Speaker 1: Also media, Welcome to ikadath here a podcast re union.
Speaker 2: Good and not everything that is called co op is good.
Speaker 2: Sometimes they're not actually really co ops. I am your host,
Speaker 2: Mia Long, and today we are joined by the people
Speaker 2: struggling under the tyrannical fist of a co op, a
Speaker 2: thing that shouldn't be possible and yet somehow. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: so we are. We're talking today with Es and Finley,
Speaker 2: who are booksellers at the Seminary co Op in Chicago.
Speaker 2: And yeah, we are welcoming the union back to the show.
Speaker 2: And dear God, what a disaster.
Speaker 3: What a year at a spen.
Speaker 4: Well, it's really great to be found. I wish we
Speaker 4: were back with slightly better news or yeah, since we
Speaker 4: were last here. Certainly, yeah, because when we last spoke,
Speaker 4: we had just sort of theatrically announced to art management
Speaker 4: that we were in an organized shop with the IWW
Speaker 4: and we were going to be bargaining with them for
Speaker 4: better wages and humane working conditions for us all. And
Speaker 4: they were like, yeah, you're a union, we so recognize that,
Speaker 4: and then they have sat on their hands ever since.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So let's roll back all the way to the
Speaker 2: beginning and explain a little bit about what the Seminary
Speaker 2: co Op is for people who weren't here. How many
Speaker 2: years ago.
Speaker 3: Was that though, that must have been last year. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: it was a while ago. I don't go yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4: So the Seminary ca Op is a set of two
Speaker 4: bookstores in Hyde Park, the Seminary co Op Bookstore, which
Speaker 4: is a misnomer on two out of free counts. It's
Speaker 4: not a seminary anym it's not a co op anymore.
Speaker 4: It is still a bookstore, although it is not for
Speaker 4: profit bookstore, which is a mysterious category of business that
Speaker 4: doesn't exist anywhere else.
Speaker 2: Baffling.
Speaker 5: Yeah, briefly, just to enerject, I do think when I
Speaker 5: would announce events and sort of give this exact breakdown
Speaker 5: for audiences, like I said, not for profit bookstore whose
Speaker 5: mission is book selling, right, And when I was hired
Speaker 5: of like about three months before we announced we were unionizing,
Speaker 5: the way it was put to me was other not
Speaker 5: for profit bookstores they do a lot with like family
Speaker 5: literacy or like specifically around women's issues.
Speaker 3: But that was just.
Speaker 5: Like an acknowledgement of the reality that bookstores don't make
Speaker 5: a whole lot of money and what we are providing
Speaker 5: is a not for profit bookstore is just the browsing experience.
Speaker 5: We kept books on shelves for too long. It just
Speaker 5: it seemed like a like a really romantic idea.
Speaker 3: Of book selling that didn't have like a whole lot
Speaker 3: of legs underneath it, so to speak. Yeah, so it
Speaker 3: is nonsense, I would say, but that's me.
Speaker 2: It's just a library, like we have this, it's called librarries.
Speaker 3: Say they're a really big bookstore. I don't know.
Speaker 6: It was vague, yeah, baffling, baffling, yes, yeah, And then
Speaker 6: I guess I guess the second part of it is
Speaker 6: like when they say it's a co op, what does
Speaker 6: that mean?
Speaker 4: It means truly and as conspeech is more that it
Speaker 4: was founded by Chicago Theological Seminary students, and there was
Speaker 4: a reason for that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, like they did want to buy horse books at
Speaker 5: the at the prices that retailers got them wholesale, And
Speaker 5: so the thought was, I forget their names, but we
Speaker 5: have the pictures of them.
Speaker 3: It was like a Cavanaugh or something. But these two
Speaker 3: guys just you.
Speaker 5: Know, if you were a student at Chicago Theological Seminary,
Speaker 5: we're even like a student at one of the other
Speaker 5: divinity seminaries nearby.
Speaker 3: You just put an amount of money and you.
Speaker 5: Were part of like you got your course book cheaper,
Speaker 5: you know, and under like a specific manager who came
Speaker 5: like a couple decades after that, Like then it really
Speaker 5: became like this is the neighborhood bookstore. This is part
Speaker 5: of like as they say, like the intellectual sort of
Speaker 5: cultural life of the university. But yeah, at one point
Speaker 5: it was a cooperative because like you were a member
Speaker 5: and you got your course books cheaper because you you know,
Speaker 5: had a certain amount of shares in the books.
Speaker 3: But yeah, it was a think smarter not harder kind
Speaker 3: of scheme.
Speaker 4: And then when they dissolved the like ownership shares and
Speaker 4: stopped being a co op. That was twenty nineteen when
Speaker 4: they organized as this not for profit. It's not a
Speaker 4: five oh one C three, they don't have nonprofit status.
Speaker 4: It's this slightly different thing. And so one of the
Speaker 4: one things that has happened in the past year is
Speaker 4: we had an interim director who got us like basically
Speaker 4: a nonprofit sponsor who lends its five oh one C
Speaker 4: three status to other organizations and allows you to take
Speaker 4: text deductible donations, but like, up to that point, we
Speaker 4: couldn't do that because we were not a legitimate nonprofit.
Speaker 3: We were this other thing.
Speaker 7: Yeah, So since twenty nineteen it's been that, and then
Speaker 7: since twenty twenty four, it's been that plus Chicago's standalone
Speaker 7: unionized bookstore.
Speaker 3: For now, we're hoping that others follow in Chilah. They will, Yes.
Speaker 2: I feel like it is not a great sign of
Speaker 2: your business being a well run when you are doing
Speaker 2: a thing that like rookie activist campaigns do when they're like,
Speaker 2: oh shit, we got a bunch of money, we need
Speaker 2: to borrow someone else's five O one.
Speaker 8: Three status, Like yeah, great, great.
Speaker 2: Job management, like but incredible stuff.
Speaker 5: And like, for me, part of what's been so like
Speaker 5: just mying boggling is like the not for profit bookstore
Speaker 5: who's mission is book selling, does sort of give this,
Speaker 5: you know, if we're like a five oh one C
Speaker 5: three who often does it. They don't turn a profit
Speaker 5: or what they do, they reinvest it back into the
Speaker 5: operations they're doing. But like, and we can talk more
Speaker 5: about this as we get into like the bargaining, but like,
Speaker 5: store financials have been so obscured and I hate from
Speaker 5: like truly, truly hate from a linguistic standpoint, just sort
Speaker 5: of this subtle like, oh, we must not be doing well,
Speaker 5: because to me that feels like the rhetoric that really
Speaker 5: justifies the pack that I'm paid sixteen ninety an hour
Speaker 5: and I have a Master's of Divinity from the Seminary
Speaker 5: of the Seminary co Op.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, and it's and I think it's also worth noting that,
Speaker 2: like even from the perspective of capital, like all of
Speaker 2: the giant tech companies didn't make money for like decades,
Speaker 2: and all those motherfuckers were walking off with like one
Speaker 2: hundred billion dollar payouts, you know, like they only ever
Speaker 2: started making money when they started like reeling in a
Speaker 2: bunch of government contracts for like web services and like
Speaker 2: defense contracts and shit. And it's like, I don't know,
Speaker 2: like this is this is I guess on topic, but
Speaker 2: it's just something that makes you really mad where people
Speaker 2: talk about like running the government like a business and
Speaker 2: then like, you know, you get like the post office
Speaker 2: where it's like, oh, the post Office doesn't run a profit.
