Speaker 1: Cool Zone Media.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Day It Happened Here, a podcast increasingly well
Speaker 2: named as as the Days go On. I'm your host,
Speaker 2: Bio Wong, and it occurs to me over the course
Speaker 2: of the many, many, many, many many union episodes we've
Speaker 2: done in this podcast, we haven't really done much coverage
Speaker 2: of just straight up how do you do a strike?
Speaker 2: So today we are going to be covering a pretty
Speaker 2: long running strike. We're gonna say how many days has
Speaker 2: been going. It's unclear when this episode is gonna come out,
Speaker 2: so who fucking knows how long it'll be when when
Speaker 2: you hear it. But yeah, with me to talk about
Speaker 2: this strike is Spencer Jordan, who is a rank and
Speaker 2: file member of the Urban or Workers Union. Spencer, welcome
Speaker 2: to the show.
Speaker 3: Hey, thank you so much for having me Miah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm excited to talk to you about this. So
Speaker 2: this is what day is today. I should know this
Speaker 2: April fifteenth, and as of April fifteenth, you've been outright
Speaker 2: for twenty five days.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's just about right. Yeah, it started on the
Speaker 4: twenty second of March. We held our strike vote like
Speaker 4: a solid twelve days before.
Speaker 3: Before we actually went out on the picket line.
Speaker 4: And one that strike vote with fourteen yes is a
Speaker 4: single no, and I think four extensions pretty good.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so ninety of those voting voted yes. Yeah, which
Speaker 4: good of good ratios. Good ratios.
Speaker 2: I think like typically you want at least like mid
Speaker 2: seventies if we're going to do this kind of thing.
Speaker 2: But you know, as listener to the show hopefully understand
Speaker 2: by now you can't just like call a strike and
Speaker 2: have it happen. You know, you have to do a
Speaker 2: whole bunch of organizing. So I want to kind of
Speaker 2: start at the dynamics of the organizing of how this
Speaker 2: shop got going, because this is a pretty small shop
Speaker 2: from the sounds of it. And yeah, yeah, so do
Speaker 2: you want to talk a bit about what the basic
Speaker 2: process of getting this organizing started was like and what
Speaker 2: the sort of like social mapping look like and stuff
Speaker 2: like that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So the organization process started around like a year
Speaker 4: and a half before we actually had our unionization vote,
Speaker 4: which was actually we had the vote in March and
Speaker 4: we got our win on April seventh, two years ago,
Speaker 4: so we actually just had our union two year birthday birthday.
Speaker 4: But yeah, so preceding that was, like, like I said,
Speaker 4: about a year and a half organizing that involved, you know,
Speaker 4: the typical thing of like one on one conversations with
Speaker 4: like all the staff, making the you know, color coded
Speaker 4: spreadsheet and everything, which all of this was not my
Speaker 4: my purview. I'm a lot more involved now than I
Speaker 4: was at the start of the process. And I was
Speaker 4: approached by like one of our lead organizers really shortly
Speaker 4: after being hired just to kind of you know, read
Speaker 4: the dipstick as too, like my sentiments about it and whatnot.
Speaker 4: I was pretty on board right away. I mean, you know, like,
Speaker 4: I'm from the Bay Area, so it's not.
Speaker 2: There are there are only two types of people from
Speaker 2: the Bay Area. You wouldn't be having one of the one.
Speaker 3: Of the ship, Yeah, exactly, exactly. So I'm of the
Speaker 3: ladder type.
Speaker 4: So you know, it being pro union is isn't a
Speaker 4: isn't like a foreign thing to my background. You know,
Speaker 4: you don't look like a techwork Yeah, yeah, especially like
Speaker 4: my family's from the Midwest and everything, so there's yeah.
Speaker 3: My my aunt actually just learned that she was like
Speaker 3: a clerk working.
Speaker 4: For the railroads back in the day when my railroad
Speaker 4: jobs were still like a big thing.
Speaker 3: You could have anyways.
Speaker 4: But yeah, so I had had my like own sort
Speaker 4: of like just observations of like whoah, like what's what's
Speaker 4: going on in the workplace aside from like my own
Speaker 4: just like prediliction to thinking, you know, more.
Speaker 3: Worker power is better.
Speaker 4: Yeah, also kind of seeing like some of the factors
Speaker 4: that precipitated it, Like, for instance, like when I was
Speaker 4: hired here, I was hired in my interview, it was
Speaker 4: the one of the owners and the manager of my department,
Speaker 4: my department being salvage and recycling department of the urban
Speaker 4: or which is kind of like not super public facing.
Speaker 4: We like go to the dump and like root around
Speaker 4: through the garbage, like you know, is or whatever, get
Speaker 4: to get stuff for the store. But that manager, you know,
Speaker 4: he was there in the interview, and we got to
Speaker 4: the portion where the owner explained what at will employment is,
Speaker 4: oh and she and she went, so we're at will here.
Speaker 4: So Sam, well, Sam was my manager. Swell, how long
Speaker 4: have you been here? Twenty one years? He's there, hands
Speaker 4: folded on the table. Yes, what at will means is, uh,
Speaker 4: it could be tomorrow. I could say, you know, Samuel,
Speaker 4: it's been a great twenty one years.
Speaker 3: I really appreciate all the work you've done. Today's your
Speaker 3: last day. And he has to sit there and go.
Speaker 2: Jesus Christ.
Speaker 4: And then she says, of course, likewise, tomorrow Samuel could
Speaker 4: come to me and say, hey, Mary Lou, it's been
Speaker 4: twenty one years, I've enjoyed it.
Speaker 3: I'm quitting.
Speaker 4: So you know, the sort of sword over his neck
Speaker 4: is being cast is somehow equal to him not being
Speaker 4: like indentured.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's also just I mean, like you know, yeah,
Speaker 2: on the basic level. Yeah, it's like, Okay, your opponent,
Speaker 2: I guess they argue, put it your boss. Your boss
Speaker 2: can just instantly fire you for any reason whatsoever, for
Speaker 2: any bout of time. And then also you could quit
Speaker 2: the job. And then I really just as a plane,
Speaker 2: just like as a management tactic, like are you like
Speaker 2: trying to piss off your support? And it's like, what,
Speaker 2: I have never had a boss like just do that
Speaker 2: in a hiring meeting.
