I'm not sure how much detail to give, I don't think anyone involved or in my town browses this website, but I don't want to give any specifics in case someone does a search and this shows up. Using an alt so I this won't be tied to my normal account. I'm probably posting more details than I should, so If you think I should delete something specific let me know.
First off: To anyone thinking of unionizing in the US, and are unsure of where to start, I recommend contacting EWOC. We had followed the typical guidelines of union formation: Stay secret and form an organizing committee from people representing as many areas of the store as you can (we got a signal chat and got consent from everyone before adding new people), map the store and figure out who we should absolutely not talk to, and then gauge support of the unionizing idea by having discreet convos with your coworkers as you feel comfortable, etc.
In our case we had trouble contacting unions, and got no repsonse from a lot of them. EWOC responded immediately and we got assigned a contact who helped us along with good advice and encouragement, and helped us settle on who to go with. They had just unionized an amazon warehouse they worked at, and they helped a lot when we had spent weeks getting frustrated with the lack of any response from unions.
When the time came to choose a union, it came down to a couple choices: UFCW and CWA. CWA doesn't typically unionize our type of workplace but they are branching out, and we've heard mixed things about UFCW so we were hesitant about them. Our contact at EWOC is a socialist and informed us that CWA has been spamming pro-biden/harris ads, while their UFCW local has refused to endorse because of the ongoing genocide. So that made things simple. UFCW it is.
I've worked at a local co-op for almost a decade. I started there thinking "aha! A co-op! This place will be much better than corporate!" and there are a lot of good things about it, but it was one of those co-ops formed by hippies way back when and who basically wanted natural foods and other hokum that tends to go along with that stuff. Basically a community owned whole foods type store. One of the cool things about it was that they were officially strongly pro LGBTQ and it was one of the founding values.
But it's a community co-op, not a workers co-op. Officially democratically run by the member-owners, but absolutely no democratic principles at play when it comes to managing the workforce, and over the years it's become obvious to me and a lot of other employees about how poorly managed it is. Lots of safety issues get ignored until someone gets hurt and the co-op is financially liable, lots of homophobic incidents get swept under the rug, managers are basically unaccountable to anyone underneath them unless they flagrantly violate labor law, etc. Your experience can be a good one if your manager likes you, if you are one of the favorites, but if not they can get away with almost anything and treat you like absolute shit.
Lately our general manager has been acting like a corrupt tyrant and their policies have caused numerous injuries and wide swaths of people to be put on disciplinary action for speaking up about working conditions, shockingly incompetent mismanagement, and transphobia in the workplace.
Upper management is tired of our complaints and has decided to crack down hard over the past few months for reasons detailed in the spoiler, and that has involved under-staffing the store to a dangerous degree and numerous injuries.
A lot us are fed up with it to the point that we are ready to burn the place to the ground, but since so many of the staff are fed up we have taken the more constructive path and started a union drive. We've been trying to keep it as secret as possible, but it becomes harder to maintain a lot of secrecy as you talk to more people. So management knows something is up, but not the extent of support.
There was one person from the organizing committee who was talking up the union and was getting people on board, and they just got fired for taking a long planned vacation. It’s all shady and most likely an unfair labor practice, but they aren’t pursuing action at this time. I wish they would, but they understandably want to just enjoy they time off at the moment. But they were friends with a small local online news reporter, and I guess the reporter decided it was time to publish news about the union because it relates to other drama involving the board of directors that has been making news here.
We really didn't want news of the union reported, and told them so, because with the way they've treated us this past year we were expecting them to go overboard with punishment and threats and didn't want to risk that bullshit yet, but management has taken the opposite approach and are now love-bombing us, LMAO.
Who knows how long it will last until they hire a union buster or something, and revert back to to making shit up to get us in trouble for, but since the news of a union drive is public they can't do anything flagrantly illegal without risk of the union we are working with hitting them with unfair labor practice charges, and since many of us have ongoing L&I claims, they can't retaliate without making it look like they are punishing us for being injured.
They are still in the dark about most of it, so we are sticking to our plan, but now we have the article to allow us to have conversations about the idea of a union with more people. It wasn't what we wanted, but it's going to work out. In the meantime we get the free pizza treatment.
long back story
This year we had a trans employee suddenly quit. They were competent and hard working, and a generally awesome human being, and their departure was a shock to everyone who worked with them. Turns out their department manager wrote some ignorant stuff about trans issues on social media and the employee wanted to talk it over with them, and HR basically told them to stop wasting everyone’s time. So they rightfully quit and stormed out the door.
