Speaker 1: It's it's another union episode of VI could happen here
Speaker 1: in the podcast where we do a lot of things,
Speaker 1: but one of which is talking about unions, one of
Speaker 1: which is not doing great intros. It's me and Mia
Speaker 1: Wong and today I'm here to talk about a union
Speaker 1: and a strike and a bunch of other stuff. And
Speaker 1: with me to talk about this is Tyler Fellini, who
Speaker 1: is an organizer with Portland Childs with Justice and also
Speaker 1: a former New Seasons worker. And Alex Gage, who's an
Speaker 1: organizer in store rep for the New Season's labor union
Speaker 1: shop in our Berlage.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Both YouTube, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3: Yeah, thanks for having us, happy to be here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm glad, glad to talk with you too. So
Speaker 1: I guess before we get into the sort of current stuff,
Speaker 1: I wanted to talk a bit about how how the
Speaker 1: certain New Seasons union was formed and you know what
Speaker 1: that sort of process looked like and how it's been
Speaker 1: going since then.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I can speak to that.
Speaker 2: So, the initial unionizing efforts started at the store that
Speaker 2: I was working at, Seven Corners, and we actually the
Speaker 2: first conversation we had was April first, the same day
Speaker 2: that Amazon labor union went public and won their electional
Speaker 2: so it was like a really inspiring moment for us.
Speaker 2: That spurred a conversation on the shop floor with a
Speaker 2: couple coworkers, which quickly escalated to six of us meeting
Speaker 2: in a nearby coworkers backyard. We talked about the issues,
Speaker 2: and we were all hitting the same things, you know,
Speaker 2: Like we were all upset with the tenants policy, the
Speaker 2: way that New Seasons was treating us and had been
Speaker 2: treating us during COVID.
Speaker 4: We were also upset with our pay.
Speaker 2: Which is obstein and does not keep up with the
Speaker 2: cost of living in Portland, organ which is a very
Speaker 2: expensive city. So and we were also really upset with
Speaker 2: the healthcare that we have offered and how it's kind
Speaker 2: of deteriorated over the years, especially for New Seasons as
Speaker 2: a company that has a lot of people who've been
Speaker 2: there for years and so there were a lot of
Speaker 2: people who've seen just the downward decline. So those early
Speaker 2: meetings went really well. We talked to coworkers on the
Speaker 2: floor discreetly, and everybody was resonating with what we were saying.
Speaker 2: We made a lot of progress really fast, and then
Speaker 2: we had a meeting at a local bar here in
Speaker 2: Portland Workers Tap, which huge shout out of them. They
Speaker 2: are an amazing space for a lot of burgeoning independent
Speaker 2: unions to have some of their early meetings. So we
Speaker 2: met there with more members at our store, the Seven
Speaker 2: Corners location, and I think we had like thirty people there,
Speaker 2: which is a huge turnout for a first showing of
Speaker 2: a meeting.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And then from there we moved pretty fast to getting
Speaker 2: cards signed for showing of interest, and so in less
Speaker 2: than two months we were actually filing our petition with
Speaker 2: the NRB, which is unheard of.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's amazing, especially for a grocery store union. That
Speaker 1: is wild.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: As soon as we went public, workers at all these
Speaker 2: other stores reached out to us. Our Instagram blew up.
Speaker 2: People were excited but wanted to figure out how to
Speaker 2: do it at their store. So we were kind of
Speaker 2: simultaneously trying to balance the plates of like keeping our
Speaker 2: store going and also helping other stores go. And you know,
Speaker 2: by the end of the summer we rolled into we
Speaker 2: had our election, I want to say in September, and
Speaker 2: by the end of the summer there were multiple stores
Speaker 2: that had gone public and announced and here we are,
Speaker 2: you know, it's barely been a year since our first
Speaker 2: election win.
Speaker 4: It's barely been a year since.
Speaker 2: Then, and we have over nine hundred members, almost one
Speaker 2: thousand members in this very new union.
Speaker 1: That's incredible. That gets into another thing I'm interested about,
Speaker 1: which is Portland's the city that has been in the
Speaker 1: last I mean, I would say probably the last five years,
Speaker 1: but especially in like the last couple of years, it's
Speaker 1: been really really active in terms of in terms of
Speaker 1: union organizing, in terms of sort of especially especially independent unions,
Speaker 1: there's been an enormous number of them. The actual number
Speaker 1: of workers be organized is really high. And yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean you talked about having like having this bar as
Speaker 1: a sort of space you could do meetings. Has there
Speaker 1: been any other stuff, I mean from from other independent unions,
Speaker 1: from other I mean, just from the fact that there's
Speaker 1: so many like things happening that have like changed the
Speaker 1: dynamics of how these union organization thrives have been going.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so early on, you know, we were weighing our
Speaker 2: options as far as like did we want to join
Speaker 2: an existing union or go independent?