Speaker 2: It's like, you know, doesn't what a fucking profit. Uber
Speaker 2: literally has never brought a profit ever, not once yes,
Speaker 2: now once right, Like it's like no, like like I'm sorry, welcome,
Speaker 2: welcome to Welcome to twenty twenty five capitalism, Like companies
Speaker 2: don't make profits. They either get contact from the government
Speaker 2: or their entire existence is either conning some venture capitalists
Speaker 2: dipshits out of all of their money. Or it's like
Speaker 2: Peter theal has decided that your like surveillance camera company
Speaker 2: is ideologically important to him taking over the world, so
Speaker 2: he's going to give you one billion dollars and it's like,
Speaker 2: oh no, I'm sorry, Like our financials aren't good enough
Speaker 2: for you to pay you. It's like, motherfucker, Like have
Speaker 2: you seen the rest of capitalism, like eat shit, pay.
Speaker 3: Your workers, Like yeah, oh yeah, God damn well.
Speaker 4: We keep using that one meme over and over and
Speaker 4: then it is true, like we're trying to balance the budget.
Speaker 3: It's the true. The candles drill, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4: Because our management is so infuriating. And they also in
Speaker 4: the year since we've been bargaining having an interim director
Speaker 4: and spent most of his tenure searching for an executive
Speaker 4: director to take over. That person is being paid one
Speaker 4: hundred and sixty thousand dollars a year to our knowledge
Speaker 4: Jesus Christ. And that's the offer that we know of.
Speaker 4: We have yet to get his contract even though we
Speaker 4: did make a formal information request for it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, which is fucked. And it's also like yeah, like
Speaker 2: every time these companies are like, oh, we don't have money,
Speaker 2: and it's like, okay, I can find like an unbelievable
Speaker 2: amount of money that you have given to someone to
Speaker 2: like to give a random, non specific example that has
Speaker 2: nothing to do with with with any company that is
Speaker 2: in any way related to this show Live or Dead
Speaker 2: by a bored ape yacht club edft.
Speaker 5: Like this is like they spend three hundred dollars on
Speaker 5: Google home speakers for fifty seventh Street books and I'm like, wow,
Speaker 5: my having that three hundred dollars would change my life.
Speaker 5: But also like you're paying that union busting lawyer thousands
Speaker 5: of dollars that you could be paid reverse yep, but
Speaker 5: that's that's capitalism.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they have enough money to make your lives miserable,
Speaker 2: but they apparently never have enough money to you know,
Speaker 2: like bake your lives not miserable because they have to
Speaker 2: spend that money on making your lives miserable.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and it's so intentional because making us miserable means
Speaker 4: that they are wearing down the number of people that
Speaker 4: they have to deal with and making the people who
Speaker 4: are left so tired and so frustrated and so much
Speaker 4: less capable of fighting them.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and that feels like just you know, fens leaving.
Speaker 5: We've also had a number of folks, like our bargaining
Speaker 5: unit that the last time y'all spoke last year was
Speaker 5: like twenty five people. Now we're down to eleven, and
Speaker 5: they've refused to hire anybody part time with full time. Yeah,
Speaker 5: of course, but they've been giving seasonal workers sort of
Speaker 5: like extra hours, and that is someone's got to start
Speaker 5: counting they have like unless they work for ninety days,
Speaker 5: they don't have to. And because they're seasonal, you know,
Speaker 5: YadA YadA, they don't really join our union as kind
Speaker 5: of what I understand why they are not considered eligible.
Speaker 3: But it's like, the booksellers are the heart of the store.
Speaker 4: The classification of signal workers and particularly of event runners,
Speaker 4: has been a point of contention throughout negotiations this whole time,
Speaker 4: because obviously, from our perspective, we want anyone who's working
Speaker 4: in the store in any capacity to be involved in
Speaker 4: the union. We want them to not have this random
Speaker 4: scab force that they can deploy at will. Yeah, And
Speaker 4: that has always been the point that gets revisited over
Speaker 4: and over again. Just when we think we've gotten them,
Speaker 4: often too, being union members, they'll come back with their
Speaker 4: latest count and that's like, actually, I think because of X,
Speaker 4: Y and b Z that we just changed, they're no
Speaker 4: longer eligible to join your union. But they did just
Speaker 4: hire I think three people that they were training at
Speaker 4: fifty seventh Street last week, but they've made no formal
Speaker 4: announcement to anyone that these people have been hired.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I only know that they were like in the stores
Speaker 4: because one of them came to the co op by
Speaker 4: mistake instead of fifty seventh Street and was like.
Speaker 3: Oh, I'm one of the hires.
Speaker 2: Oh.
Speaker 4: And so it's unclear if those are the seasonal workers
Speaker 4: or if those are new hires.
Speaker 5: Those are I'll say the most recent member, like part time,
Speaker 5: full time member of our staff who's not me. None
Speaker 5: of us knew she was hired, and she just came
Speaker 5: up took a book right off my cart and I
Speaker 5: was like, bitch, what but she But those were events.
Speaker 5: Those were the seasonal workers at the store. The other day,
Speaker 5: Like I worked one of the Chicago Humanities events with them,
Speaker 5: and it is like, yeah, then they just changed the
Speaker 5: qualifking of who can be in the union.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's been very intentional, and it's been just like
Speaker 4: over and over they revisit and reclassified and less down.
Speaker 5: Yeah, we've done I think too since you last spoke,
Speaker 5: like a couple of work stoppages and then picketed outside
Speaker 5: of our store as well, But that I don't know
Speaker 5: in terms of like sort of regressive bargaining through attrition
Speaker 5: that we're seeing and that they refuse to hire other
Speaker 5: people even though they're kind of shooting themselves in the foot.
Speaker 5: But just like our direct action has I think worked
Speaker 5: against what they're thinking, which is that we're tired and
Speaker 5: that we're not going to fight back and that we
Speaker 5: are overwhelmed and we don't know what we're doing. But
Speaker 5: there are a lot of folks who do, have, you know,
Speaker 5: experience with these sort of direct actions like a work stoppage,
Speaker 5: and I think it's why it's great that we're wildly's
Speaker 5: but also like I do kind of like on the
Speaker 5: work stoppage, health flustered and not like upset, but just
Speaker 5: how flustered and yeah, just awkward management feels it's it's
Speaker 5: empowering for me. Yeah, but it's very much on purpose. Well,
Speaker 5: and I think that's one of things said.
Speaker 4: It's too just like a campaign in the broad sense
Speaker 4: of continuing direct actions during negotiations.
Speaker 3: Is it is that chance.
Speaker 4: To connect with your coworkers and re solidify that you're
Speaker 4: fighting for something intentional in the face of the fact
Speaker 4: that you will probably start being scheduled more sparsely, you
Speaker 4: will have fewer opportunities during the workday to talk to people,
Speaker 4: and like that's just stuff that's going to happen while
Speaker 4: negotiations go on. But like making sure that you stay
Speaker 4: in touch with your union as best you can and
Speaker 4: like show up for all the direct things that you
Speaker 4: can helps you internally combat that, which is really helpful.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I mean, like you don't like I sound
Speaker 2: like we ran into organizing cues. We spent like I
Speaker 2: think it was two years bargaining for our contract, and
Speaker 2: they didn't have the capacity to literally rely force half
Speaker 2: the workforce to quit.
Speaker 3: But like, oh, don't worry.
Speaker 4: They don't have the capacity to lose this many people are,
Speaker 4: seems and they are how few people they have?
Speaker 2: Yep, this whole thing is it's just like a really
Speaker 2: really common managerial tactic, yeah, which is just like we're
Speaker 2: going to make everything unlivable and try to get as
Speaker 2: many people as we can to quit and then just
Speaker 2: make everyone else's lives a living hell, which is like
Speaker 2: this is I think I've said this before, but it's
Speaker 2: it's like the extent to which the strategy is just
Speaker 2: the the deliberate infliction of terror.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, and the strategy is just tank your business,
Speaker 4: which seems incredibly conintuitive from their perspective.