They also weren't the first trans person suddenly quit. There have been problems with misgendering among staff, and it just seems older people have a hard time with it. Not always something egregious, but when it happens all the time it makes it a hostile place to work for trans people, and a lot of us are pissed off about it and the lack of appropriate response from HR and management.
There was also a recent local incident somewhere else that involved an older woman freaking out about a trans employee in a women’s only space. The lady was kicked out of the space, and so she raised a big stink and started a lawsuit about it.
All of that drew a response from the mayor defending the trans person, which in turn brought in attention from fascists nationwide who have been coming to town off and on to protest town meetings and such and there are now lawsuits targeting the mayor and a bunch of other bullshit, and that's been a whole fucking thing for the past year or so. A lot of this stuff made the local news. If you live near the area and follow the news for these issues, it might sound famliar.
The fascist clown show that’s been coming to town is why we've been unwilling to let all the transphobic bullshit slide anymore: it's very clearly become a staff safety issue. But any time people start bringing up the problem with HR, the response from management is either to roll their eyes and tell us to fuck off, or to make everyone watch a training video so we'll stop complaining.
So, after the trans employee quit a few other employees, who had a problem with how everything was handled, spoke at the next board meeting to bring it to attention. Several board members never heard about this before. The GM said confidentiality issues were the reason. The GM is supposed to do reports, but why would they include antything that makes them look bad when they don't have to? In their reports employees leaving abruptly over issues of transphone is dismissed as "typical spring turnover".
We had recently elected a board member who was responsive to these issues, and basically was one of the first board members to have concerns for how the staff are treated. So after this meeting where it was brought up, the board set up a committee to work on these issues, but the General Manager was clearly fuming or panicking behind the scenes. On of the things the GM did last year was to lower the annual cost of living adjustment for everyone while giving themselves $10k raise, so they obviously don't want any attention drawn to how they manage the store.
A couple months later a surprise board meeting was called and the board member who raised concerns bout staff treatment and oversight of the GM was kicked off the board. A board member sympathetic to the GM claimed that people, including a couple employees who spoke at the previous meeting, were coached by the board member who was kicked out. One of the workers who spoke about transphobia and the board member have worked together on political projects before, and I think this is where the idea that they were "being coached" came from.
The official reason stated for the removal was that our GM felt "threatened" by their behavior, but no specific details can be given because of “confidentiality issues”. 
Since that board member was member of protected class, and their removal a flagrant violation of our bylaws, a boycott has recently been started.
On top of that, when two new board members who started just recently, and who are BIPOC, they were basically asked by the current board if they still want to join, which is incredibly inappropriate. 
On top of all that drama, we have been having an extremely busy year at the store and management has been ordered to cut labor costs to the bone. We have been doing record sales, and they have been unwilling to entertain the idea of hiring more people to keep staffing levels appropriate. Some managers have been trying to convince upper management that this is crazy, with no luck. This has made an already not great safety situation worse, and has resulted in a lot of injuries and several L&I claims. It makes no sense to anyone. We don't have shareholders trying to squeeze us for profits, so wtf is going on? Well, we have an idea, but more on that later.
The response to all the injuries from management has been to post charts encouraging people to stretch. 
One of the workers who talked to the board when the transphobia was brought up is in a small department. It's been doing record numbers all year, and shortly after the board meeting they attended this worker started having their schedule fucked with and seemed to be targetted for harassment from management.
Then around the time of the surprise removal of the board member who actually gave a fuck about the employees, the whole small department was written up. Since the person who attended the meeting about transphobia had previously talked to HR about misgendering issues from their boss, I think they didn't want the heat of targeting them specifically, and so wrote up the whole department, because they've been making noises about staffing levels, safety issues, and mismanagement from their boss for a long time. The communications around resolving those issues was cited as "toxic" and that was the excuse given for the department being punished. No specific examples of this toxicity were given, of course.
The last several months have felt like a witchhunt to find exuses to fire the employee who talked to the board, and among other things has had their schedule fucked with as a form of harassment. Resulting in days where they, and others on the team, had 4hrs to do 8hrs of work. Bullshit like that.