Speaker 4: Like what did we want to do there?
Speaker 2: And a lot of that information is hard to find
Speaker 2: if you don't know the language that you're looking for.
Speaker 4: It's not really accessible to the average worker.
Speaker 2: But we found a lot of solidarity in folks who
Speaker 2: had been involved in other independent union efforts. Specifically, we
Speaker 2: met with Mark and Luis at a burgerbelt workers union.
Speaker 2: They offered a top. Yeah, they're great. They were some
Speaker 2: of the early folks to reach out and help us.
Speaker 2: We were also able to talk to some of the
Speaker 2: folks at ILW Local five that represents pals workers and
Speaker 2: many others and get some support there.
Speaker 4: Portland is definitely.
Speaker 2: A labor town, uh, And the solidarity that we felt
Speaker 2: kind of across the board is great, you know, especially
Speaker 2: like early on when we had a lot of questions
Speaker 2: and we didn't have any answers and we didn't have
Speaker 2: many resources to you know, hire a lawyer and ask them.
Speaker 1: So I want I wanted to go back a little
Speaker 1: bit to talk about sort of the influence of the
Speaker 1: sort of influence of the news about the Amazon labor
Speaker 1: union going wide and how that sort of worked. Have
Speaker 1: you seen a sort of similar thing with other like
Speaker 1: not just sort of not not just New Seasons shops,
Speaker 1: but have you seen other shops that sort of like
Speaker 1: decided to start organizing after y'all came out.
Speaker 2: I think think that there is a general energy among
Speaker 2: the rank and file, right that some of the old
Speaker 2: ways that unions are organizing, we're not the most representative
Speaker 2: of the workers, which is in part you know, the eighties, right,
Speaker 2: and so kind of why we've seen sort of union
Speaker 2: representation stagnant. But we're seeing a major shift, right. We've
Speaker 2: got a lot of educated workers doing low wage jobs,
Speaker 2: which that condition existed in the nineteen thirties and led
Speaker 2: to a major explosion in militant unions. So I think
Speaker 2: there's a major parallel there. And it's not just Amazon
Speaker 2: labor unions. Also, you know the Starbucks Workers United, that
Speaker 2: campaign was huge, right, and those are workers who service workers,
Speaker 2: restaurant workers historically have been left out of labor or underrepresented,
Speaker 2: similar to healthcare workers and just care workers generally. And
Speaker 2: that I think is kind of the stereotype of like
Speaker 2: the working class as like a trad white guy in
Speaker 2: a factory, and we're seeing that severely upended right now,
Speaker 2: which is really exciting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but that's a that's a that's another dynamic I
Speaker 1: think is really is really interesting, particularly in Portland is
Speaker 1: that it seems to be a lot of independent unions.
Speaker 1: And it seems to be I think partially because even
Speaker 1: even in the midst of the fact that like very
Speaker 1: clearly people want to organize, there's been a lot of
Speaker 1: conservatism on the part of the sort of like larger
Speaker 1: distant unions. You don't really want to like throw an
Speaker 1: enormous amount of money into these organizing drives, which means,
Speaker 1: you know, if if this stuff is going to happen,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's the independent unions. And yeah, I don't know,
Speaker 1: like I I think I think your point about sort
Speaker 1: of I think your point about the sort of both
Speaker 1: both the highly educated workers thing and the way that
Speaker 1: you know, sort of what's constitutionally considered a worker and
Speaker 1: what unions are willing to sort of throw money at
Speaker 1: are tied together, because Yeah, I mean, you know, like
Speaker 1: the shops that you're working in, the shops are getting
Speaker 1: organized just aren't the kind of thing that anyone's been
Speaker 1: organizing for like ever. It's very at least not since
Speaker 1: like the eighties.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and I think it makes sense why they don't organize.
Speaker 3: It's freaking hard.
Speaker 5: It's a lot of work and there's a lot of turnover,
Speaker 5: and you don't see those same faces. That's why we
Speaker 5: can get from having our first meeting to filing for
Speaker 5: election in two months, because if it doesn't happen in
Speaker 5: two months, it's never going to happen.
Speaker 3: And we get it done, we get it done fast,
Speaker 3: and then.
