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Can someone explain card check to me. I think my coworkers are sufficiently irritated by our dumpster fire working conditions and we’re a small shop
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Feb 29, 2024 02:18
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Poppers posted:Can someone explain card check to me. I think my coworkers are sufficiently irritated by our dumpster fire working conditions and we’re a small shop to organize a union: get more than 50% of your workplace to sign cards, then either you get voluntary recognition or win an NLRB election. “card check” means you get the voluntary recognition
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Feb 29, 2024 02:33
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When is this union president up for election? Without stirring the pot too much, can you look to replacing them?
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Feb 29, 2024 14:21
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I don't think there's any way of challenging a president's position w/o stirring the pot, but sometimes you gotta
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Feb 29, 2024 14:32
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Eiba posted:Beyond my particular case, does anyone have experience with small unions, or unions that cover different categories of employees where the smaller groups interests aren't being represented? explicitly, my local has always said that they'll never argue against an employer offering more money to anyone. instead of saying "that's not fair to others," we'd use that as leverage to argue for more money for everyone else. at least in my bargaining unit, we the shop stewards largely drive the bargaining bus. it's our responsibility to stay in contact with everyone in the bargaining unit, no matter the number of people in a particular job title. we take our roles seriously, and do not favor any position/category over another. i can't fathom myself saying or hearing from one of my fellow stewards "yeah these people don't really do much, they don't need as much money" if our union rep or someone from the local tried to argue that, there'd be hell to pay, and we'd never pass a contract.
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Feb 29, 2024 14:58
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A union has obvious incentives to not let employers bypass contracts to determine workers' pay, benefits, positions, etc., unilaterally on an individual basis, because letting a process like that slide has the potential for abuse and undermining the principles of solidarity and collective bargaining. HOWEVER, it doesn't sound like that's what's happening in your case, where it seems like the employer is doing everything right by working within the contract, keeping the positions within the union, and trying to reclassify the people to give them a formal promotion into a higher employment category where they will get paid more to match their greater responsibilities. Union leadership resisting that because they hate the library and don't want their own members to have better workplace conditions because they work in the wrong part of the local is transparent bullshit.
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Feb 29, 2024 17:50
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my union (california association of professional scientists) is looking at potentially affiliating with uaw after the state brushed off our three day rolling strike and handed us a marginally worse lbfo (real slap in the face). i'm impressed with what they've accomplished last year with the auto industry, and closer to home with organizing graduate students at public universities. i'm curious if anyone has any experience with a smaller existing union affiliating with a much larger national organization?
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Mar 1, 2024 07:12
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GhostofJohnMuir posted:my union (california association of professional scientists) is looking at potentially affiliating with uaw after the state brushed off our three day rolling strike and handed us a marginally worse lbfo (real slap in the face). i'm impressed with what they've accomplished last year with the auto industry, and closer to home with organizing graduate students at public universities. i'm curious if anyone has any experience with a smaller existing union affiliating with a much larger national organization? would you be a new local or join an existing one?
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Mar 1, 2024 15:41
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kingcobweb posted:would you be a new local or join an existing one? reading the proposed agreement, we would be a new local
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Mar 1, 2024 21:05
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GhostofJohnMuir posted:reading the proposed agreement, we would be a new local locals have a lot of independent power. you’d send some $ to the international but UAW locals basically do their own thing. and you’d get good resources in terms of negotiators/lawyers/organizers. edit: you’d be in region 6, and from going to a region 6 retreat, it’s almost entirely academic commies (complimentary). so if you’re looking to be around radicals that’s your region. kingcobweb has issued a correction as of 22:43 on Mar 1, 2024 |
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Mar 1, 2024 22:41
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thanks, the level of autonomy we'd have was my biggest concern. historically we split off from a wider state union because it was felt they were giving our classification specific issues no weight at the bargaining table our leadership has become more militant in the last few years as issues of pay among the rank and file have become real dire, but we're essentially building our union's capacity for member action from scratch after decades of complacency. no meaningful strike fund, no strong media ties outside a few capitol beat reporters, strike actions being organized ad-hoc week of by scratch committees using google docs. it's been real frustrating, and the palpable disdain our liberal state government has for even considering our complaints has me personally feeling wound up as hell
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Mar 1, 2024 23:02
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UAW has a strike fund, importantly. your dues/check-off structure might change, but they would help with that. Seems like a good time to be jumping in with the UAW
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Mar 2, 2024 00:09
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kingcobweb posted:biased because this is my day job but this is legitimately GIGANTIC I've been asked not to post anything online that isn't already in writing somewhere else first but since it's becoming more likely that I'm gonna be at the table or in the caucus for contract negotiations, what can I read or learn to be more effective in my role?