Speaker 5: And like there have been events for like it's been
Speaker 5: a book about like Karl Marx labor organizing, whether it's
Speaker 5: a history or like a like sociology book, and folks
Speaker 5: are like, I waited to buy this book here because
Speaker 5: it's the Union bookstore, and like there is a way
Speaker 5: that us being a union bookstore could look given like
Speaker 5: that folks on our board are really progressive, people like
Speaker 5: Adam Gettichu, like State Senator Robert Peters, who's like running
Speaker 5: on a pretty pro labor background, Like us being unionized
Speaker 5: could be like we are already at tourist bookstore, like
Speaker 5: folks come from everywhere in or like this is such
Speaker 5: a famous bookstore, but like it does baffle me. It
Speaker 5: does make sense that it's a common tactic, but also
Speaker 5: there's so much that could work in their favor if
Speaker 5: they were not just like so committed to busting this
Speaker 5: union we.
Speaker 2: Hold on sidebar al Gritch. She was my professor.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I talked to her today. Wait, she's just part
Speaker 5: of the management team. No no, no, there's okay, so this
Speaker 5: is part of it's just.
Speaker 2: Like a different thing. Okay, sorry, sorry, this.
Speaker 5: Is okay, No, no, no, this is this is where like
Speaker 5: us being a not for profit bookstore but not actually
Speaker 5: like having any legal standing as a not for profit
Speaker 5: gets a little confusing, and like Finn, you can probably
Speaker 5: speak more to how this has come up in the
Speaker 5: bargaining meeting. But when we I don't know if this
Speaker 5: was around before the cooperative was dissolved and shared are
Speaker 5: basically like worthless at that point. But there is a
Speaker 5: board of directors, one of whom like is very very
Speaker 5: famous and at least among the folks I know, for
Speaker 5: effectively union investing employees at Experimental Station on sixty first
Speaker 5: in Blackstone when they try to unionize right. And also
Speaker 5: there are so many like Hyde Park progressives like RJP,
Speaker 5: like I Adam Gettachuw eve Ewing as well. And these
Speaker 5: are people I really respect, but like because there's like
Speaker 5: this four cabinet, I think of folks who are have
Speaker 5: been in and out of bargaining meetings when we've had
Speaker 5: employees at other lead for unions who do have a
Speaker 5: connection to like for example, Robert Peters. It does very
Speaker 5: clear that like this governing board which does govern, they
Speaker 5: have terms, but we're also a retail outfit. You know,
Speaker 5: usually like a not for profit, the board of a
Speaker 5: not for profit would be helping with like an annual
Speaker 5: fundraising campaign. It's unclear entirely what the board does in
Speaker 5: a retail outfit other than, at least in my experience,
Speaker 5: like giving advice, writing emails to try to bust this union,
Speaker 5: you know, before we unionized, albeit I had a very
Speaker 5: short tenure before we had unionized. None of these people,
Speaker 5: none of their names matter to me. But because like
Speaker 5: there's so much confusion about is management going to be
Speaker 5: representing folks in the bargaining meeting or is it going
Speaker 5: to be a board member representative. I've been just who
Speaker 5: is accountable to disclose what financial information and when or
Speaker 5: just any information and when, Like, yeah, Adam Adam Yettuchu
Speaker 5: is not one of our one of our bosses, but
Speaker 5: like there is just a lot of confusion that I
Speaker 5: feel about what the board is responsible for in bargaining
Speaker 5: and with the manage and what management feels they're responsible for.
Speaker 4: And I can clear up a little bit of that
Speaker 4: because what we were told when we first unionized and
Speaker 4: when the management team was kind of shifting and reorganizing
Speaker 4: itself around to the board was the board is there
Speaker 4: primarily to advise and supervise and hire the executive director
Speaker 4: for the stores. And so there is a financial contribution,
Speaker 4: Like they're all significant donors. That's part of the way
Speaker 4: that they secure their seats is making a large donation
Speaker 4: to the stores. But then, at least according to them,
Speaker 4: from that point forward, they have no managerial oversight over
Speaker 4: the operations of the store whatsoever. It is not their responsibility.
Speaker 4: They don't make any decisions about the budget, they don't
Speaker 4: get involved, they don't want to be involved. And they
Speaker 4: were embarrassed by having this attitude when previous management went
Speaker 4: off the rails and nearly drove the store into the
Speaker 4: ground by buying stock on credit cards. What but then
Speaker 4: it's the whole thing that we do not have into
Speaker 4: But that's.
Speaker 3: This is bonkers.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 4: That is to say that somehow that experience did not
Speaker 4: act as a wake up call for this board of
Speaker 4: directors and they said, what we will do is hire
Speaker 4: the next way man we can find and take our
Speaker 4: hands back off the wheel.
Speaker 2: Jesus Christ, is this an institution that people like it
Speaker 2: would be helpful to put pressure.
Speaker 4: On or that's what It's hard to say because there's
Speaker 4: this and I think I talked about it the last
Speaker 4: time we were on the podcast, But there's this responsibility
Speaker 4: carousel between management who in a bargaining session. Because the
Speaker 4: other thing is because we can't tell how involved the
Speaker 4: board is, because they tell us that they're not involved
Speaker 4: at all, and then they make decisions and we hear
Speaker 4: about the decisions that they're making. We have asked repeatedly
Speaker 4: that they be involved in bargaining and that they send
Speaker 4: someone to represent them, or they like participate and have
Speaker 4: an opinion on the way that the stores are run,
Speaker 4: and they have repeatedly refused those invitations, requests, demands, et cetera.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it seems.
Speaker 4: Their involvement has been to recommend that our management hired
Speaker 4: Jenny Golds to be their lawyer.
Speaker 2: And that is about as much as they want to do.
Speaker 3: Jesus Christ like two things too.
Speaker 5: And I think there was supposed to be a board
Speaker 5: member president at the next bargaining meeting, but because our
Speaker 5: meeting was contingent on having the full financial information that
Speaker 5: we requested literally a month ago. And when we requested
Speaker 5: that information, the next day a board member, the president
Speaker 5: of the board said, Okay, we'll get this to you.
Speaker 3: We got it.
Speaker 5: I think you might know more about the timing of
Speaker 5: this fit like at the last possible minute.
Speaker 3: We got at the day before the meeting. Oh god, yeah,
Speaker 3: and it was half of what we asked for.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And then we said this is not what we
Speaker 4: requested and we cannot meet because we said we couldn't
Speaker 4: meet without this full information. They were like, we're disappointed
Speaker 4: that you can't do that, and we were like, yeah, shocking.
Speaker 9: Yeah, we are back.
Speaker 2: Let's get more formally into like what the marketing process
Speaker 2: has looked like. It sounds like it's been extremely chaotic.
Speaker 2: They've been not running over information. It's deeply unclear who
Speaker 2: he's making decisions which all seem and like I say,
Speaker 2: this is my professional opinion, not good a technical anout
Speaker 2: life assessment. Yeah, this is why they pay me the
Speaker 2: mediocre bucks.
Speaker 3: Well, I think you were just so well informed, yes,
Speaker 3: journalistic insight.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So the way that we set.
Speaker 4: It up on our end when we entered into negotiations
Speaker 4: was we had a core team of three people who
Speaker 4: were going to be our core bargaining unit who would
Speaker 4: attend every meeting, and then we had a small team
Speaker 4: of like three more people including myself, that were like
Speaker 4: alternates in case something that scheduled on one day that
Speaker 4: one of the core team couldn't be there, and we
Speaker 4: made sure that we would always schedule one person who
Speaker 4: was not aotiating to be at the meeting and take notes,
Speaker 4: so that like none of the people who were negotiating
Speaker 4: you had to do that at.
Speaker 3: The same time.