Speaker 5: We see all these other like as a grocery store,
Speaker 5: we get DELIVERI it's from bigger union, you know, drivers
Speaker 5: and such. And we've seen what's happened with their campaigns
Speaker 5: where if they're not like totally invested, they can get
Speaker 5: decertified within a matter of weeks.
Speaker 3: But we haven't had any of that yet.
Speaker 1: Yeah, which is really impressive. And you know, that's another
Speaker 1: thing I'm interested and I've been asking a lot of
Speaker 1: people because turnover is one of the big things that's
Speaker 1: been sort of you know, it's it's been the wall
Speaker 1: that the existing units hit and we're like, this is
Speaker 1: too hard, We're going to go do something else. And
Speaker 1: I've been I'm wondering how y'all have been dealing with
Speaker 1: the turnover problem because it's i mean, it is definitely
Speaker 1: something that's difficult to deal with, but you know, it's
Speaker 1: it's it's not something that makes it impossible. It's just hard.
Speaker 1: And I'm yeah, I'm interested in what your sort of
Speaker 1: strategies to manage it have been.
Speaker 3: I think it's a matter of passion.
Speaker 5: I think Tyler is a great example, like is no
Speaker 5: longer a member, but sees this as like the way
Speaker 5: that we can move our society forward in general, Like
Speaker 5: the labor struggle is the struggle, Like there's no war
Speaker 5: black class war. If we don't do this, what are
Speaker 5: we doing here? So wait, we stick around and we're
Speaker 5: doing this for free. We're not getting paid for it.
Speaker 3: We're doing it because it's the right thing to do.
Speaker 2: When our lodge in Grant Park had their walkouts on
Speaker 2: Labor Day weekend, there was a customer at Grant Park
Speaker 2: who called out to us that, you know, we should
Speaker 2: just go open up our own workers co op. And
Speaker 2: my response to him was that, you know, if we leave,
Speaker 2: there's just another batch of workers that are going to
Speaker 2: go through these conditions. Like the goal is not that,
Speaker 2: Like I wanted to be great for me, like I
Speaker 2: don't even work in new Seasons anymore. I wanted to
Speaker 2: be great for my former co workers who are still there,
Speaker 2: and for the people that I don't know who are
Speaker 2: going to come behind them. And that's that's how you
Speaker 2: get around the high turnover. Pieces like the passion and
Speaker 2: dedication and the drive to make conditions better for the
Speaker 2: people coming after you, which is really antagonistic to the
Speaker 2: way capitalism wants us to be very individual like oriented, right,
Speaker 2: like we just care about ourselves and our day to day.
Speaker 2: But that's the really great thing with like the worker power,
Speaker 2: right is that you know, collectively we are so much stronger.
Speaker 2: Collectively we can actually stand up to the boss and win, right,
Speaker 2: And and that means just reorienting how we think about
Speaker 2: the world, right, Like, like this job sucks. How can
Speaker 2: I make this job better? I can just quit and
Speaker 2: go get a better job. But if I change this job,
Speaker 2: then the people who are still here also get better
Speaker 2: working conditions.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think that there's kind of there's a
Speaker 1: there's a kind of flip side of that too, right,
Speaker 1: which is that you know, even if you like, you know,
Speaker 1: like turnover just is inevitable to some extent, even even
Speaker 1: if you have people who like want to stay and fight,
Speaker 1: right like, people are just going to have to leave.
Speaker 1: But on the other hand, you know, if you're if
Speaker 1: you're if you're in a unionized workplace, and if you're
Speaker 1: pecifically if you're if you're if you're in a union
Speaker 1: that has the sort of militant culture, what you're doing
Speaker 1: is you're you know, you're changing the actual like class itself,
Speaker 1: right because you know, like now now you're a worker
Speaker 1: who like you know, I don't know, is moving to
Speaker 1: Arizona or something. Right, they are, they are. They are
Speaker 1: now also much more militant and have have this sort
Speaker 1: of experience of organizing that they may that they may
Speaker 1: not have had before. And this, you know, it's like
Speaker 1: you're the any any any individual movement you're doing in
Speaker 1: one place is building up the entire class.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and we can see that we've like been attracting
Speaker 5: people who are interested and becoming involved in a movement.
Speaker 5: And you know, whether they just graduated from college or
Speaker 5: they had some sort of distant relative who was in
Speaker 5: a union, they come to new seasons thinking, oh, I
Speaker 5: want to get.
Speaker 3: In on the beginning of this.