Speaker 4: What, Yeah, I mean have you have you worked at
Speaker 4: like a like a like I saw a small like
Speaker 4: mom and pop quote unquote business.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that's that's probably That's probably why because
Speaker 2: I've usually had like larger my shitty jobs have either
Speaker 2: been like government jobs or like like larger companies, so
Speaker 2: there was less of the like I heard a line
Speaker 2: recently that I wish I remember where it was from.
Speaker 2: It might be a line from Star Trek. It's like
Speaker 2: one of the Ferengi rules is just like treat your
Speaker 2: employees like family, exploit them ruthlessly, which I like, you.
Speaker 4: Know, that's a that's a traditional line in business, especially
Speaker 4: in small business, and it's it's no stranger here. Yeah,
Speaker 4: that question of like wanting to piss off your supports
Speaker 4: or whatever, it's a I don't know if pissing off
Speaker 4: is necessarily like the concern, but the ownership here definitely.
Speaker 4: I've gotten the impression that they enjoy showing their power,
Speaker 4: and I've gotten the impression that the sort of like
Speaker 4: uncertainty and like my mom would call it jockeying for
Speaker 4: position that you have to do is a dynamic that
Speaker 4: they I can't say, I really can't say they honestly
Speaker 4: because the other owner, he hasn't been very active in
Speaker 4: the business since since my hiring, but at least Mary
Speaker 4: Lou Yeah, tends to lean on.
Speaker 3: That's kind of like the uh, the special quality that.
Speaker 4: You get with like a small business and organizing in
Speaker 4: a small workplace is that like you know, you can
Speaker 4: see sort of in their public communications the way.
Speaker 3: That like the Zucks and the Bezoses and.
Speaker 4: The rest of them feel about their employees, and you know,
Speaker 4: you can get a sense of perhaps how they might
Speaker 4: act towards their employees if they like interacted with them
Speaker 4: on a daily basis. But in a small business setting,
Speaker 4: you really get a keen.
Speaker 3: View into how like.
Speaker 4: The power of the employer mixes very readily with a
Speaker 4: person's like predilection towards discipline, pred election towards like personal
Speaker 4: what did you call it personal battling?
Speaker 2: Almost yeah, well, and it's and it's also like it's
Speaker 2: inescapable in a way that it isn't with like you know,
Speaker 2: if you're dealing with people who are you know, you're
Speaker 2: at a larger company, you're not dealing with the person.
Speaker 2: Like there's an old Chinese expression that is like heaven
Speaker 2: is high and the emperor is far away. So you know,
Speaker 2: it's like you know, like a lot of times you're
Speaker 2: dealing with Okay, yeah, there is like you know, your
Speaker 2: Zuckerberg is there, but he's like he never interacts with you.
Speaker 2: But with this it's like no, like the small business
Speaker 2: tyrant is right there in your face all the time,
Speaker 2: and all of the weird petty shit that they want
Speaker 2: to do, and all of this sort of like you know,
Speaker 2: and I would say, this isn't just just like a
Speaker 2: unique thing of like small business owners. Like people in
Speaker 2: all positions, like in all portions of of like the
Speaker 2: class society have in them kind of like the capacity
Speaker 2: for cruelty. And there's just people like that, but they
Speaker 2: don't normally have the ability to just do it to
Speaker 2: you directly in your face. And that's yeah, and that's
Speaker 2: like that's you know, this is what you've been talking about,
Speaker 2: is like, yeah, you have like these small business tyrants
Speaker 2: like every Suddenly in the same way that's like I
Speaker 2: don't know, you're dealing with like like one of the
Speaker 2: random King Louis and you're like in the court and
Speaker 2: suddenly just like the fact that this guy doesn't like
Speaker 2: people going to the bathroom means that everyone around him
Speaker 2: doesn't get it, doesn't get she doesn't get a shit, right,
Speaker 2: Like it's just like, yeah, it's weird.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no exactly.
Speaker 4: It's like it's actually an argument that she's deployed in
Speaker 4: her Reddit correspondence, which has been simmingly a pretty active
Speaker 4: of part of her spare.
Speaker 3: Time that she's not spending at the bargaining table with us.
Speaker 4: You know, made this comparison of like, this isn't a
Speaker 4: question about.
Speaker 3: Oligarchs or whatever.
Speaker 4: And it's true, like the small businessman is not an oligarch,
Speaker 4: but the small business is a microcosm of like the
Speaker 4: larger capitalist social order. And while the small business man
Speaker 4: might not have the scope of power of the oligarch,
Speaker 4: or like the actual capital resources of an oligarch, the
Speaker 4: behavior certainly rhymes yea yeah.
Speaker 2: And again it's like it's a lot of it is about.
Speaker 2: It's just how much power you have access to, right, Like,
Speaker 2: lots of people can be like this, but only the few,
Speaker 2: the proud of the small business type get to do it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, totally.
Speaker 4: And you know, ultimately the employer or wherever they are,
Speaker 4: they're in this privileged position of being a to Yeah.
Speaker 4: You spend most people more than like a third of
Speaker 4: your life at work. Yeah, the employer has this unique
Speaker 4: power to dictate what that third of your life looks like.
Speaker 4: You know, yeah, we talk about I mean, shit, we don't.
Speaker 4: People are not so much talking about democracy writ large
Speaker 4: in the US in the same way now that they
Speaker 4: used to. But you know, you talk about this idea
Speaker 4: of like living in a democracy, but democracy ends at
Speaker 4: the shop door.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, And like the kind of power that these
Speaker 2: people have is something that like these people get to
Speaker 2: control when you can go to the bathroom, like what
Speaker 2: clothes you where, like literally what you can do, what
Speaker 2: you can say at any given time. If you employed
Speaker 2: the exact level of control that your boss has over
Speaker 2: you on a state, it would be a totalitarian state.