I am pretty certain that the GM leaned on the store manager to have the employee who attending the board meeting targeted for harasment and removal. Something they are not allowed to do, but they clearly don’t give a fuck and will abuse their power as they please.
Not only was there misgendering and schedule fuckery, but also unsafe working conditions like the boss leaving knives in strange places, people almost being crushed by a pallet because the boss wasn't paying attention, food safety issues from the boss storing things incorrectly, letting an overwhelming amount of work pile up because the boss was fucking around on the computer instead of working, rotation issues caused by the boss, etc. So all of the complaints from employees who work under them has been clearly pissing them off and they've been steweing about it, so when they were given the green light to put everyone in their place, of course they have been enjoying fucking with everyone and throwing their weight around to make everything suck.
A couple members of that department have since been injured and are on light duty from trying to work under those conditions, and the department has been relying on poorly trained subs to keep it running for the past few months and its basically been going off the rails. It's hard to fire people who are on L&I claims, so everyone was kept on disciplinary action even after the injuries, because I guess they were hoping to fire them after they got off light duty.
But due to “rumors” and union talk, and a new HR hire realizing the obvious liability issues involved, they recently did a 180 and said basically “mulligan, forget it ever happened”. The team is no longer in trouble. LOL
So why has the general manager been acting like this? The board member who got kicked off also suggested that the board should have some actual oversight over the General Manager, and noticed a discrepancy in the financial report the GM had submitted to the board. Rumor has it that the GM wrongfully terminated a former HR person, the one person who knows labor laws, and the co-op just lost a lawsuit and had to pay out a six figure settlement. We would like to find a public record of the case, but if it was settled there may not be any public details.
We think they are paying for the lawsuit by under-staffing us while the store has been doing record numbers.
If it's not that, then something equally shady has occured, and the GM fucked our finances and is trying to cover their ass.
If we are profitable we get a certain percentage of those profits as a bonus, but they've floated hints there won't be one this year, and if we don't get one, or it's pathetically small, they are almost certainly going to blame the boycott, even though it's made a tiny dent in the finances of a record year. They've been throwing people on disciplinary action at a drop of the hat, and encourage people to spy on each other for that reason, and we think they plan to limit the bonus (if there is one) to a few favorites or people who aren't currently in trouble. Seems like a quarter of the store is either injured or on some kind of disciplinary action right now because of this nonsense. Amazingly, wildly irresponsible and corrupt behavior.
This is a heavily unionized town with a strong majority of democrat to far left demographic. If they add union busting to the list of egregious behavior along with racism and transphobia, they are cooked. There is now also pressure for them to drop Israeli products because of the genocide, so that's something else they have to deal with.
We are absolutely going to win this thing and inshallah we’ll take down the people responsible for all this shit. I am doing everything in my power to make them suffer for it.
If you live in a "single-party consent" state for surveillance RECORD EVERYTHING. Everyone carries their phones which is a portable recording device. Every meeting every discussion from your bosses every negotiation record record record. You'll need to look up your state's laws, there may be differences between different methods like one-party consent for audio, two-party consent for video and audio, etc. But having a record of the things your employers say and do is critical. If it is two party, always still seek to record. Always ask to record and make specific provable note of their refusal; like even get them in writing or on recording saying their name, the company, the date, and that "for X meeting about Y topic" they decline to allow the meeting to be recorded, because refusal to be on record is its own evidence. Any time there's some kind of malpractice or unfair labor act or dangerous condition, get and already have evidence, and get written statements from workers --- evidence evidence evidence (and organized evidence, stay organized with it). He-said-she-said will favor the bosses.
Also the clearer you can prove that they now know there is a union movement and are changing their behavior toward you because of it, you now do have some protections under labor law against union busting, though not as much obviously as after filing and winning a union election. Even when you're not unionized it's illegal to punish you for discussing it; but if they have plausible deniability that they didn't know there was a union drive when they fired A employee for B (other bad faith reason) then there's less ground for you to fight it with the NLRB. Even the change of behavior itself is something you should have a note of with the date, and maybe even coworker statements to back it up compared to previous conduct.
