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!
tbh you lost me in the first paragraph. I don't know what your co-workers are like, but it needs to be tailored to them, especially the ones that are unlikely to vote union.
and I would take this post down, edit out your name and e-mail and re-submit. It would be all too easy for someone to find your employer and e-mail them.
i don't know what your workplace is like or your coworkers, but if they're just normal americans with no familiarity or instilled antipathy toward unions/communism then i would probably pull back a bit on the class war rhetoric. i would focus almost entirely on the concrete benefits they will personally enjoy from union membership, then use that as a bridge to discuss the sociopolitical aspects once the union is implemented.
i feel like most americans will reject the medicine unless you wrap in a slice of cheese first. either way, good luck!
"No war but class war" will instantly be recognized as a leftwing phrase. At best, a few people will nod along. At worst, someone in management will realize what it is and use it to discredit you. "See? Unions are bad! They're full of communists who want to steal all your food by collecting dues! They're no better worse than nazis!" is what they'll say and people will gobble it up.
The phrase I'd use instead is "Owners/management/executives aren't your friend." You need to call out the bourgeois for what they are without using leftist terms. You can spread class consciousness by showing your coworkers how the people above call them family, but don't treat them like that. You can point out how the CEO doesn't know anybody's names and never invites them to personal events, something actual family does.
I agree with this. Giant "War on Workers" text and that framing is going to trigger the panic response in some people's brain worms. It's okay to allude to the troubles experienced by all workers and solidarity, in fact that's great, but gotta count to 1,2,3 before skipping to 100 when beginning to deworm people.
i live in a major city and a lot of my colleagues are leftists or liberal kinda like Bernie types. i think they might get excited over the idea of a union and i have mentioned it before. I just need to be able to talk to them soon
if the audience is mostly left or left leaning then you're doing fine. id still tone it down slightly, just to cast a wider net.
if you're looking for a place to start: set up a private group chat and invite a few co workers you think would be most interested and trustworthy. that would be a good place to share something like this brochure. slowly invite more people, discuss who you think would be interested, what you want out of a union, post minion memes about how your boss sucks. try to keep it mostly ephemeral and anonymous; no printed documents, no records. even if you think management isn't likely to fight you, its best to keep them locked out as much as possible until the union forms. this is the process a few of the dispensaries in vegas went through to get unionized.
I’ve read through everyone’s comments and I think i got too excited with the content and I think i should maybe lay off handing these out. I got too eager with it all and I’ll just wait till we’ve joined a union before handing anything out. I think their pamphlets will be a lot more easy to read and more inviting and have less agitating language.
PLEASE STAY EAGER!!!!
More than anything, we are all cheering for you. I'm SO hyped up about this, and I think asking here is a brilliant way to get feedback.
Know that just by talking about it here, you're helping tons of people (myself included) learn the details of how to run a union campaign. We are collectively scheming, and it's awesome that we have folks with union experience to give advice on what has and hasn't worked in the past.
Making a pamphlet to hand out is a super reasonable idea, and you're saying correct things in it. I think lots of folks would have had the idea, made the pamphlet, passed it out, and possibly ran into the problems that folks are talking about.
I LOVE that you posted about it for feedback instead - I think THAT is the decision that makes us inevitable. You can leverage the collective knowledge of the hivemind, and at the same time are teaching us.
I truly cannot express how much I hate saying what I'm about to say but I'm going to do it anyway because I was once a bright eyed service worker hoping to make the world a better place for people like me and I was crushed by the experience of it. Hopefully you can take some of what I'm saying to heart and use it to guide your efforts and not end up as burnt as I did.
First and foremost, if you do work where I think you work (since you mentioned it a couple posts ago) then you need to understand how your employer fights union efforts. Specifically the fact that they might be indifferent to shutting down a union shop. If that happens you might be able to reach a settlement in court but someone has to bankroll the lawyers for that. The legal system is not designed to help you in this regard and will not support you until you have won. The current NLRB is arguably not even on the side of workers. Even if this doesn't happen your employer will not bargain with you unless you can force them too. The government effectively cannot or will not coerce them too. The big unions will probably not be helpful. Only a large amount of their employees being willing to fight can.