Speaker 5: And we've seen like a big push of that recently,
Speaker 5: and people who leave they want to go, you know,
Speaker 5: organize their next workplace. You know, regardless if they were
Speaker 5: fired or whatever. They they want to keep it going.
Speaker 4: So and I think to build on that too.
Speaker 2: You know, salting is a practice that traditional unions typically
Speaker 2: do to kind of change a workforce. And when you salt,
Speaker 2: usually you're paid by the union to go in there.
Speaker 2: And so you're getting paid by the employer to be
Speaker 2: there and the union is paying you to organize. But
Speaker 2: we've seen a shift now where people are voluntarily salting. Right,
Speaker 2: people come like out that they get a job. They
Speaker 2: don't need the money motivator. They just want to function
Speaker 2: up right, They want to change things and like be
Speaker 2: antagonistic towards the boss. And I think to me to
Speaker 2: go back to an earlier thing you asked about, like
Speaker 2: kind of like why Portland, right, Like, I think one
Speaker 2: thing about Portland is people in Portland love a protest, right, Like,
Speaker 2: we don't need much of a motivation to go through.
Speaker 4: Some rocks at popped, right. That's kind of in the
Speaker 4: culture of Portland.
Speaker 2: And so there is this this orientation towards struggle that
Speaker 2: does exist. And right now, that energy, you know, we
Speaker 2: went through the George Floyd uprising and a lot of
Speaker 2: energy has been funneled into labor and it's been new
Speaker 2: voices in labor. It's not the same like you know,
Speaker 2: ten people now kind of talking. It's all of this
Speaker 2: new energy. And for the most part, most of Portland
Speaker 2: labor is being very accommodating and making room for those
Speaker 2: people to get in there and be heard because folks
Speaker 2: recognize that they're on their way out right, you know,
Speaker 2: Folks in their fifties or sixties, like they're towards retirement, right,
Speaker 2: And so it's as younger folks coming in that are
Speaker 2: going to change it, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think there's an interesting dynamic with this too,
Speaker 1: which is that, you know, okay, one of the one
Speaker 1: of the sort of conditions of the last sort of
Speaker 1: like forty fifty years of capitalism, Like is is this
Speaker 1: sort of high total turnover rates? And also is this
Speaker 1: you know, is this thing where you are, like you
Speaker 1: as an individual worker are shifting jobs really really quickly,
Speaker 1: and that you know, that's in some sense an issue.
Speaker 1: But that also means that like I don't know, like
Speaker 1: if if you have a bunch of people who you know,
Speaker 1: spent like spent one hundred days fighting the Feds and
Speaker 1: you know still still may like have have developed just
Speaker 1: like the sort of miilited hatred of the cops. And
Speaker 1: you know, I've developed sort of and into capitalist politics. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you get more of the sort of salt stuff you're
Speaker 1: talking about, because like you know, SCRIWT, Like, you know,
Speaker 1: if you're gonna be working like a ship job anyways,
Speaker 1: you might as well like go work one where you're
Speaker 1: saulting and starting a union, because there's not actually like
Speaker 1: I don't know, it's not it's not it's not like
Speaker 1: you're like getting career advancement in the service job, right,
Speaker 1: And yeah, I mean that seems to be driving like
Speaker 1: at least some of the sort of of how this
Speaker 1: kind of like how the independent United Union organizing in
Speaker 1: Portland's been moving.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I think I'd also like to point out though that
Speaker 5: like a lot of people for our union, specifically, New
Speaker 5: Seasons has always been like the progressive business and it's
Speaker 5: always had a reputation of like being a great place
Speaker 5: to work.
Speaker 3: They're really inclusive or whatever.
Speaker 5: So that's what attracts like a certain crowd of people.
Speaker 5: And when they get there and they realize that, like
Speaker 5: they're getting screwed over, just like any other place that
Speaker 5: they've ever been at that like fosters this new feeling
Speaker 5: of like, well, I'm vulnerable no matter what I do,
Speaker 5: Like there's no where I can turn to trust my employer,
Speaker 5: and how do I preserve what little.
Speaker 3: Dignity that I do have at this workplace?
Speaker 5: Because generally speaking, like our jobs are pretty okay minus
Speaker 5: like the corporate business side of things, Like most people
Speaker 5: enjoy going to work, maybe, but.
Speaker 3: They they want to enjoy going to work.
Speaker 5: So having that like kind of double edged sword has
Speaker 5: been a catalyst for us.
Speaker 4: Just built on what Alex said too.
