Health Insurance

In my union store in the Portland Oregon district.. the health benefit is not bad.. for the employee that is.. Although, for your spouse.. if you're a newer employee like I was and was not grandfathered from an older, and much better plan.. well it can really stink when the spouse must wait a total of 2.5 years from your date of hire to get any form of benefit.. So, you wait 6 months to get your benefits.. (Realistically, in my case it took just over eight months to actually receive an insurance card, etc) and then the spouse must wait another 2 years after you begin your "Level 1" benefit. For my experience, being a journeyman wage earner (16.45 right now 9/2015) I pay $11 weekly for Union Membership and another $7 weekly for the health benefit.. Which is not bad.. though if you're, say.. a minimum wage employee, you still pay about 9-10.xx dollars weekly for union membership and the same $7 weekly for health benefit.. which IMHO is bull! There's tons of challenged courtesy clerks who will NEVER make more than .15 cents above minimum wage who pay this?!?! I am grateful for the Union and what it does.. but it really seems there is something terribly wrong somewhere.. and I'm inclined to believe it's on the employer side, granted I've never believed the Union to be an angel either.