Speaker 2: And yet everyone seems to think that this is sort
Speaker 2: of like you know, and this is an nugument I've
Speaker 2: been making about like Trump is that like yeah, this
Speaker 2: is this is this is what sort of Trump and
Speaker 2: Elon and like that whole Caudra and and you know,
Speaker 2: and Beck if you want to go into the sort
Speaker 2: of idealogues behind it too. This is what people like
Speaker 2: Peter Thiel want when when they say run the government
Speaker 2: like a business, what they mean is that they want
Speaker 2: to like to import the sort of like just the
Speaker 2: pure tyranny of the workplace and expand it into the
Speaker 2: entire political system so that they're they're like sort of
Speaker 2: just pure like totalitarian corporate rule can't be challenged.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I mean, wasn't it Miscellani who coined the
Speaker 4: term the corporate state?
Speaker 2: Probably, although it would not surprise me if it was
Speaker 2: like some other fascist theorists and Wessolini just started saying
Speaker 2: it because yeah, but yeah, like that's you know, that's
Speaker 2: a substantive thing here. And what this also means is
Speaker 2: that like, even in ways that are sort of hard
Speaker 2: to see, like a fight over democracy in the workplace, right,
Speaker 2: is a is a part of the larger struggle against
Speaker 2: all of all the things that's happening. Because if you know,
Speaker 2: if we're going to survive this, and if we're going
Speaker 2: to make sure that we don't all live in a
Speaker 2: world where you like, if you say the wrong thing,
Speaker 2: you can be sent to a prison camp. Democracy, if
Speaker 2: you want this to survive, is going to have to
Speaker 2: march into like into the layer of the beast. It
Speaker 2: is going to have to go into the source of
Speaker 2: this tyranny itself, which is the workplace, and it's going
Speaker 2: to have to crush it there.
Speaker 3: Mm hmm.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I mean you said it very very aptly there,
Speaker 4: Like the corporate structure maras the totalitarian structure. And you know,
Speaker 4: not only does like fighting the corporate structure at the
Speaker 4: level of labor makes sense in that right, labor is
Speaker 4: what enables the flow of capital that sustains the totalitarian state.
Speaker 4: But also, like you said, you're you're you're addressing the
Speaker 4: structure in its I don't know, I almost think of
Speaker 4: it as like the you know, like Grendel's mother in
Speaker 4: the then or whatever, and like, like, you know, the
Speaker 4: the authoritarian thing is like it's like Grendel maybe, and
Speaker 4: like Grendel's mother is like this capitalist, hierarchical structure. Yeah,
Speaker 4: you know, you take it on with an insistence on
Speaker 4: workplace democracy as kind of libby as that's that sounds.
Speaker 2: Okay, speaking speaking speaking of capitalist will tellitariotism. Here are
Speaker 2: the ads that we are required to run by our.
Speaker 3: Let's hear them, and we are back.
Speaker 2: So let's get back a little bit towards the more
Speaker 2: concrete parts of the union, though, I do you have
Speaker 2: more to say eventually at some point about the way
Speaker 2: that sort of labor liberalism co opted democracy in the
Speaker 2: workplace from like you know, the idea the old sort
Speaker 2: of like anarchist idea of workers control right. But Okay,
Speaker 2: So one thing I wanted to talk about before we
Speaker 2: sort of get into the more formal stuff about about
Speaker 2: the strike is I was I'm really interested to hear
Speaker 2: you talk about what the process of kind of onboarding
Speaker 2: you to get more involved in the union is, because
Speaker 2: this is something that like, Okay, every functional union wants
Speaker 2: to do this, Like if your union is not trying
Speaker 2: to bring people like its members like more to get
Speaker 2: more involved in the union and become more of the
Speaker 2: people becoming like core organizers and becoming you know, like
Speaker 2: they're the people who are doing your bargaining people are
Speaker 2: doing anything like your union is, there's weird shit about it,
Speaker 2: and you should probably like be looking into that, but
Speaker 2: it's pretty hard. So yeah, can can you talk a
Speaker 2: bit about the process of like how you were brought
Speaker 2: in and what sort of worked and what didn't.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 4: I think ultimately, like the easiest thing is a sort
Speaker 4: of ramping up degree of like responsibility within the organization. Right, So,
Speaker 4: like at the start.
Speaker 3: I would come to some of the meetings, I would
Speaker 3: miss some of them.
Speaker 4: I would be like, Oh, I'm fucking so busy with
Speaker 4: whatever is going on in my life, and you know,
Speaker 4: I was supportive and sort of involved, but you know,
Speaker 4: I wasn't like, I mean, I stain wasn't doing things
Speaker 4: like this. And you know, eventually one we like kind
Speaker 4: of persisted as a union over a longer period of time,
Speaker 4: the necessity of involvement became more like obvious to me, right,
Speaker 4: And that's that's a hard ask, you know, Like you're organizing,
Speaker 4: you want momentum and you want yeah, you want to
Speaker 4: be able to change your conditions for the better as
Speaker 4: soon as possible.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And with.
Speaker 4: URBANIR, you know, lots of workplaces that need unionization have
Speaker 4: high turnover, right, and urbanor is no different. And so
Speaker 4: I saw, you know, like some of the more committed
Speaker 4: elements of the bargaining unit.
Speaker 3: Be fired or quit or whatever.
Speaker 4: And you know they'd be replaced with other people and
Speaker 4: you have to begin to work organizing over again. And
Speaker 4: with some of them you succeed with something that you don't,
Speaker 4: you know, you have different dynamics. I feel like the
Speaker 4: hiring procedures may have changed a little bit afteryone our election,
Speaker 4: but you know, I can't say that for certain. So
Speaker 4: the sort of like necessity of like keeping that like
Speaker 4: flame going, especially after we had won the election, we
Speaker 4: were in contract bargain for a long period of time.
Speaker 4: Made me feel like a sort of sense of like
Speaker 4: I need to be more active in this because like
Speaker 4: this is an important struggle, and like I see our
Speaker 4: like main organizers taking on like a fuckload of work
Speaker 4: and like needing more voices at the table, needing more
Speaker 4: more uh, needing more people to be more involved. And
Speaker 4: so like I, you know, volunteered to run for treasure.
Speaker 3: That was the only candidate. Yeah, but theoretically I could
Speaker 3: have been voted down.