This brings us to our second issue — the unions. It varies a little bit regionally but there's a reason why your industry, and large national or international service economy employers don't typically have union presence in them. It's partly because of the companies but it's also partly because of the unions. Unions rarely show solidarity across workplaces or industries. Usually they look at new organizing as an investment. The common argument unions use against "right to work" laws is that they provide a service and should be compensated for it. Whether or not this is an effective framing is a digression but suffice to say, if you ask a union to invest resources into you the return on investment will factor into their decision at least somewhat. The unions will look at where you work, a small isolated shop with few employees and little to no chance of winning a contract on your own, and will probably not invest heavily. I could be wrong. I hope I am wrong. You would probably be working with the Teamsters since you're employer is sort of their turf now (due to the opportunism of one of their locals) but UNITE-HERE also represents people in your industry. Maybe an SEIU local would take you. Workers United might opportunisticly work with you but I'd advise you steer clear of them and UFCW. A lot of unions are pretty incompetent too so beware of that.
If you have things built out already the unions will be more likely to invest. The most valuable resource you could have is a network with other locations, especially a geographically focused one. A pre-built organizing committee at your location is also valuable. If you do have either of these, do not freely hand it over to a big union. The actual valuable thing in this struggle is the allegiance of workers and their labor-power. The company is trying to win it. The big unions are trying (trying might be too generous) to win it. Neither of them is necessarily putting the interests of you and your coworkers first.
Finally, you're going to learn the apathy and nihilism of the American service worker. It's going to hurt. When I was organizing it wasn't the company trying to quash our efforts or the union that fucked us over that broke my heart, it was the apathy and downright hostility workers had to improving their own lives. I don't know how to overcome it. I have ideas that are not the orthodox "sign cards, win election, bargain contract" strategy the unions have been losing with for the last eighty years, but they're untested. The unions will tell you it's all about one on one conversations and leaders which is partly true but from a different era of organizing and nowhere near as effective as they frame it.
I hope for the sake of you and your coworkers that I'm wrong about all of this. My message here is not to discourage your organizing, but I hope can innoculate you to some of the disappointments you might face. I'm happy to elaborate on any of this or anything else labor organizing if you want. Sorry for the long post.
Please share your untested ideas!
I think the fact that most folks aren't unionized is evidence enough that the old strategies aren't working.
Personally, I think the internet seems underutilized in getting folks organized (though I might just be ignorant). Shouldn't there be an app for that?
I've been interested in three things in particular, Firstly Eric Blanc has been writing about "worker to worker organizing" which I think is a silly term and Eric Blanc still doesn't seem to really grasp what he's talking about but he's got the beginnings of a good idea which is that we need a huge mass of workers with a basic training in labor issues.
Secondly we need to move away from security agreements in union contracts. It turns out, telling regular people they have to pay union dues as a condition of employment is incredibly fucking unpopular. It's why the public sector unions have disintegrated in the wake of Janus and now Trump, because all they did was collect dues and have staff negotiate CBAs. The industrial unions also tie membership to their contract which means you can't actually join a big union unless you can get your employer to agree to a contract. I'm not sure if SBWU actually does this so they might be a poor example but if they work the way most unions work then not a single Starbucks worker is a voting member of SBWU right now. None of them pay dues to the union. Imagine that, thousands, maybe tens of thousands of Starbucks workers that want to join the Starbucks workers union and pay dues and the union says they have to wait until their boss says it's okay.