Speaker 4: And when we first started negotiating, the management team was
Speaker 4: sending Dan Meyer, the interim director, and Nan Kanno, who's
Speaker 4: our deputy director, who is basically the one person on
Speaker 4: the management team who is not she's not supposed to
Speaker 4: be a direct supervisor. She has not actually let go
Speaker 4: of the people that she was supervising, but she's like
Speaker 4: in that middle space between like supervising management and like
Speaker 4: director management. But she has since stepped down from negotiations
Speaker 4: because of the way that she's been involved in the
Speaker 4: rest of store operations. She was like, I can't come
Speaker 4: to the table anymore. And so the latest meeting that
Speaker 4: has been rescheduled is going to be with Kevin Bendle,
Speaker 4: who's the new executive director. And then one other name
Speaker 4: that I forget who is either a board members as
Speaker 4: thinks or I'm not sure, well she would be, but
Speaker 4: it is.
Speaker 5: It is a board member. I think it is Tira Goldstein.
Speaker 5: Is her name Tia Goldsten?
Speaker 10: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Every so often in negotiating sessions, Dan or Nai would
Speaker 4: make some reference to like a financial decision that we
Speaker 4: were trying to bargain about, being like not their choice
Speaker 4: and being something that would be up to the board,
Speaker 4: and we'd be like, so take it to the board,
Speaker 4: and then we'd be like okay, and then we would
Speaker 4: never hear anything about it ever.
Speaker 2: Again, incredible, incredible work. Seems like a great tactic to
Speaker 2: never address anything you're supposed to be addressing.
Speaker 4: And so the way that we were negotiating, we were
Speaker 4: trying to come to terms on things that didn't affect
Speaker 4: the finances of the store first so that we could
Speaker 4: land some easy wins and like feel like we were
Speaker 4: making progress and then address the stuff that we expected
Speaker 4: to be thorny or later.
Speaker 3: But then what that ended up.
Speaker 4: Being as meetings went on and on was them asking
Speaker 4: us constantly like, but what is it that you guys
Speaker 4: really are like prioritizing, Like what is the thing that
Speaker 4: matters the most to you that like you have the
Speaker 4: least give on And we're like, it's wages. You know,
Speaker 4: it's wages.
Speaker 3: It's been waites this whole time.
Speaker 4: And they're like, but like, what if we were like
Speaker 4: asking you to give up all your benefits to get
Speaker 4: wa It's just.
Speaker 3: That you want.
Speaker 4: And we were like, Okay, that's not how negotiating works.
Speaker 4: And then, in an email that labeled it their best
Speaker 4: and final offer, which is language that they have yet
Speaker 4: to take back, they sent us a version of the
Speaker 4: contract bargaining agreement that we hey, let me just back
Speaker 4: up for a second. When we first started negotiating, they
Speaker 4: asked us to draft the entire first draft of the
Speaker 4: collective Bargaining Agreement ourselves, what which is incredible well standard,
Speaker 4: and we were like, that's fine because that gives us
Speaker 4: a leg up in terms of like studying the initial terms.
Speaker 3: I guess we'll do it.
Speaker 4: But like, yeah, incredibly nonstandards, super stupid, not that we
Speaker 4: should have had to do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've never heard of that before.
Speaker 4: But so when we drafted it, we drafted a three
Speaker 4: year term collective Bargaining Agreement with a bunch of stuff
Speaker 4: about procedure and wages and benefits that we wanted done.
Speaker 4: And so zooming back forward to that best and final offer,
Speaker 4: suddenly the draft that they've sent us back of the
Speaker 4: Collective Bargaining Agreement is.
Speaker 3: A two year term.
Speaker 4: And up to this point, all of the offers that
Speaker 4: had gotten anything close to our ask on wages were
Speaker 4: in year three, and everything in year one and two
Speaker 4: was still like twenty five cents fifty cents increases. And
Speaker 4: so suddenly year three, which was always the only year
Speaker 4: that made any improvements for us, is gone, and you
Speaker 4: did not improve any other parts of the contract to
Speaker 4: make up for that unilateral decision.
Speaker 2: So that's just progressive bargaining yeah, it is. It is,
Speaker 2: which by the way, okay, do you want to explain
Speaker 2: to our dear listeners what regressive bargaining is and why
Speaker 2: you're not allowed to do it?
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Regressive bargaining is a dirty negotiation tactic where one side,
Speaker 4: without making any sort of give and take concessions like
Speaker 4: they should to balance a big move, just unilaterally decides
Speaker 4: to change a term, especially a large term like wages,
Speaker 4: contract term, et cetera. And so it is taking something
Speaker 4: that has been tentatively agreed upon and like in good
Speaker 4: faith taken as a part of the contract that will stand,
Speaker 4: and acting it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you are not allowed to do this. This
Speaker 2: is this is under the under the terms, under the
Speaker 2: terms of the National Labor Relations Act, which you know,
Speaker 2: who knows. But by the time this episode goes out,
Speaker 2: there is a small chance it won't exist anymore. A
Speaker 2: bunch of provisions of it are under attacked right now.
Speaker 4: But like that is, we have a few unfair labor
Speaker 4: practices filed with the NLRB since the terms of negotiation
Speaker 4: have been in effect, and they are not in fact
Speaker 4: progressive bargaining charges but issues of status quo where they're
Speaker 4: trying to change the way that they do scheduling, change
Speaker 4: the way that they do like absence discipline.
Speaker 3: Which are topics that are covered in.
Speaker 4: Bargaining and should only be changed in bargaining while bargaining
Speaker 4: is active. But they're trying to change them and then
Speaker 4: say that these have been the policies all along, and so.
Speaker 2: God literally gaslighting. Yeah, like actual, actual, straight up. You
Speaker 2: could pick up the gap the psychologue the psychology textbook
Speaker 2: plight to it, like.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, just pick up that whole lamp and we
Speaker 4: have their words in writing of every step of the
Speaker 4: way where you can see the language change and be like, no,
Speaker 4: you are the person who said before that it was
Speaker 4: this other thing that was you. Yeah, So we filed
Speaker 4: unfair labor practice about those things, and you can in
Speaker 4: fact not track them anymore because since the government shut down,
Speaker 4: you can find a little pdf that explains, yep, that
Speaker 4: all ulps are going to be pending indefinitely, and that
Speaker 4: is all you can find.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's also fun because Trump I legally fired
Speaker 2: one of the Democratic people on it. So you don't
Speaker 2: have a korum any on the board of the National
Speaker 2: Relations Boys. They don't have a korum anymore, which is
Speaker 2: a shit show and snaking any NLRB like attempt to
Speaker 2: get anything done to the NLRB really annoying.
Speaker 11: Yeah, yeah, I think the direct action has been helpful,
Speaker 11: where like just that reality would just they just it
Speaker 11: would drive me crazy.
Speaker 3: And it is.
Speaker 5: It is gaslighting. This is traumatizing. If your boyfriend does
Speaker 5: it to you, it's a red flag. But when your
Speaker 5: boss does it to you, you know, it's like, yeah,
Speaker 5: the public's fine with it. Business, Yeah, it's acrost the business. Yeah,
Speaker 5: it is just the continuous, non stop onslaught of regressive
Speaker 5: bargaining tactics that like from the minute we started, despite
Speaker 5: the fact that like I was sitting next to the
Speaker 5: director when we said reunionizing, it was like a split
Speaker 5: second before she said, yep, we recognize it. And so
Speaker 5: our direct action at the workstoppage. I remember our first
Speaker 5: work stop and he sat for half an hour. Management
Speaker 5: was very cool with that. The second time we did it,
Speaker 5: we did it for an hour. We should have done
Speaker 5: our homework better because we didn't know that you can't,
Speaker 5: like like leaf live it on store property because he
Speaker 5: us Chicago is our landlord and kind of like not
Speaker 5: store property. But I put on my clerical collar. I
Speaker 5: put on a T shirt that had like given to Caesar,
Speaker 5: what is Caesar's and also like a little footnote.
Speaker 3: About you know, run me my money.
Speaker 5: You know there's a lot obvious instruction from Jesus out
Speaker 5: of Luke that's like pay the work or their wages.
