$9 per week or $9 per paycheck?

Typically union dues are scaled based on a certain percentage of your average income. Many union organisations gauge monthly dues by your wage x 2.5. If your dues were paid on a weekly basis, you'd just take that total and divide by four.

I'm very sleep deprived and maths isn't my best subject, but I was curious - if you do that formula in reverse, it should give us an idea of your hourly rate at the time. $9 weekly, for four weeks, totals $36 monthly. Divide by 2.5, you end up with a wage of roughly $14.40 per hour. That would be on the high end of pay for what corporate Starbucks offers on average, outside of cities/states that had minimum wage at $15 at the time. I'm going to assume that's the union-negotiated rate, but I'm more surprised to hear you're actually making more at a corporate-owned store unless you're an SSV or higher.

Did you attend the union meetings? What were they like?