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!
I have a good amount of experience with this.
Management wants the process to be slow and for you to be divided. They want to scare people out of supporting the union and to create an anti-union clique that sees a personal benefit in opposing the union. They want to identidy pro-union organizers and try to remove them as employees. It may not be obvious how they try to do this.
The union, i.e. you and your fellow committed workers, wants the process to go fast and with complete solidarity. If you could turn in 80% yes cards (or whatever process you use) tomorrow that would be ideal. Usually it takes a while. You also want to identify supporters and opposers ans try to win undecided people to your side. You need an organizing committee of the committed people ready to do the work of building lists, having conversations, planning and executing actions.
In terms of planning and your role(s), you want to build lists ASAP: a list of every employee in the unit and information about how pro-union they are. The best way is direct conversations with everyone on that list, ideally following a planned script with a direct question like, "if you could change 3 things about this place, what would they be?" Write down the answers and how pro-union they are. If someone is very pro-union ask them to get involved and emphasize how important it is.
Once you have a list, you can gauge your strength and plan how you will get the remainder of undecided people. Use the information about "3 things you would change" to create a concise list of demands and use this to agitate. Make those demands immediately and use management's reaction to win over the undecideds.
Repeat this process until you have enough cards or whatever to get your legal union.
Management will likely retaliate, like firing organizers. This is to intimidate you and remove a yes vote. You want to have as much support as possible from workers to use this as another moment for agitation, to asd it to the list of demands and say how pissed off you are. File legal grievances over this and go to the media over all forms of retaliation. Ideally friendly media like a local alt newspaper or a friendly journalist.
Management will likely hire a union busting firm. Use this to agitate, calling them out for wasting resources rather than improve working conditions.
Management is your enemy and so are those who work with them. Don't share information with them, as a rule. You will probably have a few rats to deal with. Just communicate internally about who can't be trusted.
You can do actions before you have a union and often they are necessary foe forming one. You can do slowdowns, sick outs, walkouts, etc. Keep in mind that you need proper solidarity for this. If a small minority of the most committrd are the only ones participating they will just use this as an excuse to fire and it won't have much impact anyways. Ensure turnout by using lists and getting commitments from every person you invite. Remind every person to attend witg a follow-up conversation.
This is a lot of work. It is much, much easier if you have a large and committed organizing committre. A 5-person organizing committee means 1/5 (or less) work per person. Burnout is frequent if your committee is too small or doesn't do the work.
Plan out how you will innoculate your fellow workers. Innoculation means preparing them for the bullshit management will say and how it is wrong. You also want to preview possible reactions from management but without being doomer - always always emphasize how important this fight is. That it is the only way to get what you deserve.
Always return to your list and your numbers. The moment you have just enough to file, do it. You can keep adding cards etc, but just filing will make management start shifting into a different mode of union busting, namely trying to challenge votes and slow fown contract negotiations. The contract process is basically the same as unionization but you have to follow some rules around negotiation (start with extremely strong demands, strongee than what you actually want, because you will have to compromise) and now you can strike.
I may be forgetting some things. Please feel free to ask any and all questions. You can do this! You deserve better than 100 degree conditions!
Sounds like we are on the right path. I appreciate all the advice though. This is not something I have much experience in and it's going to be hard to get everyone on the same page. The culture of the workplace is we can't even talk about how bad things are. You can get a word in once in a while if you check the room and make sure you're alone with the person.
I've been asking people what they think about unionizing and it's been mostly positive with a few non committal responses. I think once the ball really gets rolling, people won't be afraid to stand up. Plus, watching all the white collars go mask off about this is certainly radicalizing
I'm glad you're getting positive responses! That's a good way to begin building your committee. Are you writing down who responded and how they responded? Be sure to do this.
At these early steps you want to build that committee, begin mapping out your workplace with lists and organizing tasks, and recruiting workers with social influence. For example, if there is a beloved longtimer, having them be explicitly pro-union and maybe even on the organizing committee is a serious boon. Those noncommital people may become pro-union just because they trust the longtimer.
Regarding the culture of not talking about these things, this is common. The remedy is to have meetings outsids of work. For some meetings you'll want a 1 on 1 meeting (or 2 on 1), like at a coffee shop. For others you'll want to invite a small group. I recommend starting with the 1 on 1s to identify people who would be good on an organizing committee and to ask the "if you could change 3 things" question. Build your list and a committee with one set of actions.