Speaker 5: But I was wearing my clerical car. I set up
Speaker 5: the PA and I and I was loud. There was
Speaker 5: a Hyde Park Harold reporter who you know took my
Speaker 5: comment who I remember him walking over to Nien and
Speaker 5: I I think asking her for her comment. I had
Speaker 5: a bluetooth speaker that was Dan's right playing never never
Speaker 5: fight a man with a perm by idols and I
Speaker 5: will not forget. I will not forget the way our
Speaker 5: the deputy director approached me, She was like, Okay, this
Speaker 5: is fine, this is all fine. I just want to
Speaker 5: let you know this is fine, but can you please
Speaker 5: turn the music off. And it took me about twenty
Speaker 5: minutes to just turn the buttons down slowly, But like
Speaker 5: that we were reprimanded.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we got a very very email the next day
Speaker 4: left illustrating what the consequences would be if we tried
Speaker 4: to do a similar action again.
Speaker 5: In that manner, and so we picketed outside their store.
Speaker 5: That was the next direct action that we did. But
Speaker 5: like I do think our most impactful direct actions have
Speaker 5: been the ones that have been noisy, that have been
Speaker 5: incredibly visible. When we picketed last it was on the
Speaker 5: first day of classes. We sell like a lot of
Speaker 5: core core course books for the college at the university,
Speaker 5: and so there were students. It's like that we were like, hey,
Speaker 5: do you have the bookseller who sold you that book
Speaker 5: to have a living wage? And students like nineteen year
Speaker 5: olds are so outraged by the amount of money I
Speaker 5: make as a grown person.
Speaker 3: I heard so much eat the rich that day from
Speaker 3: sillennials Kell Yeah, hell yeah.
Speaker 5: But it is clear that when the public is made
Speaker 5: aware of what's happening at a store that a lot
Speaker 5: of people love just so much, like it is a
Speaker 5: part of the community, and I think so much a
Speaker 5: part of people's even like my own before I work there.
Speaker 5: Our experience of being in this fight knit bizarre community
Speaker 5: and folks.
Speaker 3: Are upset like they and I think rightfully so.
Speaker 5: And that's just I think, really the beauty of direct
Speaker 5: action is not just that it empowers us, but it
Speaker 5: really just like in a sort of spectacle way, says
Speaker 5: this is what this is what they're doing. You want
Speaker 5: a place that you love to run this way and
Speaker 5: to treat people like this.
Speaker 4: So and I think they're really effective for that reason,
Speaker 4: especially because people are really like on our side when
Speaker 4: they talk to us, but they're also really surprised because like,
Speaker 4: part of the instant recognition thing, part of the being
Speaker 4: cool with us having union buttons on the register, part
Speaker 4: of all of that is the fact that management is
Speaker 4: benefiting from the illusion that they're on good terms with us.
Speaker 4: And so like one of the reasons that we held
Speaker 4: that picket was to be like, hey, just because they
Speaker 4: are not stopping us, does not mean they have done
Speaker 4: anything to improve the material conditions that we have been
Speaker 4: organizing around this whole time.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, and also to be incredibly clear about this, like
Speaker 2: it's so obvious it has to actually directly be stated,
Speaker 2: which is that all of the things they are doing
Speaker 2: our union busting tactics, because their strategy here is to
Speaker 2: do a recognition and then go for the second place
Speaker 2: where unions most commonly collapse, which is once you're recognized
Speaker 2: as as a bargaining The second place they fail is
Speaker 2: getting the first contract and that that's what they're really
Speaker 2: obvious trying to do. And yeah, the fact that people
Speaker 2: don't understand that they're just running a thing that like
Speaker 2: I'm trying to think of how to even describe it.
Speaker 2: Was like like that bookstore was like like it was
Speaker 2: treated as like something that was as an institution that
Speaker 2: was like part of the university. That's like the way
Speaker 2: it was like treated culturally was this is like our thing,
Speaker 2: and these people are running it into the ground because
Speaker 2: they don't want to pay their workers like enough money
Speaker 2: to survive.
Speaker 4: It's is just hideous and that's really all it comes
Speaker 4: down too when you look at what the facts on
Speaker 4: the ground are is the decisions that they are making
Speaker 4: are directly tied to the fact that they feel like
Speaker 4: they have no money, which is directly to the fact
Speaker 4: that they are paying the executive director too much, which
Speaker 4: is directly died to the fact that they want to
Speaker 4: have an excuse to not pay us anything.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's like, oh, wow, we don't have enough
Speaker 2: money because we're spending like one hundred and sixty thousand
Speaker 2: dollars on an executive director. Have you considered you can
Speaker 2: simply eliminate the entire expense by turning this into an
Speaker 2: actual co op. You could do it in like one day,
Speaker 2: and you suddenly would not have the administration expenses because
Speaker 2: those people wouldn't it be there. You could do this
Speaker 2: really easily.
Speaker 4: Oh well, And as the like movement in and out
Speaker 4: of that position over the past year demonstrates, it has
Speaker 4: no effect on the operations the bookstore.
Speaker 3: The thing that has any.
Speaker 4: Effect on the operations of the bookstore is the fact
Speaker 4: that seven people have left, not been replaced, and all
Speaker 4: of their work has been redistributed across like increasingly siloed
Speaker 4: positions to the people who are left, so that you
Speaker 4: have no help on your particular assigned task that is
Speaker 4: now your seniors alone, and you just feel terrible in
Speaker 4: your little hole by yourself, which which there's is something like.
Speaker 2: I know for a fact that like multiple people on
Speaker 2: that board know what a speed up is, Like that's
Speaker 2: that's a speed up. I know for a fact that
Speaker 2: you know what this.
Speaker 4: Is, and most of them who know what it is
Speaker 4: have written against them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, just kind of like expanding a bit larger.
Speaker 5: The staff at the Museum of Science and Industry has
Speaker 5: also unionized and they were outside of their store, you know,
Speaker 5: threatening to strike, and so like I loved on the
Speaker 5: picket line, like I had a sign that said fire Jenny,
Speaker 5: and I went to explain.
Speaker 4: To the U.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I want to explain to the UI employee who
Speaker 5: Jenny was. The UI employee who worked at the Graduate
Speaker 5: Students United at Chicago, and she went, oh, I know
Speaker 5: who Jenny is, and that's I don't know, just yeah,
Speaker 5: it's sick that like somebody can make their living making
Speaker 5: my life worse than a's that's capitalism.
Speaker 3: And also be like she has been involved that lawyer
Speaker 3: and like a number of like she busting trying.
Speaker 5: To bust unions at U Chicago unsuccessfully and also representing
Speaker 5: Northwestern in a case where one of their employees accused
Speaker 5: them of sexual harassment and discrimination. You know.
Speaker 3: So it's like you're you're really.
Speaker 5: This, this is this is the person that you're working with.
Speaker 5: This is the tool that you're using, you know, is
Speaker 5: it too you would rather pay?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah. And it's also it's like that that that's
Speaker 2: the thing where this this whole metaphor of like the
Speaker 2: boss acting as an abusive partner is suddenly getting very
Speaker 2: literal in terms of who they're who are the people
Speaker 2: that they are employing do for their other ship, which
Speaker 2: is defending those people. Yeah, yeah, it's it's it's it's
Speaker 2: almost like there's a structural connection between management and patriarchy. Wow,
Speaker 2: who could possibly who could possibly have done this?
Speaker 3: Between systems of abuse?
Speaker 2: Yeah, like who could possibly have written about this? Check's notes?
Speaker 2: Looks at the books that were written by the members
Speaker 2: of the board.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like, yeah, I'm so.
Speaker 2: Mad about this, Like we'll niking after Empire is really good?
Speaker 3: It is?
Speaker 5: Yeah, And I like, I don't know how much I
Speaker 5: can like hold those individual members responsible and it seems
Speaker 5: like so many of them are like.
