My lil brochure that i'm planning on handing out to my coworkers some time next week. Any advice or additions greatly appreciated! (part 2 in body)
Just a quick lil draft because i want to make this right. I also used the advice i got here to help me make it so thank you all!
Build an organizing committee first. Use a small agitation that is not about unionization to figure out who you want for the OC.
Do not let management know you are trying to unionize until at least 3 people have your back.
My coworker mama (her nickname for opsec) who is really into organizing and giving me encouragement is my supervisor though so i hope this isn’t a problem. i still trust her though and like she’s only a supervisor so I think it’s safe. I also have a real good relationship with my boss he’s really sweet and even though he’s part of the upper management team i still think he would support this because his relationship with his superiors might be strained anyway. Imagine getting my boss to join the union too 😱
Relationships with management often result in surprising "changes" when you try to unionize. Companies are top-down dictatorships. Except in extremely rare circumstances, the reaction will come from the top and filter down through management, who will need to choose between losing their job and engaging in union-busting: sharing information (perhaps naively) with their own "superiors", stalling, helping build anti-agitprop, and eventually firing organizers. Smart companies will try to leverage personal relationships to undermine the campaign, "sure they fired KatySosa, but the guy who announced it is such a nice person and they said it was for performance reasons. That guy has us over for parties and I've met his kids! He wouldn't do anything for a mean reason."
You should go into any unionization campaign expecting to be fired and for your coworkers to need to strike / do walkouts for your resinstatement. Are your coworkers ready to do that? I don't mean to discourage, the advice I'm giving is meant to increase your chance at success. You want to build up with structure tests and a committee before showing your hand or the compsny will just fire you and kill the campaign early through this intimidation.
I haven't checked but if you're the person who got active in part with PSL support I think it should be noted that they are not a known quantity in labor organizing. They might be more interested in radicalization than a successful campaign, e.g. suggesting agitprop before building a committee or a list (list building is always step 1! Always!). Or PSL mighy just be naive.
I hear you!
And yeah that was me! PSL did help me and the member for that had experience in organizing. It wasn’t really PSL backed it was just a meeting i had with the member to get any resources and help with unionizing which they did and i think ill get some info soon about which unions to join soon
That's good! And good to focus on union affiliation questions early. It will determine how much support you get during the campaign and some unions are so bad at this as to be counterproductive while others will send you a ride or die comrade.
We have a group chat so I’m thinking that I should send a message asking them if they wanna meet up and talk about it
Good idea!