My third idea is that militant minorities are actually what drive unions. They are what have always driven unions and the labor movement has tied its hands behind its back by swearing to pacifism, following the law, and NLRB elections. If they want to fight Amazon or OPs employer or Starbucks or any of these large national publicly traded semi-financilized brands then you need to interrupt production and you can do that with militant minorities. You cannot organize enough workers to win strong majorities shop by shop and convince the employer to bargain a contract in good faith though.
It's not really in my big three but I also think UFCW has to die or be totally overhauled. It's a particularly bad union and it's stranglehold over entry level service jobs means that lots of young people join when getting a job at Kroger or a hospital or wherever and then are turned anti-union by how bad UFCW is.
Also in general we shouldn't let the AFL-CIO dominate the labor movement.
Id keep this on the downlow. Dont let managers see someone leaving one of these out. Do you have a network of fellow workers to help?
Honestly, most people aren't going to read that. I wish it were different, but most folks are going to take one look at that, say "oh, cool", think "fuckin nerd", and never actually read it. You need to send some of these words to the gulag, make it go simple, fast, and hard. Imo, you'd almost be better off trying to fit it onto a business card and handing those out (if not literally, then as an exercise). This is part of why art is such a huge part of political messaging; the brain can get a message out of a picture a thousand times faster than it can from a pamphlet. Organizers past knew this, and it's why union art and songs slapped so fuckin hard.
I think this is wise. Cut back on messaging with a link to a site for more information
Brain rot has taken hold of the culture, you need to capture people fast
I also think what another commenter said about the optics of class war is wise to consider. You have to remember you’re playing to a general audience, not a leftist space. The people you’re playing to will likely be sympathetic to the idea that the rich are fucking us all; that idea is overwhelmingly popular in America, but the terminology surrounding these ideas has been utterly poisoned in America. The moment you say “union” there will people that outright reject you even though they ultimately want what you’re selling.
You can’t escape that word without being dishonest but you can shift the language about class war a bit. Maybe language about reclaiming power, or something
It may as a result be beneficial to take a more targeted approach. Build momentum with sympathetic individuals until you reach a more critical mass
I’m going to wait to see which unions I’ll be able to join so i can just use their pamphlets instead because they would be more welcoming than my own. I think this was a little side project for me I got a bit too excited after my first meeting with PSL lol!
have to agree with this. i personally agree with everything it says, but for the intended audience, the brochure is far too text-heavy and not visual enough
Hey Katy, I agree with others about the pamphlet maybe not being the best language for the intended audience. I'd also be careful handing things out, even if you talk to workers you know have good intentions, they might lose it and leaving union stuff lying around too early will tip off management. With that said I do think having written material can be helpful as something to talk about. If there's a union in your sector try to find some one-pager that basically just shows unionized wages/benefits/rights compared to yours. If there's literally no unions for your type of job try to find some before union/after union material.
Looks good. For me, I don’t even know what I’d say to try and convince people to join a union because I can’t for the life of me understand people who are anti union unless they are one of the very few people who benefit financially from anti worker laws.
My sister (Management) said to me everyone in the union at her work is a troublemaker. I don’t particularly like my sister or management.
Management and HR get frequent "trainings" about existing unions and so even if they weren't predisposed to anti-union beliefs, they very quickly will fall in line. Management will tell them the same lies they tell workers like they can't approve raises, can't approve promotions, can't help workers etc because "the union" is "in the way". It's hard enough to convince workers they literally are the union but management has no incentive to believe that and will do everything in their power to third party the union so unaware workers get fed up. It starts with painting organizers as troublemakers.
Usually it's people who still buy the "if I work really hard to impress my boss I'll get a piece of the pie one day" stuff.
(Edit: the opposite is usually true. If you're too productive at your lower level job they won't want to promote you because it would affect the numbers that management takes credit for. Saying in my trade: "if you get promoted it's because you can't insulate but the boss likes you")
They see the union as a way for the undeserving workers to get a leg up while also removing their ability to be chosen by the boss to ascend to management
Just wanted to wish you luck!
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.