Speaker 3: Just now finding out about it. Yeah, that's some abuse.
Speaker 5: One O One is to make sure that the person
Speaker 5: that you are exploiting, that you were, you know, taking
Speaker 5: advantage of that they don't feel like they can say
Speaker 5: to people who could help them, this is what's happening
Speaker 5: to me, and that like the people who would be sympathetic,
Speaker 5: could you know, go and take the initiative to help folks?
Speaker 5: And ungrateful that we have a meeting with Robert Peters
Speaker 5: coming up soon. It was supposed to happen that has
Speaker 5: not yet, and I appreciate how dedicated he is and
Speaker 5: his staff is to making sure that our union sits
Speaker 5: down and talks with him.
Speaker 4: But it is also like there's a deep irony for
Speaker 4: him accepting an award from another union and rescheduling a
Speaker 4: meeting with.
Speaker 2: Ourskay do it?
Speaker 3: No, no, no, no, no, it's because we have Jacob. I always
Speaker 3: say it incorrectly asked me. Yeah, the BigInt. But that's
Speaker 3: also like part of the other great community support.
Speaker 5: Like I mentioned that UE employee, but you know, there
Speaker 5: are other union employees who just because they love the
Speaker 5: bookstore so much, we'll.
Speaker 3: Show up to every outreach to that that we have.
Speaker 5: He was one of the first people to have a
Speaker 5: yard sign, and it's funny he was right next to
Speaker 5: this guy from my church who also has a window sign,
Speaker 5: and that's why I found out they were neighbors.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's really cute.
Speaker 5: But like, I'm proud that we're Wobbles because there is
Speaker 5: a really long tradition of you know, being in Chicago,
Speaker 5: a lot of radical organizing that I think fits our
Speaker 5: spirit and also like the seminary co op spirit. It
Speaker 5: has been hard that we don't have a lot of
Speaker 5: resources towards bargaining, but like we're good at direct action
Speaker 5: and we also have I'll give it the ask Me award.
Speaker 5: I'll give it a pass because Jacob's been so and
Speaker 5: other community members have been so helpful and just giving
Speaker 5: their time and their skills and their expertise.
Speaker 4: So yeah, yeah, the MSI Union, the Grad Students' Union
Speaker 4: in particular, have been incredible allies to us and have
Speaker 4: been they were huge like presences on our picket because like,
Speaker 4: because we did an open store running picket, we have
Speaker 4: had only about half of our actual union members available
Speaker 4: because everyone else had to be on desks in the
Speaker 4: stores keeping them running. And so the majority of the
Speaker 4: people who were like collecting signatures to get Jenny Goltz
Speaker 4: fired and otherwise improve our wardening conditions were people from
Speaker 4: other unions who were just out there being wonderful, awesome,
Speaker 4: solid orgy with us.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So my first picket line, I mean, I think I
Speaker 2: made it last EPs, but my first picket line ever
Speaker 2: was the grad student picket line in twenty nineteen. Those
Speaker 2: those are the first time I was ever on a
Speaker 2: picket and it rocks.
Speaker 9: Yeah, and yeah, it.
Speaker 2: Makes it really happy to see that the whole base
Speaker 2: of sort of union organizing from that has like you know,
Speaker 2: it's it's this thing that like I remember when this was,
Speaker 2: like you know, like I was there and like one
Speaker 2: of the big pushes and everyone they finally won, and
Speaker 2: it's like they're still around helping people because workers, workers
Speaker 2: fucking fight together and.
Speaker 4: Well and then they'll always be like, hey, one thing
Speaker 4: that we know about Jenny GOLs is she likes to lose, and.
Speaker 3: We're like, thanks, thank you.
Speaker 5: Then it's not that she likes to use the quotea
Speaker 5: is she's very good at losing, which that's true.
Speaker 3: Even better, even better.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And like what you were saying about Gsu, I
Speaker 5: don't remember what I think Like two thousand and eight,
Speaker 5: two thousand and seven was like when they said we
Speaker 5: starting organizing for unionizing the graduate students. I had a
Speaker 5: roommate who was like a twelve year PhD student who
Speaker 5: was around when that shit started. You can just count
Speaker 5: hanging out with your wife in Australia as a field research,
Speaker 5: I guess, But well, she's just doing postdocs. You're just
Speaker 5: hanging out. But we had a baby yesterday anyway.
Speaker 3: Oh but yeah, like I was around.
Speaker 5: He came back to finish his PhD, like about the
Speaker 5: time like when the contract was ratified, and I just
Speaker 5: with what is it, sixteen seventeen months of bargaining no
Speaker 5: contract in the name of my blessed Lord Jesus Christ.
Speaker 3: Like Jesus Christ.
Speaker 5: GSU has had, like has such a wealth of knowledge
Speaker 5: because they've been through just like heaps of bullshit and
Speaker 5: it's years.
Speaker 2: It's like, okay, I would I will like the fucking
Speaker 2: GSU think they had a whole thing when I was there,
Speaker 2: like in like twenty nineteen, the whole the whole thing
Speaker 2: was that And like Jennuay, this is like one of
Speaker 2: the most admirable things I've ever seen a union do,
Speaker 2: which was they refused to take their their case because
Speaker 2: the university was refusing to recognize them, and they they
Speaker 2: refuse to take their case to the NLRB because they
Speaker 2: knew that if they did it, there was there was
Speaker 2: a pretty good chance that the old Trump nl RB
Speaker 2: was going to like bust every single graduate school union
Speaker 2: in the country. So instead of trying to win for themselves,
Speaker 2: they fucking didn't do it and just like fought on
Speaker 2: packet lines instead, and it fucking rocked. It was like
Speaker 2: that there. They rock, They're they're great, Like, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: shout out, shoutouts, shout out to GSU.
Speaker 3: Yeah, shout out to Gsu.
Speaker 4: Well, and they are a great, great, great example to
Speaker 4: us all in terms of like how to persist on
Speaker 4: a fight through attrition, because one of the things that
Speaker 4: like you try so hard as a management team to
Speaker 4: do is just wait until ever and gets tired and leaves,
Speaker 4: and like it seems like Grand Students would be the
Speaker 4: perfect population just just wait out because they rotate out constantly.
Speaker 4: But like just the way that they have managed to
Speaker 4: maintain energy through generations and generations of organizers and get
Speaker 4: it over the line at Long Lives is so encouraging.
Speaker 10: Yeah, there's a thing I remember from I think the
Speaker 10: last place I read into it was like one of
Speaker 10: Mike Duncan's things about the French Revolution.
Speaker 2: Like one of the things he talked about was like
Speaker 2: the ways in which part of what caused the French
Speaker 2: Revolution was that like they spent a whole bunch of
Speaker 2: time teaching all of these kids these like incredibly radical
Speaker 2: enlightenment ideas and then they were like, wait, we live
Speaker 2: in like the most absolute monarchy that has ever existed.
Speaker 2: What the fuck?
Speaker 3: Wait we hate this? Yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: Like wait, hold on, And it's like there is obviously
Speaker 2: always sort of contradictions between like the number of people
Speaker 2: I have seen write books about labor resistance and then
Speaker 2: like go bust unions is pretty large. But there's a
Speaker 2: reason why everyone from like Pinochet through like the Trump administration,
Speaker 2: I mean back through like the original Nazis. It's like
Speaker 2: one of the first places and you know, I mean
Speaker 2: like the Greek riot place had this thing where it
Speaker 2: was like the first place you go when there's discontent
Speaker 2: is like you must stop the workers from from allying
Speaker 2: with the students.
Speaker 3: You must do this.
Speaker 2: When you're fucked.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but the workers and the students love each other.
Speaker 3: They're all kissing. Yeah, and we're the same person sometimes,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yep, yep, yep, all my comments that kiss on
Speaker 5: the forehead, yes, ah yeah.