Speaker 2: I think it's really interesting that a lot of the
Speaker 2: surge in new like independent union stuff has been you know,
Speaker 2: new seasoned Starbucks to a degree, ARII creator Joe's all
Speaker 2: these places, these progressive workplaces, right, And what's happened is
Speaker 2: that so often we've had interactions with customers where they go, wow,
Speaker 2: I assumed that the prices were so high because your
Speaker 2: wages were high, And really, dude, most of us can't
Speaker 2: afford to live in the city, right, most of us
Speaker 2: are using yeah, and it's just not it's not true, right,
Speaker 2: And so you know it's workers who get jobs at
Speaker 2: these progressive places that drank the similar social kool aid
Speaker 2: that the customer's drink of assuming that these businesses have
Speaker 2: good business practices and what's happening is that they're just
Speaker 2: getting greedy. Right, This is the case everywhere. It just
Speaker 2: hits a little bit different when your employer pretends your
Speaker 2: friends and then stabs you in the back.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Not all workplaces have this kind of like oh,
Speaker 1: we're like progressive sort of vibes thing. But I feel
Speaker 1: like businesses that have that reputation are also more just
Speaker 1: more vulnerable. It's not just that like their workers like
Speaker 1: realize how ypocritical it is. It means that they're It
Speaker 1: means that they're more vulnerable to sort of like damage
Speaker 1: to their reputation when people find out that, like oh
Speaker 1: my god, hold time, you're making how much money? Like yeah,
Speaker 1: and I think, yeah, I don't know, I'm interested, like
Speaker 1: how how effective has that been for you? Sort of
Speaker 1: like leveraging that.
Speaker 2: I think it's been really effective, I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: and not just does. I think a really good example
Speaker 2: of exactly what we're talking about, right, is the shareholders
Speaker 2: of Starbucks are holding Howard Schultz accountable because he is
Speaker 2: wrecking that company. Right, and so with new seasons what
Speaker 2: it means is that they play a very sneaky game.
Speaker 2: They fight us in the back room. They make sure
Speaker 2: it's not public facing. Anything we can do to attack
Speaker 2: their public image, like it hurts. I will say too
Speaker 2: that you know, we're kind of standing on the shoulders
Speaker 2: of Burgerville Workers Union here where Burgerville was built on
Speaker 2: this reputation of like local friendly, like we're the alternative
Speaker 2: to like corporate fast food, and they had security guards
Speaker 2: and strike busters literally fighting with picketers in the past
Speaker 2: and it tanked the reputation. And so New Seasons management
Speaker 2: has clearly looked at what Burgerville management did and been like,
Speaker 2: we're not going to do that. It doesn't stop them
Speaker 2: from being phitty. They're just they're more polite when they're
Speaker 2: streitty to us. They're still just as shitty. They're just
Speaker 2: they smile while they stab us in the back.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So on the subject just of stabbing us in
Speaker 1: the back. So there's been a bunch of stuff going
Speaker 1: on recently. I was wondering if you could talk about
Speaker 1: like the I don't know, the recent unrest. Question Mark
Speaker 1: need to figure out a better way to phrase this, but.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, so, yeah, we've been building up we have,
Speaker 5: I mean since day one of bargaining, which started back
Speaker 5: in like December or January.
Speaker 4: It started in January.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so we we've known that eventually it's going to
Speaker 5: get to a point where we're going to need to.
Speaker 3: Show some force.
Speaker 5: So, you know, we go in there with good faith,
Speaker 5: and little by little we find out that the smallest
Speaker 5: ask is going to be impossible, and we find out
Speaker 5: that they're going to do whatever they can get away
Speaker 5: with every time they can. So they started with I mean,
Speaker 5: they did all kinds of things, but the one catalyst
Speaker 5: is they changed the attendance policy for non union workers
Speaker 5: and non union stores to make it more lenient, which
Speaker 5: was one of the issues that we campaigned on was
Speaker 5: the attendance policy because it's ridiculous and people get fired
Speaker 5: all the time. So we demanded the bargain. They didn't
Speaker 5: have a response.
Speaker 3: We brought it up in bargaining at the bargaining table.
Speaker 5: They said that they would work on something that we
Speaker 5: could implement before we ratify the contract.
Speaker 3: But they had to put it through their DEI lens
Speaker 3: and they had to Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and you know all the things that say to
Speaker 5: delay it and kick the can down the road. So
Speaker 5: we're Dylan good faith saying like, okay, you know, go ahead.
Speaker 3: So then we did.