REMEMBER ALWAYS: LABOR LAW IS YOUR (flawed) SHIELD, BUT DIRECT ACTION IS YOUR SWORD. The bosses can afford the time and costs to deal with ULP litigation a whole lot more and more easily than a worker wrongly fired can deal with not being promptly rehired because they have no income then. An instant retailatory walk-out however, the bosses can afford much less. Being able to take direct action and just your bosses knowing you can is your strongest and most important tool. You can also help the friend who was fired draft up an ULP and file it so they only have to be involved in the litigation if they don't want to do the whole thing themselves.
DO NOT SIGN A CONTRACT WITH A NO STRIKE CLAUSE you give away your biggest and at the end of the day only leverage (well, legal leverage
) over your bosses. This is one of the many reasons I'm a fan of the IWW is that it is constitutionally forbidden to agree to a no-strike clause. So you can't be accused of bad-faith bargaining; literally your delegates and anyone above them who might be sent to help would have their membership revoked if they were to sign a no-strike clause so it is off-the-bat not on the table for the bosses to push (they will still try). Also be sure to develop an awareness of what labor actions are and aren't protected. Legal ones are obviously best option vs anything that isn't legal under labor law. Some illegal ones are murkier and harder for the bosses to even prove, like work slow-downs etc., whereas others like sabotage are very obvious and even criminal. I would never (publicly) advise doing the illegal ones. So you need to make yourself aware of where the lines are so you don't run afoul due to ignorance. And but also understand you're playing the same game as the bosses. It's technically illegal for them to do a lot of union busting, but they will continue to try to do a lot of it putting the onus on you to prove it; and they will do everything they can to try to skirt around such things as mere technicalities. It is class struggle. So just be aware of the game you're in.If you haven't already, with your main committee group formulate some graphical charts of everyone and where they stand in relation to the company and the union, make note of any politically-significant relationships with each other and the bosses (if someone is a boss' kid, someone went to highschool with the manager and they go out for beers, etc.). And of course get contact info from everyone and give them yours which sounds like you've already done. And if there are other branches or other companies they own; might be worth, even anonymously through detached channels (and not blowing up anyone's spot prematurely) let their workers catch wind of it.
Congratulations comrade. If I think of anything else from my experiences I'll comment again.
and yeah finding out what a "progressive company" becomes when it comes to its bottom line was a very formative political experience for me. Union focus is first, but this is also a great opportunity for wider revolutionary political education amongst coworkers who have never experienced this capitalist about-face.
Yeah, a wholesome progressive company. Rainbow flags everywhere. Cute character branding. And then they slash hours while we're doing record business and make people rush through moving tons of freight on icy floors and around puddles and wet floors from improperly calibrated cooling units, and then shake their heads and tsk-tsk us when injuries pile up. "Make sure to stretch!". I've worked shitty fast food places that were managed more humanely.
Hell yeah, Thank you!
We have been instructed to take notes about everything, and plan on doing that. I think our state requires consent for recording, so I'll suggest making sure we get their refusal to be recorded on record. I've been punished for following their verbal instructions, and then had them plead ignorance when I stood up for myself several times at this point. They have also shown a wreckless disregard for labor laws so we want to be prepared for shenanigans.
One of our first meetings was doing list work and mapping the store. Thanks to the employee who was recently fired we are pretty far ahead, and we are citing their firing as an example of why we need a union. We are encouraging them to file a ULP, but they are a bit burnt out from all this and they were planning on quitting before the union drive started. Only hung around to help out with that, so there might not be much motivation to take action. According to the organizers we are working with, they have 6 months to file, so we'll see. After how they've treated us I don't want to show them any grace and will never trust them to behave like a decent people again.
I don't think anyone involved or in my town browses this website
honestly someone probably does but the opsec culture here is fairly strong. I think there's like a tossup chance this is in my area but not much I can do either way besides say "good luck comrade"
It probably won't be long until we publically announce the union.
It's long overdue.
I've been reading news articles and researching other co-ops that unionized, and the complaints staff had are almost completely identical. Using their "locally owned, friendly co-op" marketing while the upper management abuses staff. All adopting the same worker hostile policies while upper management lines their pockets. They must be getting the same advice from the national grocery co-op or something. It's kind of depressing what a scam these places can turn out to be.
All of this literally identical to when my local co-op organized. But it unionized years ago.
Amazing. Do managers for these places all attend training on how to be abusive when they get hired?
In fact I do remember hearing that there is some sort of national grocer coop institution that trains managers. But that rumor was in context of how management centralizes control on them instead of the elected board. I'm sure they have some shitty hr training too though.