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Mar 3, 2024 07:47
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Anyone here have any experience striking against the wishes of union leadership? I'm in a fairly established union and our bargaining committee and executive are celebrating a tentative agreement with wage increases that don't even match inflation — they clearly expect us to vote yes. Working on organizing coworkers in my department to vote no (most I've talked to so far are on the same page) and would appreciate any tips/experiences you can share if you have any.
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Mar 4, 2024 15:26
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dprk -i juche.deb posted:Anyone here have any experience striking against the wishes of union leadership? I'm in a fairly established union and our bargaining committee and executive are celebrating a tentative agreement with wage increases that don't even match inflation — they clearly expect us to vote yes. Working on organizing coworkers in my department to vote no (most I've talked to so far are on the same page) and would appreciate any tips/experiences you can share if you have any.
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Mar 4, 2024 15:43
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dprk -i juche.deb posted:Anyone here have any experience striking against the wishes of union leadership? I'm in a fairly established union and our bargaining committee and executive are celebrating a tentative agreement with wage increases that don't even match inflation — they clearly expect us to vote yes. Working on organizing coworkers in my department to vote no (most I've talked to so far are on the same page) and would appreciate any tips/experiences you can share if you have any. seems like more of a “vote no” campaign than going straight to a strike. what sort of workplace are you in, like a big factory or a series of office buildings or scattered across the country? for a “vote no” campaign you basically have to put your election pants on and make a Get Out The Vote effort. get a spreadsheet of everyone eligible to vote on the contract (the union leadership should give this to you or they’re close to breaking the law), and divvy up the work of contacting every single person to talk about the contract
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Mar 4, 2024 17:14
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in my experience I would not count on leadership giving you a voter roll, legal requirements or no.
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Mar 4, 2024 17:27
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but yeah before you think about a strike campaign you'd have to succesfully vote down the contract, and then build from that - clearly there's a gap between what the bargaining committee produced w/ mgmt and what the workers' expectations are. if you have a succesful no vote, you could then call for additional meetings with bargaining committee, or request for more members to show up to bargaining sessions etc. but if you can't win the No vote, the unit is not going to be capable of striking, it will require a series of victories coupled w/ escalations, not really dissimilar to a campaign against your boss. the same tactics work!
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Mar 4, 2024 17:30
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In Training posted:in my experience I would not count on leadership giving you a voter roll, legal requirements or no. yeah true. so you’ll have to get creative to find it.
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Mar 4, 2024 17:30
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just got a copy of “Secrets of a Successful Organizer” from Labor Notes. if you’re in a union and are trying to do any external organizing, get this book. if you need the info for something pressing like a contract campaign, get rush shipping.
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Mar 4, 2024 17:31
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kingcobweb posted:to organize a union: get more than 50% of your workplace to sign cards, then either you get voluntary recognition or win an NLRB election. “card check” means you get the voluntary recognition Hmm ok. Should I have a union we want to affiliate with lined up in advance
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Mar 4, 2024 18:58
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Poppers posted:Hmm ok. Should I have a union we want to affiliate with lined up in advance yes, at the point where you're signing cards (or go independent (you need to do a lot more work to be independent)). when people sign cards, they say "i agree to affiliate with [union name here]." if you're affiliating with an existing union, the cards will come from that union. but what union to go with is a decision that should be made democratically. so i'd go 1. organize your union (unofficially; that is, act like a union before you've signed cards) 2. reach out to unions who might be relevant and have them speak to one of your meetings 3. discuss and vote among your union who to officially sign cards with to be clear these are steps in your case if it's a small shop and everyone is already on board. it's not what i would follow if you're trying to organize, like, Whole Foods.
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Mar 4, 2024 19:19
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thanks for the suggestions re the no vote — that would definitely be the first step. The challenge is we're education workers at a university, so our leverage goes down as the semester goes on and more work gets graded, exams take place, etc., and the bargaining team/exec are showing absolutely no urgency in scheduling the ratification meeting (no concrete date yet, probably next week according to their comms) because they expect the agreement to be ratified. that gives us more time to organize the no vote campaign, but also means the strike will be much weaker than if we had just struck this week. there's little we can do about that but continue to press them to just schedule the drat meeting, but we're having a unit-wide steward meeting this week to discuss the agreement so will try to get a temperature check and do some more agitation there
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Mar 5, 2024 18:46
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college basketball union! https://www.npr.org/2024/03/05/1235877656/ncaa-dartmouth-mens-basketball-union-election-nlrb
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Mar 5, 2024 19:15
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GhostofJohnMuir posted:my union (california association of professional scientists) is looking at potentially affiliating with uaw after the state brushed off our three day rolling strike and handed us a marginally worse lbfo (real slap in the face). i'm impressed with what they've accomplished last year with the auto industry, and closer to home with organizing graduate students at public universities. i'm curious if anyone has any experience with a smaller existing union affiliating with a much larger national organization? I know someone in your union and we've been talking about the situation. I say you'll benefit. You have a lot of membership who don't seem to know asses from elbows about what even a union is and I think the UAW will do a better job for you all than what sounds (secondhand) to me like a bunch of chuckleheads currently guiding the ship.