Speaker 5: A petition where all the stores individually had people sign
Speaker 5: a petition. We got hundreds of signatures, and then we
Speaker 5: did a march on the boss asking them to sign
Speaker 5: this MoU that a memorandum of understanding saying you will
Speaker 5: give us that same policy. We filed a ULP saying
Speaker 5: like this is illegal, it's obvious discrimination, and then they
Speaker 5: just kept saying, Okay, we're working on it, We're working
Speaker 5: on it, We're working on it.
Speaker 3: So they never did.
Speaker 5: Then we did a rally and we showed up at
Speaker 5: the headquarters with I don't know, probably two hundred of
Speaker 5: us Hell yeah, and marched up to the office and
Speaker 5: chanted and made a scene.
Speaker 3: And told them they have one more.
Speaker 5: Chance to sign the m OU. They didn't sign it.
Speaker 5: So then we organized the strikes at the two stores and.
Speaker 3: Gave them one more chance to sign the MoU. They
Speaker 3: didn't sign it. We already knew they weren't going to.
Speaker 5: So yeah, we shut down those stores for the rest
Speaker 5: of the day at Grant Park and for one hour
Speaker 5: at ourbor Lodge, and it was powerful.
Speaker 3: We had a lot of support a lot of people
Speaker 3: showed up.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and to build on that too.
Speaker 2: You know, there's things coming up that we can't talk
Speaker 2: about yet, but I would say that, Alex, do you
Speaker 2: want to talk about the practice picketing?
Speaker 4: I feel like we could talk about that.
Speaker 5: Okay, so we actually can talk about We just filed
Speaker 5: the ULP, yeah, last night for bad faith bargaining.
Speaker 1: Yeahs an unfair labor practice.
Speaker 3: Yes, thank you. I get caught up in the jargon.
Speaker 3: So we just.
Speaker 5: Filed that last night for bad faith bargaining yep, because
Speaker 5: they gave us the most ridiculous policy for attendance. It's
Speaker 5: basically regressive bargaining, which is totally unfair.
Speaker 1: Yeah, do you want to explain what that is?
Speaker 2: Basically, the NLRB the National Labor Relations Board. They oversee
Speaker 2: unions and the relationship between unions and employers. They demand
Speaker 2: that both sides come in good faith, basically like, don't
Speaker 2: screw around, don't waste each other's time. The goal is
Speaker 2: to move towards some sort of compromise and an agreement.
Speaker 2: And regressive bargaining is when you backpedal and you offer
Speaker 2: something that is worse than what was offered. The attendance
Speaker 2: policy is in my opinion, definitely worse. It is no better.
Speaker 2: I think Frank takes the shittiest things of the past
Speaker 2: two policies and put them together. So it seems pretty
Speaker 2: clear to us that it's regressive. And then we can
Speaker 2: argue that New Seasons is not acting in good faith.
Speaker 2: They are acting in bad faith, which is illegal according
Speaker 2: to the NRB. And so what we are allowed to
Speaker 2: do is file an unfair labor practice, which basically, you know,
Speaker 2: it doesn't hold a lot of weight materially, however, symbolically
Speaker 2: it looks really bad. And so again going back to
Speaker 2: like Mia what you were saying about kind of like
Speaker 2: their image, right, Like these kind of progressive corporations, they
Speaker 2: don't want to look like the bastards they are, And
Speaker 2: a UOP makes it pretty clear, Hey, this person's being
Speaker 2: a jerk, this company is being a jerk. So the
Speaker 2: more ulps that we get file that, like we win
Speaker 2: on the bigger case, we can paint that New Seasons
Speaker 2: is actually being really unfair to us.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so then based on that, we're getting strike ready.
Speaker 5: We're making sure everybody can show up and be ready
Speaker 5: to assert our stance. We're not going to just lay
Speaker 5: back and let them take over. So we're going to
Speaker 5: do some practice pickets. Oh and I'm sure even hearing
Speaker 5: that a lot, which is great for I mean, and
Speaker 5: if you want to bring it back to like the
Speaker 5: higher turnover rate and like, you know, the general apathy
Speaker 5: that you see in any union. People are just kind
Speaker 5: of afraid to be active. So we're looking at practice
Speaker 5: pickets as a way to get people.
Speaker 3: Involved in a really low risk activity.
Speaker 1: Can you explain how that works?
Speaker 5: Yeah, So what we're going to do is each store
Speaker 5: will do a picket, but that picket will not be
Speaker 5: a strike.
Speaker 3: That picket will not.
Speaker 5: Encourage shoppers to leave or discourage shopping in any way.
Speaker 3: We're not calling for a boycott.