STAND - Stronger Together Accept No Defeat :D
Something I stress a lot when doing walk-arounds at my workplace is that a union, while it has all this formal structure and dues and whatnot, is ultimately you and your coworkers coming together to fight and push for things that make the work environment better. Whether that's preventing outsourcing, a higher minimum wage across the board, or pay raises for particular job classes, it's not some scary outside force fighting on your behalf, it's just you and your coworkers working together.
I'm in a pretty conservative city in a very conservative state, so you might have more luck with the more overtly "combative" language, but I've found making it very concrete and directed at the things you know your coworkers care about (i.e. what they think sucks about working there) is better received than anything with lofty political slogans or anything abstract. Politicization is incredibly important, but it's hard to get people activated politically when they don't even recognize/understand the power that they already possess. Smaller, but more attainable, wins demonstrate this power to people, and that can make it easier to politicize them further.
So I guess I'd emphasize more that you all are the union, and the union does what you all want it to. Whatever you do, best of luck, this is so cool to see! I've done a few years of union work now, so if you have any questions you can shoot me a message and I'll try to reply as best I can!
I love it, but I don't know much about organizing, so I can only offer small corrections. I know it's just a draft, but if you'd still like them:
Where one goes, we all go"
This is a rephrased Qanon saying (WWG1WGA. I would avoid it entirely. The unionist phrase is 'an injury to one is an injury to all' (and probably what the Q crowd cribbed for their version)
Oh, yes, that's much better! I didn't know about the Qanon thing, just corrected the style, but I thought, something was off about that phrase.
I think you did a great job making this but I agree with the majority of the comments here about it being too obviously leftist, too agitational, too much words in general, etc
Joining a union, for the average non politicized person, is a lot of work that can come with a lot of grief. You need to make it look easy and valuable. most people don't have the attention span to even read the first cover of a pamphlet. The other comments have described a lot of improvements so I won't reiterate them but you are doing a great thing and keep up the good work
For starters, you definitely know your coworkers better than us, so the approach you think is best is probably right.
That said, if I were to create something for my checked out coworkers at previous jobs I would have probably be a lot more direct and less wordy with the first page.
E.g., the first page would really just be - “why unionize” and then in big red text the three bullets you have - higher wages, paid sick leave, job security. And then under it, just some quick stats - union employees on average earn 18% more than non-union employees in the same field, etc.
Then on subsequent pages you can get into the nitty gritty of how the union operates, stop the war on workers, stand together, etc.
Ultimately, you want to nail them with - you will make more money with the union, and then if they check out after that, that’s all they need to know to vote in favor. Your boss might subject them to anti union presentations where he’ll say stuff like “you lose money because you have to pay union dues” or “it’s going to create a bunch of administrative paperwork and hassle for you to be in a union”
But if you can reach them first, in an easy to digest 1 sentence - union employees make more - then you will have already prophylactically guarded them against this.
Think of the CA proposition that classified gig workers as independent contractors. Gig workers were fucked by this. And yet, a large amount of them voted for it, because they had been convinced by their company’s ad campaigns and push messages that they would all be out of work if it didn’t pass. They voted based on the information they had - it was just misinformation. So too here - you need to give something extremely fast and easy to digest - more pay - front and center, and then if they don’t end up reading all the other text, so it goes, they have what they need.
Personally i think a lot of my coworkers, especially the younger ones and near my age are all fairly aware of leftism and stuff. It helps that we live in a major city so like they totally understand and I’ve been able to discuss this with a few of them. I still want to take the advice of others here and maybe lay off from putting these out for now and I’ll just wait till we know which unions will support us.
Fosho - but you do know them best, so can probably gauge what’ll work. But then again, if you have an open line of communication, you can always keep the wordier/technical bits to conversations rather than writing.
Good on you for doing this! I have no comments as I am from a different country so can't really chime in much, but just sending general appreciation your way for actually doing the things!