Speaker 4: They could have been like I don't know about thatszer,
Speaker 4: and you know, like ended up having like a little
Speaker 4: bit more direct responsibilities, Like I was like receiving some
Speaker 4: of the donations to our strike fund once we started
Speaker 4: fund raising for the strike, and to keep track of
Speaker 4: those and you know, put the special bank account and
Speaker 4: then eventually take that money, get it to like the
Speaker 4: the IWW branch, uh hand it hand a big check
Speaker 4: to Dino, that kind of stuff, and just like having
Speaker 4: like little things to be doing, like yeah, spurs involved
Speaker 4: other people, you know, became responsible for like parts of
Speaker 4: social media outreach, make graphics stuff like that, and also
Speaker 4: like sort of I guess, giving people the opportunity to
Speaker 4: leverage their individual connections within the work because every workplace
Speaker 4: is like clicks and groups and subgroups and all that,
Speaker 4: to leverage those connections in like service of bettering everyone's conditions.
Speaker 4: So like to a certain degree, I've I've been like
Speaker 4: important as like an envoid to my particular department because
Speaker 4: it's our job takes us away from the job site
Speaker 4: or like from like the main the main work site
Speaker 4: often and stuff like that, so there's less of a
Speaker 4: direct avenue for communication there. So I can say that's
Speaker 4: my experience. Yeah, as far as organizing goes, like, I'm easy.
Speaker 4: You know, I was already I was already believing in it,
Speaker 4: and like there are others that it have that it's
Speaker 4: been harder. I will say though, that the strike itself
Speaker 4: is I mean, a strike is a conflict, and when
Speaker 4: you're in conflict together, it's an extremely cohering force. Which
Speaker 4: isn't to say that like necessarily you want your unionization
Speaker 4: to come to a strike, but perhaps like raising a
Speaker 4: sort of consciousness of like the fact that like you
Speaker 4: are ultimately like in conflict with the boss. The boss
Speaker 4: doesn't want you to unionize. The boss doesn't want you
Speaker 4: to force concessions out of them, and that like, as
Speaker 4: a union, we are taking on this like responsibility to
Speaker 4: look after each other's interests and to support each other
Speaker 4: like tangibly in terms like what we do, and also
Speaker 4: intangibly in terms of like the kind of conversations we
Speaker 4: have around like morale planning and stuff like that, you know,
Speaker 4: to succeed together. I think those are like really potent
Speaker 4: cohering forces. And you know, it helps to have a
Speaker 4: good a good opponent. You know, the boss is the
Speaker 4: best organizer. And at urban or it's you don't go
Speaker 4: along without coming head to head with like the with
Speaker 4: with conflict with ownership or with like ownership through the
Speaker 4: mediator of management. Like although like support for the union
Speaker 4: might be divided a bit at the workplace, one thing
Speaker 4: that's pretty universal is like a frustration with ownership.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so okay, speaking of speaking of a frustration with ownership,
Speaker 2: it is time for us to go to ads one
Speaker 2: last time.
Speaker 3: That beautiful but then ever.
Speaker 2: Come back, strike strike, strike.
Speaker 3: Strike, strikes, strike.
Speaker 5: Just after this message, okay, we are back from a
Speaker 5: bunch of people who almost assuredly do not want you
Speaker 5: to go on strike.
Speaker 2: But yeah, so let's let's let's let's get into the
Speaker 2: process of how you actually organize a strike. Yeah, let's
Speaker 2: start from just like the very beginning, one of the
Speaker 2: kinds of things that were happening that you know, made
Speaker 2: people think that you needed to do this in the
Speaker 2: first place.
Speaker 4: So the strike itself is a result specifically, like, this
Speaker 4: is a ULP strike, So it's in response to something
Speaker 4: that falls under the category of unfairly or practice according
Speaker 4: to the National Labor Relations Act, And it's you know,
Speaker 4: backed up by charges filed with the board, as opposed
Speaker 4: to like what's called an economic strike, which is a
Speaker 4: strike that is specifically about economic issues at the workplace.
Speaker 4: So the specific ULP that's being cited for our strike
Speaker 4: is bad faith bargaining. And for us, what that's looked
Speaker 4: like is two years of completely stalled negotiations where we
Speaker 4: are basically being faced with a take it or leave
Speaker 4: it offer of the status quo in the vast majority
Speaker 4: of our proposals. Bargaining is very, very slow, and ownership
Speaker 4: has held tightly to the to the offense at us
Speaker 4: having unionized it all, which to my understanding is pretty
Speaker 4: typical of small workplaces. Ownership takes it very personally, and
Speaker 4: that personal feeling of the trail or whatever becomes like
Speaker 4: a stumbling block in the negotiation process. I know that
Speaker 4: was the case with mos Another's bookshop in Berkeley that
Speaker 4: also unionized with the AWW. So, you know, we've had
Speaker 4: our whole proposal on ownership's table for a.
Speaker 3: Year and a half now.
Speaker 4: We had started with a bargaining proposal by proposal. They said, well,
Speaker 4: how can we possibly agree to any of this without
Speaker 4: understanding the full context, especially the economic context, And so
Speaker 4: we gave them a full proposal and they said, oh
Speaker 4: my god, how do you expect us to read all
Speaker 4: of this in time to bargain? This is way too much.
Speaker 4: How we're going to.
Speaker 3: Evaluate this all? We got to do a proposal by proposal.
Speaker 4: So it's been really unclear to us if ownership has
Speaker 4: even actually like read the entirety of our collective bargaining
Speaker 4: agreement that we put on their desk. I know that
Speaker 4: in the past the lawyers have the lawyers have said
Speaker 4: things like, oh, my, my eyes glazed over when I
Speaker 4: read your email, so I missed such and such part
Speaker 4: of it.
Speaker 2: It's literally your job contract. You have one job.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you would think like a lawyer would have like
Speaker 4: a little bit more like Jesus beyond like a tweet
Speaker 4: tweet sized reading capacity.
Speaker 2: But well they give any one law degrees.
