My Proudest Moments Happened In A Union.

I wanted to take a moment and introduce myself. I'm Sean, (not Sean Lyles) and I'm your fellow CIS coworker. I've been a job coach with CIS for about a year and a half. I love the work I do supporting our participants, seeing them progress and in general, I've enjoyed learning and evolving as a job coach. I also love plants, music, cooking and telling cheesy jokes.

With all the recent conversation happening regarding the upcoming Union election, I felt compelled to share my story with you all. I was part of a unionized workplace for three years from 2017-2020 in Seattle, WA. I worked as a line cook in a large commercial kitchen at Seattle University. In general, it was a great place to work and I eventually became involved with the Union and even took on the role of a shop steward. I worked directly with my coworkers and managers advocating for my coworkers and making sure the rights and protections in our Union contract were enforced. One time I worked with both the regional district manager and the head chef collaboratively, to protect two employees from being terminated. That was something I was very proud of and will be for the rest of my days.

I've never felt more supported and protected than during my time with the Union and I've had many, many different jobs in my life! During the height of the pandemic, most of my coworkers (including me) were promptly laid off by the company. I had never been laid off before, and I wasn’t sure if I would be able to pay rent, eat, find work, and just have general life stability. But we in the Union promptly voted to cover everyone’s health insurance premiums so that we could keep our coverage, and I can't tell you how relieved I was when I got that news!! The Union also spearheaded a fundraiser to support our immigrant coworkers who were undocumented and not eligible to collect unemployment. I got involved with the fundraiser and we successfully raised $21,000 for my coworkers and their families on behalf of the Union.

I'm sharing this with you all to shed some light on the false narrative that has been presented on behalf of the management of CIS. The statements regarding unionization and employees losing the ability to work with managers are simply not true. As someone who previously worked with coworkers and managers often, I can speak directly to this. I want you all to make an informed decision, which again is why I'm choosing to share my experience with you all and why I think it would be much better for everyone to have a Union at CIS. We’ve all become very isolated working at CIS and it's challenging to find time to get to know each other or even interact at all. That’s why I’m really excited about the get-together that we CIS Workers are throwing on April 15th at 219 Spring Garden Street in Philadelphia from 6:00 to 9:00pm.

Thank you all for taking the time to read this.

Respectfully,

Sean Donoghue-Neider