Okay so also I will address your specific questions.

We work long, unpredictable hours in a non-climate controlled baking facility. It's often over 100°f in there.

The temperature is working conditions and a safety issue. Both 100% things for a union to negotiate. Unpredictable hours is something a company lawyer will argue are a management decision necessary for the company to function. It will be a demand to bargain and is winnable. Innoculate people from management's rhetoric on this.

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.

Whike you cannot write, "fire Karen" into a contract, you can bargain for working conditions that prevent her incompetence and may end up with her being fired. Really, your productivity doesn't really matter unless you are really into bakes goods or something, from the workers' perspective. The company should care about that instead. But what you may want to bargain is for predictable schedules, professional development opportunities, and a reliable, respectful workplace. Once you have a union you can also just have constant meetings with this manager and your rep and exhaust them.

If you enumerate exactly what her problems are re: your conditions you can create a list to imoroce them. This becomes an article for bargaining. As always, you will demand more than you expect to get.

We never know when we are getting a raise, and it's all vibes based numbers anyway. Lower than industry standard.

This is 100% a union thing. This is what you will absolutely win. This is what you strike for. Every contract you will get a raise and it will be above industry average because you will demand more. This is the one thing where you will stick hard to your demand and not negotiate once the demand is public. This is your centerpiece. Something like, "35% raise!". Emphasize that you are underpais but that you perform well. Gather stats about other similar workplaces to prove it.

We recently got into a position where a huge company got majority shareholder status and they want us to double our output.

That's their problem. They try to make it yours. The union will make that distinction by setting a baseline for working conditions - pay, hours, etc. You can bargain for positions to be full time and regular hours. Then it is on them to hire more people if they want more output.

If they try to change working conditions between contracts, you can simply say that violates the contract and they need to bargain at the next one. Whilee facility is unsafe and a lot of our equipment doesn't work, making the job very hard to do.

PS this may just be a ploy for layoffs

The facility is unsafe and a lot of our equipment doesn't work, making the job very hard to do.

This is a commom thing to bargain and very difficult for them to argue without giving you fodder to strike. "They won't even make X safe! They think your life/hand/eyes aren't worth a few thousand dollars!"

If you win, that will be a

Conquest of Breadmakers

YEAAAAAAAAAH

More seriously though, as a union member here’s my semi-qualified takes on your comrade’s concerns:

We work long, unpredictable hours in a non-climate controlled baking facility. It's often over 100°f in there.

The facility is unsafe and a lot of our equipment doesn't work, making the job very hard to do.

Both the stability of hours and the worksite quality are things you could reasonably get out of a contract. Hell, the union’s lawyers may just straight up be like “these are unsafe conditions, you can address these or we can get OSHA involved.”

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.

Unfortunately, getting a manager replaced is not gonna be in scope unless she’s done something criminal or violated EEO laws. At best, maybe some standardizing of practices.

We never know when we are getting a raise, and it's all vibes based numbers anyway. Lower than industry standard.

That’s the central point of any union contract: set rules and schedules for pay raises.

We recently got into a position where a huge company got majority shareholder status and they want us to double our output.

Hard to say what effect unionizing would have on this without knowing the specifics of what they’re looking for.

Major thing I would note, management likes putting up counter offers that sound nice, have upfront perks, but if you run the numbers you’ll find that the workers end up getting less over the life of the contract than the original demand. Be prepared to do the math.

Your issues are classic union issues and can absolutely be addressed in a contract!

A sandwich chain up in Seattle won time-and-a-half for whenever the kitchen gets above 82 degrees https://inthesetimes.com/article/working-people-homegrown-sustainable-sandwiches-strike

Some contracts have requirements that the boss has to get the schedule out two weeks in advance and give full-time hours to people with seniority.

Unions also have bully boss trainings about how to push back on bad bosses

All of your grievances are things you guys can address collectively

Hell yeah, seize those muffins

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!

Are you in contact with any larger/established unions? I am only familiar with the IWW. They can help by putting you in contact with an External Organizer, who you can discuss strategies with. However, it sounds like you’re already very far along in the organizing process, so great job getting to where you are.

My main suggestion is to have your demands agreed upon before the meeting with management. You need something that the manager you’re talking to has the power to change, and you need to be unified. This can be your chance to get a win to reinvigorate the organizing process, but the committee has to be ready to use that win to recruit more of your fellow workers, and use it to keep striving for more. You know that the boss is going to do everything they can to undermine you, so you can’t just get a win and stop. (That last bit isn’t for you, I’m sure you know this, but for the other members of the organizing committee)

If you come in with a demand that they have the power to change, and they don’t, then that’s ammunition against the management.

Record every detail of the meeting you can, whether that’s with an audio recording (if you’re in a single party consent jurisdiction) or a union member taking accurate minutes. Cover your ass, because the NLRB isn’t going to fight for you.

After this, be ready for snitches to infiltrate. Only let people attend organizing meetings who have proven themselves loyal with actions.

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.

Actually I have to say that when I tried to unionize my office togheter with some collegues (we were in the very early stages of trying to figure what we needed to do), the manager requested a meeting with all of us "troublemakers" (only the ones they knew where getting involved in lamenting the low wages) and I have to say that (after a group meeting and some individual meetings) they succeeded in stopping, at least for the time, the "energy" of the movement. Some people just didn't feel anymore like "risking" it.

So, I guess my suggestion is to be careful about who goes in what meeting, especially in the very early stages, because some people might chicken out, and then other people might see those people and feel like unionizing is going too far.

Because of this, we had to stop at getting a small wage increase for our team alone, and now, only after a year, is some of that energy, to do something about the wage and the workplace, coming back.

PS: do not go to that meeting. Do not, as a rule, do anything management wants.

what would happen if

1. the incompetent manager was fired
2. one of the pro-union was promoted to her job

I don't really have experience with this, but basically all the problems you list are extremely normal things for a union to demand (from what I've read), or only abnormal because many businesses are more concerned with violating regulations or opening themselves up to lawsuits than your boss seems to be.

"Fuck you, you're getting us an AC (or whatever device would help)" is really something that you should collectively say in so many words before one of you collapses. Same with any faulty equipment that compromises your safety. This all just being in my uninformed opinion, of course.

Unionize

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