Speaker 4: Yeah, or like ownership saying like well, I just thought
Speaker 4: it was so ridiculous. I didn't feel they need to
Speaker 4: read all of it stuff like that. Oh my god,
Speaker 4: does these readers bad faith bargaining?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's bad by like the standards of like normal,
Speaker 2: it takes two years to do a fucking contract because
Speaker 2: they're just not doing shit, and like, good lord, usually.
Speaker 4: In those long contract negotiations, by two years at least
Speaker 4: there's like been some progress.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, well that they've read the proposals, Like yes, okay,
Speaker 2: will will will your boss show up to your meeting
Speaker 2: an hour and a half late because they didn't bother
Speaker 2: to look through the proposals until literally right at the
Speaker 2: time the meeting was going to start. Yes, but will
Speaker 2: they have done it?
Speaker 3: Usually yes, mm hmm yeah.
Speaker 4: And in fact, in the sort of company propaganda where
Speaker 4: they're claiming that this like bad faith bargaining charge has
Speaker 4: no grounds, they're like ownership has come to like twenty
Speaker 4: five to thirty bargaining sessions neglecting to mention they're been
Speaker 4: somewhere in the range of like fifty to sixty.
Speaker 3: And of course half maybe they've shown up to more
Speaker 3: than half. I don't want to be.
Speaker 2: Libelous, but yeah, but still, like it's at the point
Speaker 2: of which you are failing to show up for any
Speaker 2: bargaining session, I think you can like, look, I have
Speaker 2: always advocated that if that advantagement doesn't show up to
Speaker 2: a bargaining session, you should just be allowed to take
Speaker 2: the company, because clearly they're not serious about it.
Speaker 4: But hey, you know, they've been talking about a worker
Speaker 4: cup for twenty years.
Speaker 2: Not performost reforms.
Speaker 3: But yeah, so those kind of things.
Speaker 4: And then like finally, like one of the bigger precipitating
Speaker 4: factors is, like we've been trying to bargain over economics,
Speaker 4: ownership has implied a lot of times that they cannot
Speaker 4: afford to pay what we're asking. They say it'll ruin
Speaker 4: the company, they say a company will go bankrupt, or
Speaker 4: they say it's unsustained, they say this and that, and
Speaker 4: then when they get to the table they say, we
Speaker 4: have never and we'll never argue inability to pay. Because
Speaker 4: the thing is is that to say inability to pay right,
Speaker 4: it obligates you to furnish information to prove that, and they,
Speaker 4: for whatever reason do not want.
Speaker 3: Wow, I wonder why British financial information.
Speaker 4: So these have been some of the sticking points, and
Speaker 4: that's why we've been out on the picky line for
Speaker 4: about three weeks now, still waiting for them to come
Speaker 4: to the table.
Speaker 3: God damn it.
Speaker 2: So okay, let's let's talk about like the just sort
Speaker 2: of the process of like how the discussions went for
Speaker 2: doing this, What did those sort of look like, and
Speaker 2: how did how did you sort of you know, just
Speaker 2: like plant plan this thing out?
Speaker 4: Well, I guess the process towards like deciding that I
Speaker 4: needed to come to a strike was like you know
Speaker 4: that that is a sort of thing that builds over
Speaker 4: a long period of time. You know, you see the
Speaker 4: ownership doing bad faith pargning. You go, what more conciliatory
Speaker 4: approaches can we take first? You know, can we try this,
Speaker 4: Can we try offering this to make you know, can
Speaker 4: we try this display of good faith? Can we offer
Speaker 4: this compromise? One of the things that was a big
Speaker 4: part was of some of the not exactly contract related discussions,
Speaker 4: but like has been talking for a long time about
Speaker 4: a co op transition that it's never happened. It's been
Speaker 4: twenty years, and you know, now that we've unionized, they're
Speaker 4: like our people who we were talking to about doing
Speaker 4: the co op thing. They don't work with unions and
Speaker 4: so the only way that they were going to be
Speaker 4: a co op is if the union goes away. And
Speaker 4: so in response to that, we said, well, we're totally
Speaker 4: opened to a transition to a co op that involves
Speaker 4: the union, and here is such and such organization.
Speaker 3: It was our lead negotiator who actually provide the information.
Speaker 4: Some er the name of the organization, but you know,
Speaker 4: here's such and such organization that actually specifically deals with
Speaker 4: union co op workplace transitions. Was not received with interest.
Speaker 4: So it's like massive catalogue of bad faith bargaining and
Speaker 4: you end up in your strategy discussions with the whole
Speaker 4: unit testing the wires of like when is too much?
Speaker 4: What's our red line that we need to take more
Speaker 4: direct action? And what that began with for us was first, well,
Speaker 4: if we're going to have if we're gonna have a strike,
Speaker 4: we need funds for it. The IWW is an organization
Speaker 4: that affords its unions a lot of freedom and a
Speaker 4: lot of mutual support and solidarity. Is not an organization
Speaker 4: with a huge amount of money. And so we did
Speaker 4: start with trying to get like a sense of like
Speaker 4: what we could get from, you know, the branches reserve,
Speaker 4: and we moved on from that to how we were
Speaker 4: going to fundraise and stuff like that. So we held
Speaker 4: informational pickets that had donations, we sold sure posters, stuff
Speaker 4: like that. We held like a big strike fundraiser, I
Speaker 4: think something around like a month in advance of our
Speaker 4: or it was maybe like a month and a half
Speaker 4: in advance of our of our strike. We also gave
Speaker 4: management like a courtesy notice about this so they could
Speaker 4: pass it on to ownership, saying, hey, we've started fundraising
Speaker 4: for a strike in the hopes that like being aware
Speaker 4: that we're taking active preparations to go on strike would
Speaker 4: facilitate bargaining.
Speaker 2: Sometimes it works, I've seen I've seen it before. I've
Speaker 2: seen it before.
Speaker 4: Sometimes it works, yeah, and sometimes you know, sometimes you
Speaker 4: end up on a podcast talking about how.
Speaker 3: It didn't know.
Speaker 2: You never know until you try it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you never know. But we did.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we did give them that sort of early warning
Speaker 4: and our readiness to strike kind of like depended then
Speaker 4: on like where we were at in the fundraisings. So
Speaker 4: we continue to sort of listening donations, reaching out to
Speaker 4: various organizations in the area that are, you know, pro labor.