Speaker 2: And I think like that is I think like the
Speaker 2: positive element of all of this is like the way
Speaker 2: that one campaign winning can transform the lives of everyone
Speaker 2: else around you is so astonishing. And I've seen it
Speaker 2: happen in so many places where like one shop wins
Speaker 2: and suddenly everyone else is like it could be us
Speaker 2: it could be us.
Speaker 3: Yes, it's possible. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4: Well, and I think that we're trying to capitalize on
Speaker 4: that and trying to make sure that we can be
Speaker 4: the next person to like capitalize on GSU's win and
Speaker 4: help ms I do the same. But like, as much
Speaker 4: as we have really suffered from the at the table
Speaker 4: bargaining new ohating process and been really sort of beaten
Speaker 4: down in the past year on that battleground, I think
Speaker 4: we have learned so much about the the allies that
Speaker 4: surround us and the people who like want to do
Speaker 4: more than just email our board members, and we're like,
Speaker 4: we don't know what else you can do because we
Speaker 4: don't know who makes these decisions for you to yell at.
Speaker 4: But we have so many people who have like signed
Speaker 4: up for an email list with us, so many people
Speaker 4: who are like ready to go as soon as we
Speaker 4: figure out.
Speaker 3: What we need them to do.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And that's been really encouraging and bolstering. While management
Speaker 4: continues to like just not acknowledge us when they feel
Speaker 4: too cornered, like they simply never spoke of the picket
Speaker 4: because it happened outside and so they couldn't be mad
Speaker 4: about it, so they didn't have to tell us all
Speaker 4: about it, but they also just didn't speak of it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, this is Chicago is a motherfucking union town.
Speaker 3: And that's what.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'll admit I'm angry when I go into work.
Speaker 5: They don't care enough to get the mold and the
Speaker 5: dust remediated, you know, and the DUTs and I can't
Speaker 5: really breathe when I go into work. And I also
Speaker 5: don't have health insurance right, Oh my god. Well I
Speaker 5: do have health insurance, but I have to pay for
Speaker 5: like you know, I have to pay for my own
Speaker 5: premiums through a marketplace there. Yeah, and that's that's not
Speaker 5: really affordable. And like, as frustrated as I am like
Speaker 5: coming into work, it is it's the people, you know.
Speaker 5: And I think that's for a lot of folks who
Speaker 5: have stayed at the bookstore. I don't know how much
Speaker 5: you relate to this then, like it has been like
Speaker 5: other booksellers, the folks that we've gotten to know through
Speaker 5: the community, who like who do make a difference at
Speaker 5: least for me and whether or not I stay.
Speaker 3: Oh, absolutely, Yeah, this is a good fight.
Speaker 4: The union crew that we have is a incredibly worthwhile
Speaker 4: team to be on. It is a group of people
Speaker 4: that I feel very solid standing shoulder to shoulder with.
Speaker 4: I think that is, like, without question, one of the
Speaker 4: things that like keeps the stores a place that you
Speaker 4: can work, even if it's not a good place to
Speaker 4: work right now.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And honestly, I think that would have sustained me
Speaker 4: a lot longer if you were different, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah for sure. Wait, okay, sorry, poole back to
Speaker 2: the part where you can't breathe because there's I feel
Speaker 2: like because there's bolts. I feel like you just dropped
Speaker 2: that very quickly. It was like, oh, yeah, that's like
Speaker 2: a normal part of the work.
Speaker 4: What the fought Well, so for a very long time
Speaker 4: you've been allowed to request that you only work at
Speaker 4: the co op because there is a known mode problem
Speaker 4: at fifty seventh Street that they can't afford to or
Speaker 4: can't get the landlord to ameliorate. But there is also,
Speaker 4: at least in our lung experience, some sort of growth
Speaker 4: issue in the venting at the seminary.
Speaker 3: Come up, Yeah, it's it's very dusty at beast.
Speaker 5: And like I when I wear like a like a
Speaker 5: kN ninety five for a little bit, like that helps
Speaker 5: a little.
Speaker 3: I take like five.
Speaker 5: Bena drill usually and then that Jesus, that kind of
Speaker 5: that kind of helps. And that's more just I think,
Speaker 5: like I mean not more. That is in part like
Speaker 5: my own health. But if I had the resources too, yeah,
Speaker 5: be able to take care of my health and get
Speaker 5: what I need, maybe I could withstand the mold and
Speaker 5: the dust and the ducks a little bit easier.
Speaker 2: But like that well, but also like like as an employer,
Speaker 2: it is your responsibility to not have your workplace poison
Speaker 2: your employees, Like I'm sorry, like that part yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: that also make them pay for the medical care to
Speaker 2: treat medical problems that they're having because you'd poison them
Speaker 2: with mold. Like what that's yeah what Jesus christn it's
Speaker 2: so evil.
Speaker 4: Well, And we had a couple of pauses in our
Speaker 4: first draft of the Collective Bardaining Agreement that included demands
Speaker 4: regarding mold remediation at fifty seventh Street, and I do
Speaker 4: believe th clauses have been struck in subsequent round.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I guess that's the thing that you
Speaker 2: could ask people to do, which is go ask people
Speaker 2: to complain about the fucking mold like it seems like
Speaker 2: a thing you could do.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's my another direct action. I also noticed, like
Speaker 5: people in the store, like they cough when they enter. Yeah,
Speaker 5: you know, and like, oh god, this is where the
Speaker 5: like the snake eats its own tail. The wheel turns
Speaker 5: inside the fucking wheel, right, because like maybe, like if
Speaker 5: I'm giving them good faith benefit of the doubt, management
Speaker 5: would have if they weren't overloaded with so many tasks
Speaker 5: that they have to take on, you know, sort of
Speaker 5: more supervisory management. If y'all didn't have to do all
Speaker 5: these tasks, maybe you would have time to If there
Speaker 5: are more people hired in the bargaining unit, perhaps you
Speaker 5: could yourself have more time to improve the conditions for
Speaker 5: the store, not just for your workers, but also for
Speaker 5: the people who enter the stores.
Speaker 3: But because you.
Speaker 5: Will hire new workers until there's a contract, you are
Speaker 5: just so overworked and you can't And it's just like this,
Speaker 5: this turns until the boss decides that it doesn't, and
Speaker 5: it's like this, this is their responsibility to to bargain
Speaker 5: in good faith and to treat their workers correctly, Like
Speaker 5: this is an active decision that they could make that
Speaker 5: they are not making.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I gotta say that that might be the
Speaker 2: single wildest thing I've ever heard, like an hour into
Speaker 2: an interview, is Oh, yeah, they're poisoning guys.
Speaker 3: The mold, just the mold.
Speaker 4: It's just also prove that this is the craziest place
Speaker 4: to work, because like that doesn't even land on our
Speaker 4: radar anymore because we've been just like banging our head
Speaker 4: against walls for a year.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, I keep going back to
Speaker 2: the abusive relationship metaphor, but like that is one of
Speaker 2: the big things about the best of relationships is that
Speaker 2: because of the information control and because of the way
Speaker 2: that your world gets condensed down into a really really tiny,
Speaker 2: narrow set of experiences where you're isolated and you're only
Speaker 2: interacting with like one person who was controlling everything about
Speaker 2: your life, it becomes really difficult to see things that
Speaker 2: are very, very obviously wrong the moment you step out
Speaker 2: of it. Yeah, and you know, I don't know, maybe
Speaker 2: it turns out having apps hierarchical relationship control is an
Speaker 2: extremely bad way to run literally anything, especially the thing
Speaker 2: that your livelihood depends on that you do most of
Speaker 2: your time.
Speaker 4: Just the thought wow, well, and it also just like
Speaker 4: means that you are too busy to actually interface in
Speaker 4: any meaningful way with your workers. Like, yeah, if I
Speaker 4: tell you that it took me two thirds of the
Speaker 4: day to schedule a fifteen minute conversation with any of
Speaker 4: four managers who were on site to quit, I would
Speaker 4: not be lying.
