Thanks, and yeah, I contacted EWOC and they helped a lot, and we have been working with competent organizers in the union we are trying to join. We are pretty well prepped for the next few weeks. We’ve been inviting people to meetings for the past several months to try and talk to as many people as we could before managment says anything, and have been fairly successful, but we will be opening up to everybody soon when we file cards for an election.

We’ve been trying to be discreet because a lot of people have been targetted for reasons that look like union busting, so we didn’t want to invite reprisals on anyone. When we are public we are hoping to sway enough people to get a majority. I think we are almost at a majority of people who signed cards now, but we want to win with a stronger showing than 51%.

I was just wondering if you ran into any significant brainworms that stood out. Currently some people are treated really well, and some are treated like garbage. So we’ve run into the occasional “the leapords won’t eat MY face” type bullshit. There’s always gonna be those types of people so what can you do?

Any advice for the speaking to people on the fence before the vote?

That’s great. There is another store similar to our in my state that went with the teamsters and they are having a hell of a time for some reason. I’m not sure if management is just throwing a fit or the teamsters don’t have enough experience in those types of stores. We passed on the teamsters because the local police station is unionized through them and we didn’t want to be associated with cops.

That’s awesome! It’s crazy how difficult it can be to just do something good for people.

Thank you!

Thank you!

How has your experience been with the teamsters so far?

The Boeing corporation, well known for their honesty and forthrightness.

My medical profits!

Yeah, a wholesome progressive company. Rainbow flags everywhere. Cute character branding. And then they slash hours while we’re doing record business and make people rush through moving tons of freight on icy floors and around puddles and wet floors from improperly calibrated cooling units, and then shake their heads and tsk-tsk us when injuries pile up. “Make sure to stretch!”. I’ve worked shitty fast food places that were managed more humanely.

Hell yeah, Thank you!

We have been instructed to take notes about everything, and plan on doing that. I think our state requires consent for recording, so I’ll suggest making sure we get their refusal to be recorded on record. I’ve been punished for following their verbal instructions, and then had them plead ignorance when I stood up for myself several times at this point. They have also shown a wreckless disregard for labor laws so we want to be prepared for shenanigans.

One of our first meetings was doing list work and mapping the store. Thanks to the employee who was recently fired we are pretty far ahead, and we are citing their firing as an example of why we need a union. We are encouraging them to file a ULP, but they are a bit burnt out from all this and they were planning on quitting before the union drive started. Only hung around to help out with that, so there might not be much motivation to take action. According to the organizers we are working with, they have 6 months to file, so we’ll see. After how they’ve treated us I don’t want to show them any grace and will never trust them to behave like a decent people again.

Thank you!

It’s long overdue.

I’ve been reading news articles and researching other co-ops that unionized, and the complaints staff had are almost completely identical. Using their “locally owned, friendly co-op” marketing while the upper management abuses staff. All adopting the same worker hostile policies while upper management lines their pockets. They must be getting the same advice from the national grocery co-op or something. It’s kind of depressing what a scam these places can turn out to be.

Amazing. Do managers for these places all attend training on how to be abusive when they get hired?

It probably won’t be long until we publically announce the union.

But I thought everyone loved the Cheneys!?!?