Speaker 4: You know, we talked to like DSA whenever because you know,
Speaker 4: they have their like a workplace organizing committee, yeah you walk, yeah,
Speaker 4: and various other you know, yeah organizations that are pro labor.
Speaker 4: And once we got to a point where you felt
Speaker 4: like we were reasonably like prepared to sustain, they open
Speaker 4: end to strike because that's what we're doing. This is
Speaker 4: a strike with no set end date. Then we announced
Speaker 4: our intention to hold a strike vote. We held our
Speaker 4: strike vote. Strike vote passes. The ownership was made aware
Speaker 4: at the Barney session before the strike vote, so it
Speaker 4: was like the Monday before the strike vote, which is
Speaker 4: on I think like a Saturday. So in total, it
Speaker 4: was like around maybe like two weeks in change that
Speaker 4: they knew like death it possibility past the strike vote.
Speaker 4: Twelve days later, the strike begins with unfortunately no bargaining
Speaker 4: in between.
Speaker 3: Good lord, yeah, the whole way. You hope that they'll
Speaker 3: come to the table. You hope that they.
Speaker 2: Will come to their senses.
Speaker 4: Yeah, take it, take the risks seriously, take the risk seriously,
Speaker 4: and unfortunately this is not what's happened here. Yeah, and
Speaker 4: I think part of that is maybe an age thing here.
Speaker 4: Ownership is is in their eighties, and they've pretty consistently
Speaker 4: held the view that, like the union is like a
Speaker 4: bunch of young people who don't know what the hell
Speaker 4: they're talking about, you know, even though like the age
Speaker 4: range of our union spans the age range of the workplace.
Speaker 3: We've got people in their.
Speaker 4: Fifties and forties and thirties and twenties, you know, which
Speaker 4: is a which is of course the problematic group. But yeah,
Speaker 4: the young radicals. Yeah, so there's there's bad this sort
Speaker 4: of patronizing attitude that I think has resulted in like
Speaker 4: a real strategic failure on their part to seriously prepare
Speaker 4: for the strike.
Speaker 3: Or you know, bargain to avoid it. Yeah.
Speaker 2: One more fundraising things that I just I just want
Speaker 2: to mention this for people if if you're trying to
Speaker 2: fundraise for your own thing. Something that's actually we've had
Speaker 2: a lot of success with up in Portland is getting
Speaker 2: bands to do benefit shows. So like because it's Portland, right, Like,
Speaker 2: the local hardcore scene has a lot of bands that
Speaker 2: you know, are just supportive of stuff. And we've we've
Speaker 2: do done this for a whole bunch of different causes,
Speaker 2: and this is this this this can also be a
Speaker 2: good way to just sort of do fundraising things that
Speaker 2: are fun and also raise morale because yeah, you're doing
Speaker 2: the show.
Speaker 4: Yeah I was. I was hoping to have that be
Speaker 4: more of a thing with our fundraiser.
Speaker 2: But yeah, it can be hard to organize sometimes.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the people I knew were didn't get quite their response.
Speaker 4: I was hoping from the community.
Speaker 2: If you are a hardcore band, if you are abandoned,
Speaker 2: click there's still time.
Speaker 3: I believe that is that is totally a good option.
Speaker 3: What we did, we ended up doing that.
Speaker 4: There wasn't music, But it's also like, why have our
Speaker 4: organizers is really cooking? You like, did like a barbecue thing, Yeah,
Speaker 4: sold food stuff like that and had a raffle.
Speaker 3: A raffle is a great way to fundraise for us.
Speaker 4: We like raffled off like stuff we have, But honestly,
Speaker 4: you can even do like a straight monetary raffle is
Speaker 4: still a great fundraising tool.
Speaker 3: You know, where everyone puts in money.
Speaker 4: The winner, the top three winners or whatever get like
Speaker 4: a certain percentage like the total pool, and the rest
Speaker 4: of the pool is is a to the cause. It's
Speaker 4: really simple, really effective.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a reason it's not good, but there is
Speaker 2: a reason why a whole bunch of state education budgets
Speaker 2: are footed are flooded by the lattery. It does work,
Speaker 2: and where.
Speaker 3: Where people love to gamble much better.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he says, having turned off her lunch her path
Speaker 2: of exile to lunch break to come to this interview
Speaker 2: such cases. Okay, so let's speaking of I guess this
Speaker 2: is something that has been tied in to sort of
Speaker 2: volve over and saying here, but yeah, let's talk about,
Speaker 2: you know, sort of maintaining the strike when it starts
Speaker 2: to sort of Yeah, what have been the processes of
Speaker 2: like keeping morale up and keeping people engaged?
Speaker 4: And yeah, yeah, I mean definitely, when you go into
Speaker 4: a strike, you want to go in with a militant
Speaker 4: core group. You want to basically be sure that everyone
Speaker 4: is committed to holding the line until a collective decision
Speaker 4: is made. Otherwise you don't want people like peeling off.
Speaker 4: That's really bad pr for your strike. Yeah, yeah, and
Speaker 4: like the bosses will grab on that. So like, for instance,
Speaker 4: like you know, we have some people who are respecting
Speaker 4: our picket line but chose not to picket with us,
Speaker 4: which is fine as far as I'm concerned. But the
Speaker 4: issue with that pr wise is that now the bosses
Speaker 4: are saying and they're like tallying up of who's working
Speaker 4: and who's not working. They're counting them as working. You know,
Speaker 4: they're like, oh, it's only whatever they've been saying eight people.
Speaker 4: I think it's more nine or ten. We're on the
Speaker 4: picket line, but the rest is the rest of the
Speaker 4: employees are working. They count themselves as employees in that count,
Speaker 4: of course, and they count these these people who are
Speaker 4: not crossing the picket line but not on it also
Speaker 4: as among that count of the rest of the employees
Speaker 4: that are working. What And they've had the opportunity to
Speaker 4: really inflate that count because in a sort of you
Speaker 4: know classic move, really all the moves are classic. You know,
Speaker 4: you read your organizing books and you're like, can it
Speaker 4: happen here?
