Marc has been at Monroe Correctional Complex for three years and is running to be a Shop Steward this October. He has spent two weeks walking the five Monroe facilities engaging his co-workers in a conversation about the Union.

What was the experience that motivated you to get involved with the union?

My first Union job was at a factory in 2002. I was sixteen years old. The Union Stewards there knew their contract backward and forward. Not a single soul doubted their competency, which gave the bullies in management a good reason to stop before stepping out of line. That has become a dream that I wish to apply in our facility.

Sometimes people don't want to be a part of the Union because of divisions in political ideologies. How did you address that in your conversations with the workers at your facility?

Last week, I had a conversation with a member who was about to quit the Union in a protest gesture as a result of a political disagreement. However, he was dissuaded from doing so after our conversation. I explained to him that by quitting, he would just be hurting me as his fellow union co-worker, while I haven't done anything to cause him harm. Then, I shared my own experience.

When I was young, George W. Bush was elected president in 2004 and then re-elected. Some people who didn't like him at the time said they were going to move to Canada. When in 2008, Barack Obama was elected president, the other people said that they were going to move to Canada. I don't know anybody who actually did move to Canada after either of the elections, but such was their attitude.

Imagine, I suggested to my co-worker, what this place would look like if George Washington had fled to Canada because he didn't like everything that was going on in America. Yet George Washington didn't flee. He stayed and fought for a better future, and now we live in a state named after him.

So, do you think if you flee to a different location, you are going to find yourself in a better place or just as powerless as you were when you left your home?

And that's exactly what Teamsters is. It is your home.