Helloooo posting my update for yesterday but was too tired to upload so forgive me. Had the meeting and it went really really great! It was really helpful for me to talk to someone with the experience and resources to help me get where i need to be with the skills required to help me with organizing my workplace. They gave me a really nice run down on how I should go about and we both worked on a lengthy step by step process on what my next steps will be and how each outcome may or may not determine the next moves I would have to make will be.
Shutout to @curmudgeonthefrog@hexbear.net who suggested i make a list of all my employees and to add their names to a spreadsheet estimating how pro-union they are because this is exactly what the PSL member suggested i do! I’ve nearly finished working on this list because this is what i started working on immediately after the meeting. Next steps would be to start slowly discussing unions to my colleagues so i can gauge their interest in them to see where they stand and luckily i think a lot of them are in support or will be in support once I mention unionizing to them. Also thanks to @Antiwork@hexbear.net for this useful list of questions i will surely be using!
Talk about things they like about working there
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Things they want to change.
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Point to how both things they like and things they want to change are solely in managements control.
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Find a union win in your job sector. Point to what workers did to win that and ask what it would mean for them to have that. (Bonus if it connects to their issues which is why you want a bunch of these in the back pocket).
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Ask them if they support forming a union. (Clearly and directly)
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Inoculation as i mentioned earlier.
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This is how we win… Getting list of all coworkers. Talking to them. And building support. Stop talking to people who aren’t supportive immediately about anything Union related. Get to 60-70% support. Take it to a Union. Vote.
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Action. Who can you talk to? What list can you get? Who can you start building relationships with?*
So PSL did discuss the list of unions we could possibly join and they even said they will reach out to those they have connections with so this is extremely helpful for me and gives me so much motivation and i’m so happy that an organization like PSL is helping me out! They also urged me to join the IWW and to attend some of their meetings so i can start networking with people familiar with labor rights and they will be more than happy to help someone starting out.
Also they handed me the United and Win EWOC book for free! So i need to read this ASAP. EWOC is filled with lots of useful resources to help with anyone interested in organizing the workplace so I cannot recommend them enough. I also would like to recommend PSL wholeheartedly because this meeting has reinvigorated my spirit and made me feel so motivated and excited whereas before i was still keen on doing this but filled with a loooot of anxiety they really helped put me on the right path.
I think if anyone wants to fulfill this goal of unionizing their workplace then I HIGHLY suggest reaching out to PSL. Just do what I did and reach out to some of their organizers through social media and see where that takes you.
Really looking forward to the next steps in this process and i will definitely keep you up to date with my progress!
Hey there, glad to hear it went well! A few other things that I’ve found helpful in one on one organizing conversations. (for full disclosure i was a staff internal organizer for a big local for a number of years, so external organizing is a little different, with that said)
Practice! I know some folks mentioned IWW OT 101’s, these sound good. Honestly just find someone with some union experience to practice conversations with. It will help drastically.
Try to avoid “third-partying” your union. It makes forming a union sound like hiring a law firm or something. Forming a union is largely going to be about you and your coworkers. If you third party “the” union out of the gate, people will take less agency over it. And worse, when management finds out about the campaign, one of their big talking points is that the union comes in between workers and the company. So for convos instead of saying things like “You can help us out by joining!” or “We have been able to solve a lot of problems for workers!”. Instead, say things like: “Together, workers like you and I can win these rights through our union.”
Don’t shy away from the membership dues conversation. Dues are awesome, they aren’t a caveat. They’re a critical part of building the power of your union. The way to frame dues is to acknowledge that nobody working here is wealthy, and having a strong union means you and I will need money to organize, money to support ourselves if we went on strike, money for legal support. And since what you and I are building is entirely independent from the company, we wont get any money from them (obviously). Dues are the resources we pool so we can represent ourselves, bargain and enforce contracts our way, and win more rights. Each union you talk to will have different amounts and different percentages that go to different things but typically its 50% goes to the strike fund, 25% goes to the local you form at your workplace, and 25% goes to the international (which actually goes to staff supporting new campaigns like yours because dues dont exist until you and your coworkers sign the first contract).
In a good organizing conversation, the organizer talks 20% of the time and listens 80% of the time. You should spend a lot of your time listening to your coworkers. You can do this by asking open ended questions like:
“What is something you don’t like about your job that you would like to change? What is something you like about your job that you would like to protect?”
“What do you think it is going to take to get the company to budge on the issues that matter most to you?”
“What do you think about workers like you and I bargaining collectively and being able to achieve the gains that we’ve talked about through unionization?”
Magic Answer 1: We are the union. We know our own needs best, and we all share the responsibility for winning better conditions. We elect our own leaders from within our membership, and those representatives sit across from the company to represent our interests in collective bargaining. Magic answer 1 addresses any question related to “the union” doing something the person does or doesn’t like. It can be answered with some version of “you (and workers just like you) are the union (you will draft bargaining demands, ratify bargaining demands, meet with management to bargain the contract, ratify the proposed contract, etc…) would you do something like that/ do you believe that would be in your collective interest?” This is why it’s important to avoid third-partying because it undermines this answer
Magic Answer 2: Union=power in numbers=more rights. The union works because of power in numbers. The more of us participate, the more power we have, and the more rights we can win. Supermajority participation is critical, because it shows the company that we all stand together. You and I will elect leaders to sit at the table, and we have to stand united with them to increase pressure on the boss. Magic answer 2 can answer any question related to what “the union” can or cannot do. All questions relating to whether the union could really do “xyz” can be answered with “having a union means having more rights and power…would you like to have more (or less) rights and power?”
Magic Answer 3: We’re part of a massive, historic labor movement. This is an incredibly exciting time for the labor movement. (Point out all the new unions forming and any recent organizing wins from other unions in your sector) We are wresting control from our bosses nationwide, across many industries. Magic answer 3 is especially useful for helping overcome fears about retaliation about signing up as a member or other ways of supporting the union. I.e, we aren’t alone
Oh also, when I was first learning, this was one of my favorite videos about organizing conversations. It’s a super campy steelworkers video from the 80’s that shows a house call: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJsQD6wmV0c