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submitted 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) by OldSoulHippie@hexbear.net to c/chapotraphouse@hexbear.net

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!

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[-] OldSoulHippie@hexbear.net 5 points 2 days ago

I'm a little interested. The job I just interviewed for won't get me to retirement. I would be interested in pivoting to working for union organization some day

[-] Chana@hexbear.net 4 points 2 days ago

Depending on which union you associate with it can be possible to turn your organizing experience into a position at that union (obviously I can't say much with certainty). Especially if you perform well or your workplace is large / has potential for expansion. For example, your workplace was bought out. Maybr there are more bakeries in this company now and you would be the expert at unionizing them. Are you talking with UFCW? Some locals / regional teams are pretty good. UNITE HERE is better but has less money.

this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2025
113 points (99.1% liked)

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