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Mar 5, 2024 22:20
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kingcobweb posted:college basketball union! https://www.npr.org/2024/03/05/1235877656/ncaa-dartmouth-mens-basketball-union-election-nlrb but i don't know how this is gonna work. your workforce rotates every four years, on average. how do you organize this? how do you organize this in a way that isn't taken advantage of by agents? it's simply not possible to keep a rotating workforce from insanely diverse walks of life constantly educated and BOUGHT IN to a college players union. it's going to rely heavily on a set of professional union reps that don't rotate much... and that feels pretty shaky not to mention the whole "we can fire people who depend on us for an education" thing something has got to be done about college athletes and compensation, but unions for college athletics feels as poorly thought out and slapped together as the last 100 years of college athletics. it could solve some problems, but it brings with it a whole host of new ones, even if you love unions. interesting times ahead
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Mar 5, 2024 22:37
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Iunno grad students turn over every 6-7 years and those unions are pretty well established. Also it looks like they're joining a Dartmouth employees union that already exists.
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Mar 5, 2024 22:49
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Most people at Starbucks don't stay more than four years, and they are able to unionize. It takes education and effort to constantly develop new leadership, but it's far from impossible.
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Mar 6, 2024 06:54
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we need more video game unions https://www.polygon.com/24093254/activision-qa-600-workers-union-microsoft
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Mar 9, 2024 01:53
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kingcobweb posted:we need more video game unions https://www.polygon.com/24093254/activision-qa-600-workers-union-microsoft Came here to post this. You love to see it.
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Mar 9, 2024 04:15
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Recommended reading on public sector USA union organizing? I am interested in getting more involved but want to have some foundational knowledge. it sucks we can’t strike. I wonder how we can actually have any teeth.
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Mar 13, 2024 11:12
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Queer Grenadier posted:Recommended reading on public sector USA union organizing? I am interested in getting more involved but want to have some foundational knowledge. it sucks we can’t strike. I wonder how we can actually have any teeth. Lots of teachers "can't strike" yet they went on strike and won. I haven't read it yet but i've heard good things about Red State Revolt, on their illegal and successful strikes. Even if you never strike, there's lots of stuff you can do. Escalating tactics up to something like a work-to-rule slowdown/strike, for example.
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Mar 13, 2024 15:37
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There's also many states that have outlawed public strikes but the ban doesn't carry any specific penalty. WV amended their law I think a year or two ago to specifically call for terminating striking employees & garnishing wages. NY has a state law that a public sector employee on strike has their wage garnished daily + they jail elected reps of the union, etc. You should look into the specific restrictions in the state you live If you have an org willing to take these sacrifices, the strike is still possible, and also necessary. the only way those kinds of laws would ever change is through mass action calling for their abolition, and the only way to build support for that is to lead by example. But it is difficult to convince people, and different unions are more or less cowed by it. I was a member of the CUNY union when I worked there (public university system of NYC) and it sucked and was very demoralized.
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Mar 13, 2024 16:01
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Taft-Hartley is a violation of your basic personal rights and would be struck down by a Supreme Court that wasn’t comprised entirely of bought-and-paid-for political creatures. Last time my (predecessor) union struck, they paraded the leadership around in chains. Never forget.
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Mar 13, 2024 16:35
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I had a management-side attorney invoke Paul Krugman's name today while arguing about inflation dunno if i wanted to kill myself or him more
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Mar 19, 2024 22:23
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JAY ZERO SUM GAME posted:I had a management-side attorney invoke Paul Krugman's name today while arguing about inflation genuinely you should let krugman know lmao
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Mar 19, 2024 22:56
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there's a very non-zero chance that the two actually have met so i'd never give either one of them the pleasure
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Mar 19, 2024 23:04
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JAY ZERO SUM GAME posted:there's a very non-zero chance that the two actually have met so i'd never give either one of them the pleasure Lol
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Mar 19, 2024 23:25
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Has anyone here gone through the Labor@Wayne training program? Would assume this applies to mostly MI people but I guess it could be anywhere. Unrelated but this is my first term as a union rep after a year on the job and it feels impossible to be honest. Like when we talked about spending money on a comp study 2 of the 6 person board's primary concern was how would this affect the holiday party impossible.
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Mar 20, 2024 03:35
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dadjokes posted:Has anyone here gone through the Labor@Wayne training program? Would assume this applies to mostly MI people but I guess it could be anywhere. have you taken a “secrets of a successful organizer” training yet?
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Mar 20, 2024 03:45
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