After a day of 7 back-to-back meetings, then getting long texts and emails criticizing me for not getting more assessments yet also demanding I make my days shorter and add breaks, I realized no one was even pretending to try and work with me and I'd have better luck at another union. All unions can be bad employers, but there are some with at least the desire to retain staff - my leaders, who did work with me, know that I am an excellent organizer and wouldn't have needed much guidance to do well in my new position. It should be noted that upon hire I had to do a lot of backend work to track down documentation from past reps, and when I left nobody asked for any information whatsoever about the work at my facilities - I left instructions/progress reports department by department with my leaders, the ones who really matter, but after seeing multiple executive board members cry about the lack of staff and the pressure it puts on them, only to be told by UHW management new staff are typically just lazy and not up to the task, I still found it shocking that even the bare minimum was not done to preserve timelines on these members' grievances and keep them from falling victim to poor union management