I've been trying to organize the grocery store I work at for months now. People are happy to complain about work, pay, management, etc. I barely even have to agitate. Some of them are even open to the idea of unionizing. When I ask them if they'd be able to help it all fucking falls apart though. I can't even get people to do basic shit like help me make a list of the people in their department or to ask people they know what they think of unions.
There are 200ish people in the store. I can't befriend every single one of them. How do I get people to put something towards the effort? The only thing I can think of is to start being mean about it, because I'm trying not to be pushy, but at this point I don't see another option. Like telling people I don't really care about their issues if they don't care enough to help me fix them. I don't have high hopes for it though.
Do any of you have experience with this sort of thing? Am I missing something? How do you get people to actually contribute to improving their situation?
don't focus on what you need from them. if you make demands of their time and labor for speculative benefits, people will not help you. instead, keep pulling at the thread of what they need, always asking "what might we, collectively, do right now to improve things for you?" once a few people start talking about "what we can do", introduce them to each other and get a group talking about "what we can do for each other".
that is, don't try to assign people work. just facilitate discussion, continuously redirecting conversation towards concrete and collective action. be the person offering to do everything you can - but do not commit to doing everything. let people back themselves into a corner where they've committed themselves to taking action that they themselves conceived of. that's when people turn from "hmm, maybe we could do something but it seems overwhelming and we'll probably get fired" to "okay, I think I can do that". your goal must be to continuously identify impediments to collective action and to swiftly and judiciously remove them, until the only possibility that remains - the only thing that anyone involved can possibly do - is to take immediate and concrete action.
once they're committed and taking self-directed action, then teach them how to take your role with the people they know and who trust them, until they too are taking action. this is the basis of all organizing.
hmm, this is mostly a summary of a lecture I attended by an accomplished union organizer filtered through my personal experiences. in order to share more I'd necessarily need to tell stories that can be used to help identify me, which makes it hard. I'm also very much still learning and evolving my understanding as I reconcile my successes and failures where practice meets theory.
Thanks for doing the work, just an idea maybe focus on how much higher paid union jobs are and the safety stats too. I’m thinking perhaps your co workers are to busy with other shit and don’t want to take on more stuff. Dunno I hope this helps and thanks for doing it
Drink with them, spend time with them socially. You'll forge different strong bonds and people are more pliable in situations where they're relaxed.
The greatest gift to organization that factories gave to proles in days past is that they were all together, next to each other on the shop floor. They lived by each other, they went to the same watering holes. Sustained contact breeds community and solidarity.
AEIOU is the model i was taught. Agitate, Educate, Inoculate, Organize, Unionize