Speaker 5: We're just simply doing logistically, what does it look like
Speaker 5: if we do a picket at each store in the
Speaker 5: most peaceful way possible, and then we do that at
Speaker 5: every store and we kind of gauge, like, you know,
Speaker 5: how ready are we.
Speaker 4: And by doing that too, it's a show of force
Speaker 4: to the company.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, we're not doing anything illegal.
Speaker 2: It's effectively an informational picket. So legally, there's nothing that
Speaker 2: New Seasons can do to any of the workers who
Speaker 2: participate in it. However, they will absolutely see that we
Speaker 2: are prepared to do it. The team Staris recently did
Speaker 2: this for ups. A lot of teachers unions have done
Speaker 2: similar things. It's a really good show of force to
Speaker 2: kind of leverage your people power and show the management
Speaker 2: that you're ready.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it has another It has another effect too,
Speaker 1: which is something that you know, the kind of basic
Speaker 1: cultural understanding of you know, what unions are, how they function,
Speaker 1: what you need to be doing any given scenario, like
Speaker 1: me just physically, how to like do pickets, what you
Speaker 1: logistically need to do. That stuff has all sort of
Speaker 1: faded from like the height of union sort of culture
Speaker 1: in like the sixties and seventies, And that's something that
Speaker 1: you have to rebuild because you know, and and and
Speaker 1: then and this is this is something that's both both
Speaker 1: in terms of the people in the union. That sort
Speaker 1: of knowledge is tuitional knowledge has to be rebuilt, and
Speaker 1: it also has to be rebuilt in the public because
Speaker 1: people sort of just don't you know, like you support
Speaker 1: for unions is really high, uh, but people don't understand
Speaker 1: exactly what like you know, people people don't understand exactly
Speaker 1: what a union is doing any given time or like
Speaker 1: how it functions and things like that, and you know,
Speaker 1: then this is this seems like a really good way
Speaker 1: to like, you know, like, hey, this is a picket.
Speaker 1: This is what happens when there's a picket. This is
Speaker 1: an informational picket. We're gonna give you information. And yes,
Speaker 1: it seems like a good thing for building up that
Speaker 1: kind of true on both ends.
Speaker 2: And it's a really good opportunity to talk to customers,
Speaker 2: get them involved. That's the thing that's that you know
Speaker 2: New Season's kind of tagline as the friendliest store in town,
Speaker 2: and the way that they built that, Yeah, the way that
Speaker 2: they built that reputation though, was by really encouraging workers
Speaker 2: to develop deep relationships with customers. And so we're using
Speaker 2: that to leverage against the company now and saying like hey,
Speaker 2: like you.
Speaker 4: Know you like me, like you know me by name
Speaker 4: and I know you by name. You don't know the
Speaker 4: CEO by name, Like let's talk.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about like what we're asking for and what
Speaker 2: you as a customer can do to support us in
Speaker 2: a way that doesn't feel antagonistic, right like like when
Speaker 2: we had the when we had the walkouts on Labor Day, weekend.
Speaker 4: You know, we did a debrief and.
Speaker 2: We're kind of like, how do we, like, how do
Speaker 2: we engage with people where we can hold onto our
Speaker 2: values and still feel like we're being effective. And Randy,
Speaker 2: a worker at our lodge, his solution, instead of calling
Speaker 2: people who cross the picket line scabs and like you know,
Speaker 2: harassing them that way, you know, he was like, I
Speaker 2: just said, like, hey, I'm disappointed in you, and I
Speaker 2: think that like, like, yeah, like let's just like we're
Speaker 2: gonna just like if you're going to cross the picket line,
Speaker 2: I don't need to hurl insults at you. I'm just
Speaker 2: gonna guilt trip you and let you know that like
Speaker 2: I'm disappointed in you, and like you will feel bad
Speaker 2: as you're shopping. And I think that like that's sort
Speaker 2: of how we can align the progressive values that attracted
Speaker 2: people to New Seasons to work there in the first
Speaker 2: place with how we do actions while still being militant, right,
Speaker 2: we don't.
Speaker 4: Want to be soft. We just got to make sure
Speaker 4: that like it vibes with what we're about, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And and that's that's another you know, I think
Speaker 1: this this also gets back to the sort of culture
Speaker 1: part of it, which is like, yeah, like rebuilding the
Speaker 1: standard of do not cross a picket line is a
Speaker 1: thing that has to be done because that's again that's
Speaker 1: another thing that has sort of faded. And yeah, like
Speaker 1: guilt tripping people is a good way to do it,
Speaker 1: because yeah, you know, like sort of especially especially sort
Speaker 1: of like middle and upper middle class progressive people like
Speaker 1: really really there are a lot of their politics about
Speaker 1: wanting to feel good about themselves and you.
