I thought it might helpful to get a beginner’s perspective since people struggle so much with figuring out how to get started and imagining the first steps
How does it feel to know, concretely, that you're cooler than you were a week ago?
It's a hell of a feeling. Just keep your spirits up it can be a long haul. I'm going on year two of trying to unionize. It can be rough especially if it's a large business with high turnover like retail has been lately. Just keep at it and hone your tactics to onboard new hires the second they express any sort of frustration
I appreciate the advice. We’ve had 5 resignations in the past week so I hadn’t even thought about new hires yet. I told my IWW contact to watch out for me overworking because I will absolutely hyperfocus and burn out if I don’t consciously try not to. I want this to be a marathon, but I absolutely have sprinter’s energy at the moment.
That's a fine way to start, especially to get people on board before they resign. If they're ready to quit then you can tell them to at least make demands on the way out even if they don't want to stick it out.
Management fucked over the entire company on health insurance. Made me real cool real quick
Have you dealt with any rats yet? As in people who say they're interested and/or take lit and/or take a card, but then sell you out to management? That's happened to me before.
Not so far. I have a pretty good relationship with the core group I’m working on, so hopefully it stays that way for a bit
Me personally? The first time it happened, we tried to just roll with the punches. Moved up the timetable, started organizing in the open. Most of us on the initial organizing committee got shitcanned, me included. But the union drive is still going on, I help out with flyering there sometimes.
The second time it happened, where I'm working at now, we put everything on ice. No movement for close to a year. Only started to pick things up again after the guy left the job in January.
Good work comrade, sometimes the best we can do is plant trees under whose shade we will never sit :fidel-salute-big:
what do you feel are the biggest obstacles to overcome when getting coworkers on board?
I’m still on easy street as far as that goes. Still working on my close friends and direct colleagues
Good luck. Everyone I know (including myself) who has tried to unionize a workplace has gotten fired. Blah blah blah, 'in x location you cant get fired for unionizing'. Okay well they'll find some other bullshit reason and ratfuck you.
So you're doing awesome work but cover your ass and find a backup plan to keep a roof over your head. Start planning finances like you're unemployed. I support the IWW but considering most locals are basically a book club that does OT101 trainings once a year it's not like they're going to have your back in any real legal or material capacity beyond offering a bit of advice. Sorry to be a bummer. But I'm cheerin for ya
edit: I read in a comment thread that your IWW local has a cash stockpile; thats great, but again, don't get ahead of yourself - for all you know they wont have enough meeting attendance to make quorumwhen they need to vote on releasing funds. Again, sorry to be a bummer. Just don't plan for anyone to save you, and I'd bet the majority of us here are 1 missed paycheque away from not being able to pay rent. Slow and steady wins the race even if it isn't exhilarating.
My bro lost his job after trying to lead unionization at his workplace; after two months of very tense struggle (lots of power abuse, lies and threats and yadda) other workers - who couldn't handle that pressure anymore - started turning backs on him; I know from the experience (tho I managed to keep my job- different place, different time, different story) that is the most painful part when people you are fighting for start leaving you...
PS He went totally nuts, having what appears to be a nervous breakdown... in the end they didn't even fire him but demoted to most humiliating - in fact physically dangerous but who cares! - workplace and after couple more months of harassment he quit; the point was that (according to Serbian laws) he gets even less money and rights if they don't fire him.
Yeah I’m putting together my CV and trying to balance the union work with actively applying for jobs. There’s a decent chance I end up quitting before this gets off the ground purely out of self preservation. But we’ll see
Awesome. How did you start getting people on board? Sometimes find my fellow workers apathetic to the very concept of unions, though I might just be boring.
I started by asking coworkers I'm close with about their pay and telling them its illegal in California to tell employees not to discuss their wages.
We have a lot of people who already have one foot out the door due to changes in management. Pointing out how badly they’ve handled things and letting them see that everyone else is feeling that same tension helps a lot. Material conditions and all that are right, I guess
That's awesome! How is it going so far?
From your username, I'm assuming you were able to access some support from the IWW? If so, how has that been? If not, why do you think they've been unable to help you?
One thing I remember being told that was important for unionizing was getting a list of employees, phone numbers/addresses, and figuring out if people are cool with unionizing, neutral, or outright hostile. If you've been doing that, how has covid and the pandemic affected that effort? I'm assuming not a lot because all the restrictions being more or less lifted, but I was still curious if that's been hard to do.
How is it going so far?
I’m simultaneously more empowered/excited than I’ve ever been at work and also scared shitless. So pretty good. Incompetence by management has made a lot of the startup easy
From your username, I’m assuming you were able to access some support from the IWW? If so, how has that been? If not, why do you think they’ve been unable to help you?
Yes! They’ve been awesome. Real quick response, very supportive, and my contact seems decently radical. I was pleasantly surprised to find that my chapter has a decent fund in case we get retaliated against. And I’m also coordinating with an industry-specific union. My IWW rep said it’s common for us to dual-card and that, if the business unions fall through in terms of supporting their workers, the IWW will fill in the gaps. Business unions will sometimes tend to be less radical and more open to making concessions. My rep said, “it may take decades, but if what you want is to buy the company and make it into a worker coop, we can set up a campaign for that”.
One thing I remember being told that was important for unionizing was getting a list of employees, phone numbers/addresses, and figuring out if people are cool with unionizing, neutral, or outright hostile.
The whole “incompetent management” thing has made getting the employee list real easy. Still working on getting the sentiment analysis done.
If you’ve been doing that, how has covid and the pandemic affected that effort? I’m assuming not a lot because all the restrictions being more or less lifted, but I was still curious if that’s been hard to do.
Our office is all remote, so the big challenge is setting up pretenses for us to speak on less formal platforms where management doesn’t have admin access to monitor everything we say. Luckily, people have been down for an informal happy hour so far and I had one group join a local gaming Discord. It may be silly, but I think a lot of silly things have the potential to become serious as time goes on
Obligatory plug for the pinned resources in c/labour especially the EWOC guides
do you have an organizing committee that meets regularly already or are you building up to that?
My supporting IWW chapter meets regularly, but is too far away physically for me to attend so far. Working on possibly starting up regular meetings for us.
what % of the company workers have you already done one on ones with?
When I say I just started, I mean I’m less than a month in. So less than 10%
what’s the level of support for the union you have had so far?
I’ve started with a group of people who know each other from outside work, are younger, and are more left-leaning, so support of collective action so far has been nearly universal, but I expect that will drop drastically as this continues.
are you close to getting a representative survey of the list of your most urgent demands?
Not yet
what kind of retaliation are you expecting and how are you preparing for it?
Management has a major impulsivity streak as well as a few more savvy people. So it’s kind of hard to pin down because it depends on who has the reigns. We have some messaging and narratives we’re looking at running with and, whether their retaliation is effective or not, I’m expecting it to be aggressive
Seems like you have a good support network but feel free to ask me any questions as I am in a similar situation but I've been at it for a while longer and have been sort of stumbling my way through the process with the aid of the folks from the EWOC I mentioned.
Awesome work comrade - that's a life goal of mine, even to assist with a union drive
Thank you. I’d seen it as the “right thing” to do for a while, but I didn’t actually decide to do it until after I’d already decided to quit due to mismanagement. Someone told me to unionize on my way out the door and it turns out this place is ripe for some power struggle. Now it looks like I’m sticking around.
No question here but I'd like to thank you for your service:fidel-salute:
