So, a few of us have been unhappy for a long time and we have been working toward figuring out what it would take to unionize.
Last Saturday, someone came to the bakery and put flyers under everyone's windshield wiper on their cars. Naturally, some of those cars were management, and more importantly the owner.
Today we had a meeting where they tried to do that "you don't need a union, we can talk if anyone has any issues" thing and a bunch of us laid into the owner about a bunch of things and called him out for trying to stop using organizing.
We have a contact with the local union rep and we are setting up a meeting with them next Friday.
I was wondering if anyone has any insights into what we can expect to happen in the next few weeks. The boss wants to sit down with us troublemakers, and we figure we might as well. It's not going to sway us from our goal, if anything, it will be another chance to slap the boss around again.
Here are some of our issues. I don't know what things fall under the scope of what a union can do for us.
We work long, unpredictable hours in a non-climate controlled baking facility. It's often over 100°f in there.
Our manager uses her weapons grade incompetence to micromanage us into a state of absolute chaos every day, often to the detriment of the product, which we get blamed for and have to remake.
We never know when we are getting a raise, and it's all vibes based numbers anyway. Lower than industry standard.
We recently got into a position where a huge company got majority shareholder status and they want us to double our output.
The facility is unsafe and a lot of our equipment doesn't work, making the job very hard to do.
There is more stuff that I will bring up if I can think of it. I'm writing this after a 13 hour shift of standing in front of the oven. My brain is melted.
Any advice or experiences you want to share would be great!
The short answer is things would run more smooth and the person I have in mind would actually stand up to the boss.
Sorry for the following wall of text but it's something I left out of the OP and it's kind of crucial to understanding our problem. TLDR at bottom
So when the bakery started twenty odd years ago, our current GM was like 18 and just got a job there. She hung in there over ten years working her way up the "blue collar" side of things. I met her around this time because I came in for an interview and got the job, but the guy who hired me didn't tell her I was coming in. I walked in and there was my future GM basically doing the job I do now. She eventually ended up in the office when we expanded enough to actually need office workers. The GM at the time was a tough man. Not unreasonable but his job was to keep the status quo because it was making money and projecting growth. He quit eventually and my current GM kind of stepped into that role.
They created a new position between GM and the rest of us and burdened that person beyond any normal persons capacity. Current GM used to do it, now it's the incompetent woman.
Current GM (understandably) has an axe to grind against men because of the way she was treated when she was coming up. She has a habit of promoting women to jobs even if they don't have what it takes, and is over critical of a lot of the men that I work with. I always hesitate to talk about this because it sounds so Incel and MAGA coded, but it's an observable thing that a lot of people have expressed to me over the years. I bring it up, because she promoted my current supervisor because she felt bad for her financial situation, and she was capable of keeping things running pretty smooth when she wasn't over burdened. Well, she got the promotion and her whole attitude changed. Suddenly this person who used to ask me for advice about how to treat the bread (I have 15 years experience, she has two) was making bad calls and focusing more on subordination instead of what was good for the dough. Now we're here where she doesn't know jack squat but has the ego of a monarch.
There was a two year period where neither me or the current GM worked there, and one of the guys who is working on the union project was in charge. He would be a great person on the production floor. He's not in charge anymore because the first GM quit her new job and came back to the bakery and got her old role back and everyone else just had to deal.
TLDR: if we could get rid of the production manager and install the guy who used to do it, thing would run better, but we would likely still be abandoned by management and have no benefits. Incompetent manager probably will never be fired because of favoritism
So you think someone is doing their own little affirmative action program. But then kind of leaving the hire out to dry in a job they are not prepared for. Your instinct to avoid focusing on that is correct. Instead talk about general worker control, input, democracy. How should managers get selected? Hiring committee? General vote? Or a role that everyone rotates through? How can your collective imagine an accountable manager? Someone who isn't perfect but works for you to do a required oversight role?
My question wasn't about what would happen on the job production-wise, but what would happen with your organizing? Getting rid of a long-hated boss is a major victory that makes everyone breathe a sigh of relief. Finding a new manager could take weeeks/months, and getting to know them even longer. During that time your bosses will be conducting an anti-union campaign. Out of your committee, you should ask each person how they would react, then how they think specific other people would react. Will they wait to give the new manager the benefit of the doubt?
Note I am just talking about the manager but it could be the same story with any other issue. Your committee has to plan for concessions as well as repression.
Speaking of your committee, how often do you meet? Out of the total workforce, how many have ever attended and how many regularly attend?
I see what you're saying. If she just disappeared, things would probably run more smoothly. Three of us on the committee run our respective departments or at least share the responsibility. There are enough people who are good at what they do that we don't need supervision of the job itself. What we need is support between us and the office. Support between us and bad coworkers.
The committee would probably assume the leadership roles and share the duties that are now considered one job. I think we would do what we do when the bosses aren't around. We would put the people who do the best job at a station on that job instead of the random crap shoot it is right now. For example, I don't know why we have our best mixer baking the bread when he's slow as hell at it and knows it.
I don't think anyone would miss her if she was demoted or fired. Everyone thinks she's a huge pain in the ass.
I like the suggestion of asking people how we think we should choose a manager or team lead. One of the points I've been trying to get spread around is we should have a say in who we work with. I have worked with sex offenders, people who should be on the sex offenders list and a whole lot more. it takes more than it should to get them fired. Also, it's pretty obvious amongst us who should be doing what roles. I think we would just settle into them. My partner in crime is interested in renegotiating every year so I think between the two of us, we could keep the fire lit. Right now it's about five of us. Ten percent of the workforce, but that's complicated. Some of the delivery drivers live down state, so we never see them. There's workers around the clock, so it's hard to get on the same page. Right now it's day shift production leading the charge.