Speaker 3: It does?
Speaker 4: So like we got a lot of new assistant managers
Speaker 4: after we want our election, so right now, like the
Speaker 4: composition of the workplace, right, got thirty four people fifteen managers.
Speaker 2: I really wonder when we're going to see the day
Speaker 2: where you have companies that have six like non managers
Speaker 2: and fifty five managers. Like I feel like we're not
Speaker 2: that far out.
Speaker 4: Well, we're leading the charge here. We have a department
Speaker 4: that's two people a manager and assistant managers.
Speaker 3: Manager.
Speaker 4: God, So yeah, you know they're they're they've had these
Speaker 4: particular angles to you know, sort of do their propaganda from.
Speaker 3: And I mean, honestly, I think.
Speaker 4: A big part of again the boss is the best organizer,
Speaker 4: and like a thing that keeps you committed on the
Speaker 4: line is like reading all this bullshit they say about
Speaker 4: you and knowing otherwise and being.
Speaker 3: Able to talk to each other and be like have
Speaker 3: you seen this? Isn't this crazy? Like what the hell? Yeah?
Speaker 4: Also, you know, is this is where the sort of
Speaker 4: like see of organizing all the way that you start
Speaker 4: all the way back at the beginning of your union
Speaker 4: campaign become you know, you show themselves is like really
Speaker 4: important again because like the start, right anyone will tell
Speaker 4: you is it's like getting to know people, like being
Speaker 4: like you know, being on like a hey, how's it
Speaker 4: going kind of level, you know, and having like a
Speaker 4: personal rapport with the people you're on the line with
Speaker 4: is vital just in the sense that you know, obviously
Speaker 4: like you know each other, you're sort of friends, You're
Speaker 4: going to be more.
Speaker 3: Likely to stick up for each other.
Speaker 4: But also like you're out there nine hours walking in
Speaker 4: a circle with these people, Yeah, you know, you got
Speaker 4: to you gotta have positive, strong relationships with them. You
Speaker 4: want to be able to have the kind of rapport
Speaker 4: where like you can talk to people about like what
Speaker 4: they're feeling anxious about, you know, like where they're worried
Speaker 4: and like the strike strategy. Like you know, you need
Speaker 4: to have that like trust between each other that you
Speaker 4: can have like an open dialogue about how it feels
Speaker 4: to be on the picket line, because you're not going
Speaker 4: to maintain if ever, if like everyone feels.
Speaker 3: Like they've got things they got a hold in about it.
Speaker 4: Like yeah, there's a room to be like shit, like
Speaker 4: are they going to close the business?
Speaker 3: Like and what are we going to do?
Speaker 4: And like sort of like talk through that from a
Speaker 4: from a place beyond like you know, like what you're not.
Speaker 3: Letting in speaking to a crowd of a million people
Speaker 3: or whatever.
Speaker 4: You're just like two people, yeah, going through a stressful
Speaker 4: experience together.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, and you have to actually grapple with that
Speaker 2: in a way. That's not the sort of like weird
Speaker 2: corporate like we had to improve morale things, like that's
Speaker 2: not what that means. It means, like you know, it
Speaker 2: means actually grappling and engaging with people's feelings and how
Speaker 2: and what they need in a moment and yeah, and
Speaker 2: their fears and their concerns and yeah, you can't just
Speaker 2: sort of brush them aside. You have to actually grapple
Speaker 2: with it, because that's that's that's what.
Speaker 4: Doing this stuff means, Yeah, exactly, having like these authentic
Speaker 4: conversations with people because like like yeah, that's like a
Speaker 4: totally great point you bring up there, Like the HR
Speaker 4: speak that's the boss's tool, and it's the bosses tool
Speaker 4: to divide and create disunity. So you can't lean on
Speaker 4: that model for morale within your union. It just creates distrust.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I mean I've seen that happen with unions
Speaker 2: where it's like you guys did not do a good
Speaker 2: job of like talking to people about this, and like yeah,
Speaker 2: and it can be really disruptive to attempts to do this.
Speaker 2: But on the other hand, if if you do it well,
Speaker 2: it's like it's the most powerful single thing that you
Speaker 2: can like possibly do, like forging relationships that are based
Speaker 2: on like the actual experience of having gone through struggle
Speaker 2: together and having had to like literally had to face
Speaker 2: your fields out of the picket line.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Like ideally, you know, the union is a is
Speaker 4: a community, and it's a community of interest, right, It's
Speaker 4: a community of work interest, but it is ideally a community.
Speaker 4: It's not a family, right, And it's certainly not not
Speaker 4: not a family in the way that the bosses will
Speaker 4: tell you the workplace is. But it is a community,
Speaker 4: and it's a community in the way that that an employer's.
Speaker 3: Idea of a community is fundamentally like incompatible with.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's this this Piki Ostro wallet line that I
Speaker 2: think about a lot from her book and defensive fluting,
Speaker 2: where she talks about how I feel like it was
Speaker 2: Ferguson that this is about like the police chiefs talking
Speaker 2: about the damage of the community, and they keep saying
Speaker 2: our Walmart. It's like going into a Walmart and buying
Speaker 2: something is not a community, right, like you know, they
Speaker 2: like that, like those those kind of relations are not
Speaker 2: actual community relations. But when the boss talk about community,
Speaker 2: that's what they mean. They mean like like our collective
Speaker 2: community Walmart. They mean preserving the relation of extraction that
Speaker 2: they have. Yeah, and we are, you know, using the
Speaker 2: same word and reading something literally so radically different than.
Speaker 4: That, and you have to make sure and you're in
Speaker 4: the way that you're acting that that radically different meaning
Speaker 4: is clear. Yeah, and yeah, it's funny you bring that up,
Speaker 4: because that's just bringing to mind, like you see the
Speaker 4: difference in those attitudes, like when you're out there on
Speaker 4: the picket line like interact because you know, our picket
Speaker 4: line a really pivotal part of it because there are
Speaker 4: so many managers in there that they're able to maintain
Speaker 4: this like Skeleton Crew is. The community outreach part is
Speaker 4: like talking to every single person who's coming up and
Speaker 4: being like, Hey, how's it going that I've been on
Speaker 4: strike such and such long, this is what's up. Please
Speaker 4: don't cass our picket line.