Speaker 6: Know, make they can see Yeah, I think if they
Speaker 6: can see themselves in us too, they will relate and
Speaker 6: they they won't want to.
Speaker 3: Go against their own values, which is our.
Speaker 5: Values, because that's the culture of Portland generally speaking.
Speaker 1: Did you have anything else that you want to make
Speaker 1: sure to get in before we wrap up.
Speaker 5: Yeah, we would love to push our gofund me that
Speaker 5: can be found at our website, which is really hard
Speaker 5: to find is but yeah, you have to type it in,
Speaker 5: you can't just google it.
Speaker 1: Okay, Well we'll put it. We'll just we'll just put
Speaker 1: a link to it in the okay, Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, if anybody you know, we're out here being
Speaker 5: independent union.
Speaker 3: We have no money.
Speaker 5: We're just looking for maybe some sort of strike fund
Speaker 5: for those in need when we are strike ready, and
Speaker 5: also you know, materials whatever people can donate, it would
Speaker 5: be amazing.
Speaker 2: Final notes I would say too, is that you know
Speaker 2: when we started this, I mean, we're an independent union
Speaker 2: of grocery workers, right.
Speaker 4: We did all of this in our volunteer time.
Speaker 2: None of us are lawyers, none of a lot of
Speaker 2: us had never been in a union before or had
Speaker 2: very limited experience. We build this all from the ground
Speaker 2: up with tons of volunteer hours of our own time
Speaker 2: after work. And we have gone toe to toe with
Speaker 2: Ogle Tree Deacons, who is one of the largest anti
Speaker 2: union law firms in the country. That's who New Seasons
Speaker 2: has retained. We've gone toe to toe with them. We
Speaker 2: have a lawyer now who is really graciously kind of
Speaker 2: letting us write her.
Speaker 4: In IOU for the time being.
Speaker 2: But even before her we were still able to hold
Speaker 2: her own against a major anti union law firm.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 2: There is power in workers coming together collectively. It's not
Speaker 2: as easy as it should be to find that information,
Speaker 2: but it is out there and there are people who
Speaker 2: want to share it. And I would say that, like
Speaker 2: for me, the labor movement has been a really empowering
Speaker 2: place to come into. You know, I have a lot
Speaker 2: of experience with sort of like leftists, like street activism,
Speaker 2: but I think that for anybody who wants to be
Speaker 2: involved in the struggle and is also like looking for
Speaker 2: ways to make.
Speaker 1: In rids and develop community like.
Speaker 2: Labors where it's at right, I mean, we all work
Speaker 2: and to a degree, we all hit our jobs and
Speaker 2: have something to complain about, and like that's a commonality
Speaker 2: that stretches across the aisle and allows for a lot
Speaker 2: of solidarity in a way that the culture war really
Speaker 2: doesn't want and really, like you know, it's by design, right,
Speaker 2: the capitalists want us fighting against each other, and the
Speaker 2: labor movement is a way for the working class to
Speaker 2: unite because it's about class war.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, here here, yeah, and you know this this should
Speaker 1: go without saying. I'm going to say it anyways, you also,
Speaker 1: listener at home can do this too. There is you know,
Speaker 1: there there is nothing sort of magical or special about
Speaker 1: the people who do union organizing other than the fact
Speaker 1: that they decide to organize a union. So you can
Speaker 1: do this too. You can form an independent union and yeah,
Speaker 1: you can go hand your bosses a fucking ass and
Speaker 1: get better, you know, get better working conditions and get
Speaker 1: better things for you and your entire class in the process.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would say Labor Notes is a great resource
Speaker 2: for early information. The Coalition of Independent Unions is on
Speaker 2: Instagram and workers from around the country have reached out
Speaker 2: to them for advice. You know, we're on Instagram. You
Speaker 2: can ask us questions. Reach out to independent unions and
Speaker 2: ask them questions. This is a labor movement made up
Speaker 2: of the workers for the workers. We want more workers
Speaker 2: to organize.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think on that note, Yeah, this is
Speaker 1: this is been naked happen here, Go into the world
Speaker 1: and fight.
Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you, thank you so much.
Speaker 2: Maya.
Speaker 3: It could Happen here as a production of cool Zone Media.
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Speaker 3: You can find sources for It could Happen Here, updated
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Speaker 5: Thanks for listening.