Speaker 2: Jesus Christ.
Speaker 8: They can't even.
Speaker 2: Take your resig, bitch.
Speaker 4: They at one point tried to reschedule that conversation which
Speaker 4: I was attempting to have on Friday to Monday, and
Speaker 4: I was like, I think you want to know this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like managers, you too are getting you too
Speaker 2: are getting strewed over by by understaffing.
Speaker 5: Oh my god, I do think that's starting to take
Speaker 5: a toll too on management, which is a little encouraging.
Speaker 3: They're losing it. Yeah, they are not feeling well and
Speaker 3: because like for me, I don't know, I'm not going
Speaker 3: to trust a boss, like I just stated, for three
Speaker 3: months in the nineteen ninety seven UAW strike like that's oh,
Speaker 3: bosses are canceled. Yeah, you know I know how that ended.
Speaker 5: But I remember one of the supervisors who who I've
Speaker 5: had one point in her like her previous career had
Speaker 5: been on a picket line for a very long time
Speaker 5: had been on strike, and she like immediately took one
Speaker 5: of our little sabocat reed pins put it on her backpack,
Speaker 5: and is otherwise like, as far as I can tell,
Speaker 5: generally supportive of the union, but also, man, lady, I
Speaker 5: wish you would make a stink.
Speaker 4: Because here's the thing. I think she only talks to us.
Speaker 4: I feel like the other managers do not speak to her.
Speaker 4: I yeah, am I crazy?
Speaker 9: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I could just talk about that for a very long time,
Speaker 3: and I don't think we have the time.
Speaker 2: So yeah, before we get into what can people do
Speaker 2: to help? Is there anything else that you want to
Speaker 2: make sure that you get to.
Speaker 4: I think the big thing that we should emphasize too
Speaker 4: is as much as we are complaining and frustrated about
Speaker 4: the process, we know that this is not impass and
Speaker 4: that we are so sure that like there is still
Speaker 4: negotiating to be done, there is still conversation to be had,
Speaker 4: and that like we have been emphasizing that at every
Speaker 4: opportunity to management as we have to. But like, just
Speaker 4: because we are tired and frustrated means nothing in terms
Speaker 4: of us giving up, because this is a fight that
Speaker 4: is going to continue.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, and like to that point, then we're doing
Speaker 5: this because we love the stores. Like the stores were
Speaker 5: a really important place for me, just putting down roots
Speaker 5: in the neighborhood. And I think when you love something
Speaker 5: a lot like you got to be brave enough to
Speaker 5: wrestle with it. And that our unionizing is the right thing.
Speaker 5: It is a thing that will like hopefully create anvironment
Speaker 5: where the people who make that bookstore run, who sell
Speaker 5: the books. In the long run, it will make the
Speaker 5: institution healthier, I really do believe. And just that we've
Speaker 5: been talking about like this metaphor as the boss of
Speaker 5: like as an abusive partner. I think for so many
Speaker 5: folks when they are whether it's something like domestic violence,
Speaker 5: or it's in a union campaign, or you're speaking out
Speaker 5: against you know, your neighbors being abducted and shot and
Speaker 5: killed in the street, there is such an expectation that
Speaker 5: I have to sit by and be quiet while this happens.
Speaker 5: And part of that, I think, what does prevent and
Speaker 5: at least in my experience as someone who survived you know,
Speaker 5: particular kinds of violence that yeah, I wasn't sure I
Speaker 5: was doing the right thing, but us unionizing is absolutely
Speaker 5: the right thing. It is the right thing for the stores.
Speaker 5: It is the right thing for the community and for
Speaker 5: the workers. And I just as much as I'm frustrated,
Speaker 5: like I know myself and my fellow booksellers are doing
Speaker 5: this out of love, Like it is absolutely love for
Speaker 5: the stores in the community we serve.
Speaker 4: So yeah, we're never going to feel bad for continuing
Speaker 4: to fight for what is the right.
Speaker 3: Thing to do. Yeah, I'm too broke to feel bad.
Speaker 9: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Don't be poisoned by bold every time you go to
Speaker 2: the BOOKSTERO support the union.
Speaker 4: Yeah, wear your mask at seminary co op.
Speaker 3: Yeah, take a stab a cap pin.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Ask to talk to a manager, make it a long talk.
Speaker 4: Yeah, honestly, see if you can get one on the floor,
Speaker 4: we'll help you.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So how can people help support y'all? And do you
Speaker 2: have places where people can find more information about the
Speaker 2: campaign and follow updates?
Speaker 5: We have a change dot org petition that I think
Speaker 5: if you can link it somewhere in the description.
Speaker 2: Yep, Yeah, we will link in description.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: So that that does ask folks to sign off and
Speaker 5: support the termination of Jenny Goltz, their union busting lawyer,
Speaker 5: as well as releasing like the full state of financial
Speaker 5: information too, so there's a change dot work. But you
Speaker 5: can also follow us on Instagram. At some Booksellers union,
Speaker 5: we've got the little icon, but the sabocat signed the petition.
Speaker 5: There are also some action items on some of the posts,
Speaker 5: such as emailing the board and management about the release
Speaker 5: of financial information and also the termination of Jenny Goltz's employment.
Speaker 5: You can also emailed those emails on that post about
Speaker 5: the mold too, if you want me to breathe at work.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm so glad about this. This is I am
Speaker 2: going to lead the description with you. They are poisoning
Speaker 2: you because like, I'm so angry about this.
Speaker 3: Thank you, I'm too tired to be angry about it.
Speaker 4: I'm so glad at this woman's French perspective has remembered
Speaker 4: that the mold is totally bogus, because I had forgotten.
Speaker 3: It's crazy. Yeah, it's so bogus. It's also like it's in.
Speaker 8: Such plain sight, like if you're in fifty seven Street
Speaker 8: Books and you look to the right of the air
Speaker 8: conditioning unit and room one you see that shit growing
Speaker 8: on the walls, and it's like, but I also feel
Speaker 8: like if I talk to management, which I tried about this.
Speaker 5: It just is about a priority. My breathing not a priority. Yeah,
Speaker 5: it is wild. Thank you for reminding me.
Speaker 2: That someone one day, when you win, someone's going to
Speaker 2: write a paper by necropolitics in this or something like
Speaker 2: good lord.
Speaker 3: Jeez, yeah some shit. Yeah, sign the petition, follow us
Speaker 3: on Instagram, help us make our ruckus.
Speaker 4: And come talk to us and our managers at the
Speaker 4: bookstore because we love to talk to people while.
Speaker 3: We saw them books. Yeah. Yeah, it'll take any good
Speaker 3: will we can get so very much.
Speaker 2: So hell yeah, well, thank you to both so much
Speaker 2: for coming on and just for doing this and I
Speaker 2: don't know, like a place that was really special to
Speaker 2: me when I was Yeah, when I was there for
Speaker 2: a long time.
Speaker 3: Thanks for your health. Thank you for following up with us.
Speaker 4: Of course, it's really nice to have this platform every
Speaker 4: so often.
Speaker 3: Yeah for sure.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, well hopefully we will have you back on
Speaker 2: when you fucking win.
Speaker 3: And yes, very round.
Speaker 5: I'm buying I'm personally buying the cool Zone media team
Speaker 5: around at Jimmy's. When we win our contract.
Speaker 4: I will come back to park just for the celebration.
Speaker 3: Change everyone's oil while you're down.
Speaker 4: To yeah, yeah, yeah, No, don't take that long.
Speaker 3: I won't be ready for a second.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this has been It could happen here, and you
Speaker 2: too can resist both your abuser and your boss even
Speaker 2: wouldn't have the same person and you should.
Speaker 3: Hey man, get them.
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