Speaker 3: And you know, I've.
Speaker 4: Noticed you get this real funny situation where there are
Speaker 4: the people who are like I've shopped.
Speaker 3: Here for twenty years. You don't know what the hell
Speaker 3: you're talking about.
Speaker 4: I don't know you and have to be like, well
Speaker 4: I normally at the dump, get in the merchandise you're buying.
Speaker 4: But and who attribute the entire attribute everything that they
Speaker 4: like about the business to the bosses. And then there's
Speaker 4: the other part of the community that is coming by
Speaker 4: frequently and like hanging out with us on on on
Speaker 4: the picket line, you know, I pet the dog and
Speaker 4: we chat about what's going on.
Speaker 3: They're like, how's the strike going.
Speaker 4: They're like, you know, I know it's been rough on
Speaker 4: you guys for such and such, and like these people
Speaker 4: are are are our shoppers too?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 4: But they like yeah, they it highlights that like sort
Speaker 4: of divide in like what you think of it as like
Speaker 4: community and responsibility your community because like these people also
Speaker 4: love urbanor come here all the time, but they recognize
Speaker 4: that like it's the workers that urban or that create
Speaker 4: it every day, you know. Yeah, And it is a
Speaker 4: company that was like founded by the individual. The individual
Speaker 4: still owns it. He did found it with his with
Speaker 4: his labor and all that he did. The labor you know,
Speaker 4: back when it was you know, only a few people
Speaker 4: and stuff like that. But ultimately a business, like any
Speaker 4: sort of social phenomenon, has to be constantly recreated in
Speaker 4: order to exist.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, and like the people.
Speaker 4: Who do the work that makes it more than just
Speaker 4: like a room full of garbage r us And yeah,
Speaker 4: a lot of a lot of the like regulars recognize that,
Speaker 4: and a lot of them, you know, flip me off
Speaker 4: as they cross the thick line whatever.
Speaker 2: And I think this is a good place to sort
Speaker 2: of start coming to a close on this is a
Speaker 2: fundamental question about what the nature of our society is
Speaker 2: going to be, right, Like, is the fundament mental nature
Speaker 2: of our society that a community is a bunch of
Speaker 2: people who buy things and a bunch of people who
Speaker 2: make money from you buying things, and you make money
Speaker 2: from the labor that you do, right, and then take
Speaker 2: credit for the labor, and take credit with financially for
Speaker 2: the labor and in public for the labor. Right is
Speaker 2: that going? Is our society going to just be a
Speaker 2: bunch of pure commercial relations where a bunch of people
Speaker 2: get very very rich off the labor of everyone else
Speaker 2: in the society and get to rule the mess sort
Speaker 2: of like these petty tyrant kings. Or is it going
Speaker 2: to be a society where the people who produce the
Speaker 2: society control it, right, and that society is a democratic society,
Speaker 2: is an egalitarian society, is a society where people are
Speaker 2: free to do the things that they need to do,
Speaker 2: and people are free to you know, have a life
Speaker 2: where they can fucking pay for their groceries right where
Speaker 2: like you know, where where they're where they're not forced
Speaker 2: to go to the market for all of the things
Speaker 2: that they need to live. Where you can survive in
Speaker 2: a way that doesn't involve like subjecting yourself to just
Speaker 2: a tyrant for like a third of your life.
Speaker 4: Yeah, where like the place that you spend like a
Speaker 4: third of your life is a place where you actually
Speaker 4: have like dignity.
Speaker 2: Dignity and freedom and where you know, where you don't
Speaker 2: have to go home at the end of a day
Speaker 2: of making your boss money worrying about whether you're going
Speaker 2: to be able to eat or not. And it's and
Speaker 2: that's also a society that does not involve again at
Speaker 2: the very highest level, like you're getting thrown into prison
Speaker 2: camps because God hates you, and we can do this.
Speaker 2: We could live with that society.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the demands are not that crazy. And that's like
Speaker 4: the thing that we've encountered over and over again, is
Speaker 4: this this constant push and pull of people saying that,
Speaker 4: like the expectation of bettering our conditions, whether it be
Speaker 4: like us on the picket line just trying to get
Speaker 4: like a stable wage and just cause employment and stuff
Speaker 4: like that, or whether it be you know, those larger
Speaker 4: societal changes that like you're talking about use butt up
Speaker 4: against these people who who have such like a paucity
Speaker 4: of imagination about what's possible. Yeah, And like about the
Speaker 4: legitimacy of trying to make something better, the legitimacy of saying, sure,
Speaker 4: I can subsist on this, but you know, there's.
Speaker 3: So much more as possible.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So I'm maintained that there's something more as possible.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think it's possible too. And that's the thing about
Speaker 2: this world, right, is that our enemies I figured out
Speaker 2: that it actually can change.
Speaker 3: That's why they have to fight so hard. Yeah.
Speaker 2: But the thing is the fact that they can change
Speaker 2: for the worse also means that they can change for
Speaker 2: the better.
Speaker 3: All beautiful stuff.
Speaker 2: Okay, where where can people find your strike fund? We'll
Speaker 2: also put it in the in the description.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, great, So it's on gofund me. I'll send
Speaker 4: you the link and it'll be down there. But also
Speaker 4: people can hit up our union Instagram it's Urban or
Speaker 4: workers with underscores between the words Urban, underscore or underscore
Speaker 4: worker that we've got the link to like strike fund.
Speaker 4: And also, hey, if you're in Berkeley, you can sign
Speaker 4: up for a picket shift and you get to enjoy
Speaker 4: listening to me discourse for nine hours instead of one.
Speaker 2: It's great, it's fun. Pickets are cool and good. If
Speaker 2: you have a bit on one, you should go on one.
Speaker 2: They're great, they're great. Yeah, it's a good time.
Speaker 1: It could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
Speaker 1: folsomedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeart
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever.
Speaker 2: You listen to podcasts.
Speaker 1: You can now find sources for It could Happen here
Speaker 1: listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening.