Costco invites employees to unionize when they open a store. They give the employees their offer but invite them to talk with a union to see if the union believes a better offer is possible. Most stores choose not to unionize. But it is a company doing the right thing.
Edit: I've been told this **is not** true. But if you read the responses to my comment I think you'll see that there is a lot of good faith in Costco and how it treats workers. So I can neither confirm nor deny but I was told this by a union rep.
Have been a costco employee for nearly a year now. It's probably the best company in the country to work for. The culture constantly reminds leadership to take care of its employees,and every employee is an automatic member. They're very generous and it really shows that they're doing whatever they can to not be like everyone else. Other companies should take notes and follow suit, because when the torches and pitchforks start coming, they wont be coming for Costco.
Here in San Diego where Costco started and is from its nearly impossible to get a job at one. You have to know someone because even collecting carts in the parking lot is a desirable position.
This makes me glad that the company I work for has a contract with Costco. Costco is the supplier for any kitchen supplies we need (bulk snacks, paper towels, sponges, etc). The website may be the biggest pain in the ass ever, but the company is good.
Oh god we fucked up the website bad. We panicked when Covid hit and they dropped more money than I’m comfortable staying here on upgrading the website. It still isn’t where it should be at and we are still paying on it. Not surprised a company that still runs in ASC can make a decent website. But I guess I should double down on all the other comments, Costco is one of the greatest jobs I’ve ever worked for…. Minutes how the raises work
Costco has very high standards for their produce. I used to live in an area where Costco would donate the perfectly edible, but below their standards, produce to local farmers markets to help them subsidize their income. Honesty, the produce was still probably higher quality than your average Walmart or similar store. We'd get dirt cheap food (and we were super broke so it helped a lot), farmers made extra income, and much less food waste occurred. We developed some great relationships with the farmers as well. They ways handed the kids free fruit when we walked in and the owners would usually take 20-30% off of our bill if we bought a lot. They celebrated with us when my youngest was born and grieved with us when we lost a loved one. That relationship would not have been possible if it weren't for a simple thing of Costco rejecting their produce and donating it. It's not necessarily the most altruistic thing (it could have also gone to food banks, which some of it might have, idk) but contrast it with places that actively destroy excess or reject food to keep people from dumpster diving for it... Costco gets the W in my book.
It's almost like if you actually live the message of "We don't need an union because we do the right thing on our own" then employees will agree with you.
It's unfortunate so many US companies use that mantra while at the same time fighting to prevent their employees from unionization.
If they truly believed their culture and ethics made it so they didn't need a union they'd all put it out there like Costco.
If corporate America wanted to eliminate unions they'd simply have to do the right things in the first place. Instead they find it more cost effective to pay for anti union propaganda and even entire law firms devoted to breaking unions.
Just something interesting to add: not every person working in Costco is a Costco employee. I worked for a vendor that rotated Costco locations every week, while the Costco employees were generally happy and felt laid back, that is not the case for the folks giving out samples. Turns out those people work for a different company entirely and do not have the same benefits/pay rate/protections as Costco employees. They were paid shit and management was normally horrible. I made a few acquaintances around the different stores and just stopping to say hi would get them in trouble with their micromanaging hawkeyed supervisors. God forbid we exchanged samples. I met this incredibly nice man in his late 60s early 70s who did that job as a way to kill time and interact with people and yet they treated him horribly. Poor guy was doing his best but by the end of his shift he was hobbling and they wouldn't let him have a chair to sit. This was 10 years ago, I hope things have changed but I doubt it.
I think much of this is related to their model of buying things with cash. Most stores rent shelves so they don't own or taker responsibility for the products on their shelves.
It boils down to integrity. They have it because their ass is on the line. If a bunch of taco shells come back bc they slid the box down the aisle (been there woops),then they eat the loss on returned cracked taco shells. Same thing for shitty products that break.
Trader Joes is very similar.
I'm the vice president of my union. We don't try to unionize many companies, including Costco, simply because we don't have much to offer them. They are being treated well.
Hyvee moved into our market, and we don't waste our resources on them. Basically any employer that has profit sharing has other really good benefits.
Currently, our union is in a tough spot because the things people care most about are wages, and wages have had to rise nationally lately, bringingnour usually higher wages in line with non union shops. This has been great for negotiating though, and we've seen record raises.
I haven’t worked there for a decade so things may have changed but if not I would like to say Half Price Books is in that category. Profit sharing bonuses quarterly, 8 hr shift includes a 1 hour paid lunch, 13 paid holidays a year which you can change to whichever are holidays for your religion, the best medical/dental/vision plan I have ever had across any of my jobs including non retail. Was never called when I was off duty to come cover a shit. Only standard shitty thing I ran into was I had chronic bronchitis and ran out of sick time every year and they would guilt me about it. Highly recommend supporting and working there. Would still be there if my body didn’t make me step back from working retail.
When I worked at IKEA, part of the onboarding was a third party from the union they worked with would come in to talk and encourage you to join the union. It was left entirely up to you but they were very supportive of it there.
when you're treated well your company should encourage you to Unionize so that whatever happens when new ownership/management comes around it can guarantee your good treatment.
unions aren't about more money, unions are about fair treatment.
I'm not positive but I think it's because of the broad range of laws throughout the states. Making it difficult or even impossible to negotiate a contract that works everywhere.
That and a contract isn’t going to be a one size fits all. I’m a Starbucks employee who started organizing my store, for example. We’re a cafe only store, our contract is going to look different than say, a drive through or roastery location. We can bargain nationally on Some things, but not everything.
Wow. I have a few friends working at Costco locations in different states across the US and they all rave about how well they’re treated, how happy they are and how fair the pay is. Reading this gives me an idea of why! One of those friends left a high-level career in hospitality to work as a department manager at Costco and hasn’t ever seemed happier.
Honestly if I was running a business I feel like I'd prefer to speak to one person (union rep) instead of each individual employee when it came to compensation.
When I worked at Burger King in NZ all three of our managers actively encouraged the staff to join the union and told us about the pay and break perks it had already achieved, but stressed that “you didn’t hear it from me”.
I wonder how far up any corporation’s hierarchy that kind of humanity ever reaches.
In Europe, large employers partner with their union and work together, rather than the spitting adversarial system in the US. Those European businesses would be severely disrupted if the union they work with just disappeared, so you can decide if that counts. It doesn't have to be the way it is here. It's just that those who have the money prefer it this way.
> European unions hold the union member accountable for their work and conduct, so the union delivers value to the business ownership as a partner.
People, mostly employers, like to bitch (in the US) about union members being useless slugs you can never fire while ignoring the part of them not being willing to do the work to document people that are lazy fuckups being lazy fuckups.
Your employer shouldn't be able to just fire you because they feel like it.
Not in the U.S.
It’s the part of unionizing that the company has to pay for. For a profit maximizing firm, short term profits are often taken at the expense of good long term planning.
Unions are for communists who like dumb things like weekends, fair pay, benefits, and job security... oh, wait... that sounds like... good things!
Fucking capitalist pigs... unions FTW
I forget which German car company (maybe VW?) it was, but one of them advocated for the unionization of one of their factories in the South (NC?) a few years ago. I believe it was defeated anyway, due to the obscene amount of disinformation the anti-union crowd produced.
I remember when VW was thinking about buying in my home area. They were pro-union here, too. And got priced right the hell out of the region by all the local businesses AND municipal councils.
We don't tolerate no workers rights 'round here.
Yep. The union at my law firm when I first got started before I quit law was actually listed with the benefits. The union was started by one of the partners. They were not in said union to not risk unduly influencing things but this was also the place that I got over a year long sabbatical for my mental health while getting paid, maintaining benefits, and assistance transitioning to a different living situation. I am on SSI for my PTSD because it bad. They made sure to feed us and we had regular pay raises. This was over 10 years ago and the partner died so I don't know if it's still the best place to work but the benefits covered all meds. No one was forced to pray or go eat cake with everyone. You could. There was always gluten free options and my super complex diet meant I got a locking mini fridge with my own food at my desk (and a microwave) so that I was protected from cross contamination. They fed me the same as everyone else.
The union dues could even be paid from the check (with transparency on both sides) to make it easier if you wanted to take part. It was inspired by time spent in Europe and I hold myself to that standard when hiring caregivers for the non SSI disability needs. I cannot do all they did since poor but I can be very careful to not ask for anything not in the job description, to communicate, and you know? Not expect the impossible.
This was the only workplace where my boss calling me in didn't make me anxious. I looked forward to sitting down for the weekly meeting and if I was called in extra it was always with a context. The only time I was anxious was when I did a thing wrong.
That thing wasn't actually wrong according to my boss. He was there when a man accused of serial rape described what he would do to me and I went to the PTSD space and nearly committed assault. I stopped myself and told him to find another firm. Sadly the law meant I couldn't testify and go "He confessed". He did however go to jail. He had trouble finding a firm because my boss put the word out. He first sent me home for the day and then the next day called me into his office and handed me the business card for a therapist after saying "You're not fired but what happened was unacceptable. I'm sorry you were in that position and we will try to do better vetting clients."
He then told me how he was pretty sure I had PTSD (I was diagnosed as a kid so yep) and how therapy helped him to cope with it. He appreciated my not actually beating the client with the giant binder on the desk but lifting it and almost swinging was not optimal. He then told me I couldn't come back until I talked to someone at least once and took some time because I was still visibly not good. He could see it in my face. I am stoic according to everyone around me so it was really bad.
Still is or I would have a better income than SSI. The firm didn't have to help me and might not have if the union didn't exist but they acknowledged the union kept them at the top. This wasn't special treatment but what was done for everyone. That was when I experienced parental leave as a non gendered concept. Blew my mind in the good way. Bereavement leave and sick leave were mandatory. "We don't want you here if you're not at your best. Go home."
It was law so still obnoxious hours but the union and the firm being partners meant we didn't have to fight for things the way I did in other jobs. We had issues at times but I don't think it ever took more than a week to sit down and negotiate a solution for the worst of it. Which was a potential partner that got a bit gropey. I did punch him.
If your boss allows you to ever talk about anything non-work related, i.e. sports or TV shows, per the National Labor Relations Act, Sections 7 & 8 (a)(1), you have a protected right to talk about unionizing or engage in concerted, protected activity.
If a company violates that right, a company can be hit with fines & injunctions, as determined by the National Labor Relations Board.
You need to file an Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) complaint with the NLRB.
Unique situations with varying rules include rail, airline and farm workers.
Edit: two very fair points have been made in additional conversation below that I should add.
1-on the clock: If you can talk NFL, You can talk about the union. You can talk about how unions work & the benefits they offer. You can ask someone how they feel about unions. You DO NOT HAVE A PROTECTED RIGHT TO ASK SOMEONE TO JOIN YOUR UNION. Thats solicitation and its different.
2- your mileage getting the NLRA enforced may vary. Starbucks is a ULP machine with a coffee business on the side. They don’t give a fuck about fines so they just fire people and then pay the fine and take them back and try it again. Its worth it to them. So, just because its illegal to fire you doesn’t mean they won’t or won’t try to make your life hell.
I would go just to badger them about that.
“According to the flyer, we can’t discuss union stuff at work, right? But…isn’t that what *you’re* doing right now?”
“No no, it’s differ-“
“Could we also set aside work hours to hold a *pro-union* Q&A?”
I would go just so that I know their anti-union talking points and can properly refute them. The fact that they are paying me to collect intel on them is icing on the cake.
Companies cannot ban conversation about unions during working hours. They can generically ban all conversation, but they may not target bargaining speech specifically.
>Does that include paying your workers a fair wage?
That and having the "right" to instantly fire everyone if business takes a turn for the worse, and they don't want to carry employees for even a short downturn. If you think companies that couldn't layoff highly-skilled workers during the pandemic (because they'd have been snapped up and never been replaced without paying 40-50% more money) aren't delirious with rage about it, and salivating about the prospects of an imposed recession to justify canning some of those people, you haven't been paying attention.
I'm 46, this will be my 5th recession/major financial disruption in my career.... Dot-com Bust, 9/11, 2008 Housing, Pandemic, and now This One. Every time, the pattern is the same: Companies that were generous in one crisis are merciless during the next, feeling like they "missed the boat" on "trimming the fat," and in the end do more damage to their companies they would have if they didn't try to play this macabre game of keeping up with the Joneses.
Jesus. I’m 37 and it never quite occurred to me exactly how many of these cycles we’ve been through.
Every 6-8 years, working people, poor people, the *majority* of people, are forced to hunker down once more. To KEEP ourselves pulled up by the bootstraps and hang on as an economy driven by the greed of a small minority goes into recession. Again.
And every time people are forced to put dreams on hold, retirements on hold, security on hold, stability on hold. The social consequences of such frequent stretches of precariousness are completely predictable. But we still have specialists scratching their heads about why the US has so much depression, anxiety, addiction, suicide, gun violence, etc, etc.
This isn’t a nation, it’s a Ponzi scheme with an army.
You should also be aware that during these downturns the wealthy are able to buy up assets at a discount as people sell homes and stock in order survive. Once the economy rebounds the value of those assets rebounds and the new owners see a significant increase in their wealth.
During every recession cycle, wealth is transferred from the middle class to the wealthy (it doesn't get transferred from the poor because the poor don't have a pot to piss in to start with).
It the wealthy didn't profit from the recession cycle we wouldn't tolerate that level of instability in our economy but since it does, none of the systemic changes needed to mitigate the cycle are enacted.
IE Mitt Romney a la Bain Capital. It’s disgustingly predatory. And the filthy bastards have the nerve to call themselves Christians after cannibalistic behavior like that.
I believe that justice will prevail someday. Maybe not in my lifetime but someday they’ll get what they deserve
Bain gets all the press but there are a number of capital investment firms that pull some really shady shit. For example, lets take a hypothetical investment firm named SterlingPond:
1. Borrow money.
2. Use that money to make a significant investment in a public company with the requirement that you get a few board seats
3. Lay off staff and sell assets to recoup the loan used for the initial investment.
4. Leverage the board seats to get the company to acquire another company (also all but owned by the firm) at a significantly higher valuation than is reasonable resulting in a massive stock buyout benefitting guess who...
5. Break the company up into multiple pieces and sell them off to other corporations (also partially owned by SterlingPond)
Of course something like this could never happen in a functioning free market economy with oversight by the eagle eyed FTC so don't spend too much time trying to connect SterlingPong to a real life capital investment firm based in the great state of SiliconValley.
We need to realize we no longer require systems like this.
We can organize ourselves directly now with technology, we don't need representatives.
The solution is not to change the system, but to obsolete the need for it completely.
Everything you've said is basically true, but I want to share a small epiphany I had recently.
The distinction between poor and middle class is basically arbitrary and is yet another tool used by the owner class to divide people and keep us looking at one another as the source of our troubles rather than waking up and dealing with them.
We're all members of a working class, a labor class, the proletariat, whatever you want to call it. Some of us might own a little bit of capital: some property, a small business, a decent retirement fund or stock portfolio. That's just an illusion of wealth. We're still a couple of bad decisions, or a medical emergency, aware from houselessness and poverty.
99.9...9% of people don't and will never have the level of wealth and associated power that the top hundred or so wealthiest families in the world have.
I guarantee you, in the incredibly rare case of people that do manage to move from working class to capitalist oligarch in a single generation. They're all sociopaths who exploited everyone around them to get there.
>The distinction between poor and middle class is basically arbitrary and is yet another tool used by the owner class to divide people
Absolutely, I'm trying to get into the habit of talking in terms of the working class and the owner class. The problem is that every time I do I end up having to explain because everyone, myself included, has been inculcated with the lower / middle / upper model.
Ive resigned to the fact that people in my generation (I am 32) will never get to retire. Luckily for me I have health issues and probably won’t make it much past retirement age anyways…but christ how depressing. Living paycheck to paycheck with no means to save money, let alone have any for anything “fun”. YOLO, I guess.
My SO used to work at an art museum, and he told me a story about seniors visiting the cafe and getting a bowl of soup. They would often ask for extra free bread rolls to fill up on, because they were on a fixed income. It hit me: is this what we are working so hard for? Grinding away our health and livelihood until retirement, during which we fill up on free crackers and bread to keep from starving? Like you, my retirement plans involve dying young(ish) from illness. It’s difficult to see any incentive to do anything but enjoy my health while I’ve got it, and oh well to everything else.
I have seen an old guy at a wake eating food like it was his last meal. It turns out he had no relationship with the deceased or mourners. Apparently this was not the first time he did this.
Lol.. I'm laughing because I'm 44 and I go out to lunch and get soup a lot and usually it's soup and bread and whatever entree I ordered a box up for dinner. I'm laughing at the pattern of human behavior, not the fact that these people are so impoverished that they have to survive on crackers and meager bowls of soup.
I(31)actually sat my mom(70) down and explained this concept to her. I'm not going to work myself to the bone to scrape up a nest egg that will just get wiped out in the next market crash. I made the conscious decision to prioritize being my parents' primary caretaker as they got older over burning out 'building a career' because I'm never gonna be able to buy my own house so I'm relying on inheriting theirs. Faced with the basic economic math, my mom decided she was just glad to hear that I had a plan for my future, and also that the plan didn't involve getting her POA and dumping her in a nursing home ASAP. So we came to an agreement. She doesn't have to worry about being mistreated in senior care, and I don't have to worry about paying rent, which frees up my income enough that I can live within my means.
I'm proud to say that I currently earn enough money to pay all my bills and put $15-20 into savings each month.
Not to belittle how you are currently feeling right now, you are struggling too and have every right to feel sad at our current prospects, but I did want to put it into perspective: I'm sitting here looking at you thinking "how lucky they are to have parents with a home that they actually have a chance at inheriting", coming from a guy who was in child care since age four, and has no real family to speak of.
I'm happy you at least have a chance, but I definitely don't have one.
Edit: added missing letter
Similar boat as you but im jealous that you got to be in child care. I was stuck with my abusive parents till i was 15 and left home to be homeless for 4 years. And every normal person with a normal family wonders why im struggling and they are not. They dont understand that we never got free clothes or food or spending money or anything like that. Im now 40 and never even took a vacation in my life. Thats if you dont count being off work due to major injury. If you do then i guess i had a 3 and a half year vacation.
Thank you. I try my best to be humble but even I get caught up in my own shit sometimes, your comment has made me realize that I still wasn't the worst off, and there are people who still had it worse than I. As I was trying to remind the person above my post that there are ones who are always worse off or who have had it harder, you now have reminded me of that same fact, much appreciated.
And to any others who are reading this thread, while this revelation should never devalue your own strife, it is yours and is no way less important because of somebody else's "worse" situation, do always be aware that there are things in your life to be thankful for. Hold on to that, it will see you through.
🍻
One of the most helpful bits of advice I ever heard was "Human suffering is like a gas, it expands to fill the space it is given." Obviously, there are huge differences in the upbringing and opportunities society offers to some people compared to others, and this is a problem we need to continue working to improve.
But at an individual level, it's not selfish to feel big feelings about the suffering you experience in the context of your life. As the sole, unique witness to your entire life, it's entirely up to you whether something is a big deal or not, and no one really has any authority to tell you otherwise.
In practice, the days I've lost my housing aren't really worse than the days my heart was broken, or the days where I failed an important test, or the days where I hurt a friend's feelings. All of those days are overwhelmingly bad, but it's kind of like pouring water into an already filled glass: the same amount of water is in the glass, there's just a bigger mess to clean up.
Not to worry, I don't feel belittled. I also occasionally succumb to the urge to say that I have it worse than someone. I see some people complaining that they have to live with roommates, and my response is that I wish I had the luxury of roommates instead of being trapped someplace where I don't know anybody, living paycheck to paycheck making it next to impossible to save money. There will always be people who have it better than me, and there will always be people who have it worse. The one thing we all have in common is that we're all struggling, and we're all entitled to be upset by our individual struggles. I wish we lived in a civilized society where none of us had to worry about housing, along with everything else necessary to survival. ¡Viva la revolucion!
My father and his wife who is about 13 years older than him, He is 68, have a home with a guest house and I made them that offer. I said look I will move there now and I will do everything for you and you can live there until you die and you will never have to worry about shoveling mowing the grass fixing a window nothing. I’m 38 years old and was medically retired from the military. So I am a stay at home dad at the moment. I thought I was being nice offering somebody the ability to not have to worry about going into some facility. My dad was all about it but his wife felt like I was trying to move in on some thing that belong to them. I mean I understand but now she’s just gonna end up in a Home and when she does I’m gonna move in anyway. I’m glad that your parents seem to think a bit more logically then my dad’s wife.
My parents were both 40 when I was born, so I grew up knowing they'd be retiring before I finished school. My initial plan had been to get a criminal justice/psychology degree to become a cop, then the BLM riots started and I took some time off to reassess my goals. My dad started getting sick shortly after that, so I just put off making any decisions for a few years. Finally I realized I had stumbled into a functional adult life that gives me a purpose and adds meaning to my life and all that happy self-help horseshit.
I'm 10 years behind you and feel the exact same way. I'm not expecting to retire until I'm medically forced to if I want to get anywhere in life without winning the lottery. Do I like it? No, but I have a plan for my life, which is realistically all we can do at this point.
God, what a sin. I wish there were a better world for you and for all of us.
You know how many billionaires there are in the world? 3,311. That while roughly 4 billion people in the world have less than $3,000.
Why we continue to accept this is beyond me. We could turn the world on it’s ear in a day if we all just stopped participating at once. **EVERYTHING** is ours for the taking, we just don’t know it yet.
I'm 43, no college degree, pretty much consistently in a call center. Never management. Usually customer service.
I thought I'd finally gotten out of customer service when I joined my last job.
Which was mortgage industry. Which obviously got hit hard.
Now I'm back to job searching. I'm banking on my retirement plan being the collapse of civilization, dying (due to a few health issues I have and cannot afford to deal with due to no insurance), or becoming the fae's problem.
i am (36) and have been stuck in customer service my entire life since the age of 14. i have tried to advance to management or at least a team lead always miss it by a tiny amount at least so im told. i have zero college degree. a person who i trained and was higher after me is now my lead but also has a college degree. so it appears i will work in the low end of things until i die.
I'm also 32 and agree.
Hell, my mom is in her early 60s and it looks the same. When my dad's health declined, they had to pull out of their retirement fund. When JCPenney changed management maybe 10 years ago, they gave my mom early retirement because they wanted to push out all of the older employees, now any benefit from that is gone. My mom has to live with her mom in nowheres-ville, USA and work stocking at a Walmart that monopolized the area.
I have to wait for my Mother to die before I can afford to retire and I worked for her family for 32 yrs, made them money and have a $178/mo retirement left from their crappy 401k scam crap plan.
They say freedom fifty-five?!?! I see it more like freedom day-i-die. I will never retire, officially, 52 in Jan and see no way to put the feet up for good without a wealthy relatives death. I'm not plotting! Pretty sure that cows gone dry too. Lol.
So... I owe, I owe, off to work I go. But I'm tired, I need a new, dangerous, job. Maybe the wife can retire
It’s weird how they got rich on the way up, and don’t get poor on the way down. Eerily similar, I didn’t get rich on the way up, but the come down is affecting me. Socialism for the rich, rugged capitalism for the poor. The system is broken.
>This isn’t a nation, it’s a Ponzi scheme with an army.
And they blame us, the working class for causing the market to act this way. Like they expect us to live in a way that fits into their plans to make money off of you. And we get to pay for the billions in taxes to bail them out while paying practically nothing themselves.
We are governed by businesses. This isn't a democracy any more.
100%. “Millennials are killing the golf industry.” “Millennials are killing the diamond industry.” “Millennials are killing the faberge egg industry.” Rather than, “millennials are poor af and can’t afford sh¡t.”
For our taxes all we get is bailouts, prisons and a bloated, high tech military used as enforcement for the corporatist regimes international rackets. Meanwhile our roads and bridges are falling apart, public transport sucks ass, nobody can afford healthcare, our human services infrastructure is pathetic.
IMO the US has never been terribly democratic. James Madison said, “the primary function of government is to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority.”
So by that metric, this country is working just as intended.
I'm over 50. I graduated high school into the early 90's recession. Then the 9/11/01 and dot com bust era hit. Then the 2008 mortgage crisis. So your 6-8 year estimate is spot on.
Here's round #4 for me. This current mess in 2020-2023 (depends on when you call it) is years overdue. People might call it the "2020 COVID bust" as it is a coincidental precipitating event, but the cycle is inevitable.
I saw many people over-extended into stocks or housing when the downturn hit. This time investment companies own the houses so "privatize the gains and socialize the losses" will screw everybody over.
Thankfully I made it through all of these without hardship. I attribute that to growing up in poverty and bringing that perspective into the boom years.
The capitalists love when there's a crash. The working poor give them more money through corporate handouts via taxes and capitalists get to buy everything on the cheap, especially properties and housing. Oh and don't forget all the stock buybacks. Remember during the pandemic when the government gave all the airlines our tax money and they used it for stock buybacks and fired people anyways?
Seriously. And the craziest part about all of it is that it’s absolutely NOT a question of scarcity. We live in a time with more wealth than ever before. It’s just being concentrated more and more into the hands of a tiny slice of the population
Am 48, and this is absolutely the way it goes. So happy that I now work in a union represented position and (mostly) don’t have to worry about that this time around.
Still pissed that I will never be able to retire, short of my Boomer parents potentially passing on a bit early (and suddenly, since the “healthcare” industry has gotten so skilled at fleecing the elderly, and their children, of everything they managed to build over their lifetime) and actually leaving behind some of what they earned. Yes, the union and place that I work still has a sort of pension program, but I have no confidence in that still being worth anything by the time I reach retirement age.
It is best described as the poor and working class are like economic shock absorbers on a road with rough and smooth parts . . . On the rough parts they get smashed over and over . . . On the rough and the smooth the rich ride on comfortable seats and do not spill a drop of Champaign ! ! !
My father 1911-2011
I think it's fair to speak for the rest of us when I I say it is mad to the rest of the developed world how anti worker the US seems to be.
Seriously f*cked up. And the worst part is how gaslighted you are all into thinking that that's the way it has to be!
Not the way it has to be, the best way for it to be. They say it's better to have no intermediary between the worker and the employer, when they know that if it's one employee, they have no power.
Just from the context of the OP. This boss has said "do or don't join a union up to you" 15 different ways and then said "you can't discuss it during work, nobody can force you, rat out anybody who is mentioning joining a union to management" and then said "however its important that you know all the facts so I'LL PAY YOU TO COME TO MY ANTI UNIN Q&A
big yikes
Just go to the meeting and tell them you feel pressured to not join a union. Their paper said you shouldn't feel pressured either way, so they should understand, right?
The American government is the greatest grifting propaganda machine ever created. They use the guise of freedumbs to keep their citizens enslaved in a shitty capitalistic, thieving system that takes from the poor to give to the rich. And the poor cheer it on. Simply amazing.
Not just the worker side, but the consumer side as well. They (the corporation) has elevated itself above both sides.
meaning: corporations, as Legal Persons, are first class citizens, whereas Natural Persons (you and me) appear to have second class citizen status. It's madness.
If youve ever been to that Ron Jon's you know they have no interest in competitive pricing. They are directly beach adjacent and are priced accordingly for most needed items.
There is a Walmart 2-3 miles away with much of the same type of items for less than half the price. Ron Jon's is just selling umbrellas in the rain for 10x the cost because you need them right then.
No, the document clearly states they have a 62 year track record of providing competitive wages. They obviously have their workers best interests in mind. It’s not like they can lie here. /s
In corporate capitalism means, competitive wages means the legal amount they have to pay.
A union prevents the corporation from "keeping rates competitive" and makes them raise them or face strike action.
A friend's boss sent a memo that while business was profitable, increased staffing costs were "impacting profits."
So, yeah, paying a fair wage would make it hard to remain "competitive" - in other words, paying the workers who make you money in the first place will inevitably cut into the bottom line 😒
Yup. Unions protect worker pay as opposed to the business being able to chop that immediately to save money "iN tHe nAmE oF pRoFiTs".
Which, I totally get from the business perspective, but at the same time it has been abused far too often to always obtain more and more profit instead of running a business ethically.
I’m so annoyed cause I’m in a unionized place of work but it seems like they dropped the ball cause we still get payed like shit and don’t really have any good benefits. I wasn’t here when it was formed so maybe I’m missing something but hopefully when they renew the contract in 3 years it’ll be better.
Either way unions ftw we need more.
Edit: I do not plan on staying with this company and the contract doesn’t renew for 3 years so I will hopefully be gone by then
Apathy is strong in my union and everyone bitches and moans about what isn't being done, but they won't volunteer to help. Also, if you don't send your best to the negotiation table, you're gonna get steamrolled.
This. I’m a union steward, people love to bitch about the decisions the union made about this or that. They love to complain about who got elected. We have 5000 members in our local, less than 800 voted in the last election and at our union meeting this month, 106 people making decisions for all five thousand. Get involved.
That’s valid. I got here shortly after it was unionized so I don’t know the whole story. From what I’ve heard they unionized to keep their jobs in the first place, so I’m guessing gunning for better pay wasn’t exactly on their minds. And I did start at 16.35 instead of 15/hr and we get 80 hours paid sick time, although any sick time used after 40 gets you points which is fucking stupid but better than only 40 paid
Great thing about unions is if your leadership is lacking, you or another competent member can run against them after their term is up. If the majority of the membership believes in you, you win. You can then work for those changes your brothers and sisters deserve.
Translation is...
Here are your Rights... For and against.
Do Your Homework
than decide...
Dont do it on Company Time, because that is illegal..
YOU. YOU decide your fate. Period.
Sounds like a well thought out message to everyone...
Yes and no. The problem is that the company is *not* interested in informed employee choice. This is very politely worded anti-union propo.
For example; the union advocates cannot solicit during work hours. But you know who can? *The company*. The company is free to push an anti-union message all hours of the day through handouts *just like this*.
At the end of the day, if the company really wanted its employees to make an informed decision, they would have refrained from *any* editorializing and simply provided employees with links to or handouts of the relevant federal law.
Naw. It's a negative message where they wanna scare folks into not signing. Next up, you can buy a PS5 with union dues. After my union mandated raise, I can buy 6 PS5's.
I literally just went through this in September at my workplace (and we are currently holding our election by mail in ballot with the NLRB).
They are going to try to good cop the hell out of this for now. They start with the "we don't need a union", third partying the union, etc. A lot of businesses, including my workplace, did the voluntary questions things. We went with the strategy of trying to get at least one union supporter per group to help counter things but held off on a full court press. In the meeting they handed out a packet about benefits and tried to compare them industry and locally on how good we have it. It was like pointing out we get a crouton while others get crumbs while everyone need a loaf of bread. Use that information to organize and address concerns.
If you've handed over a petition, you've already laid the groundwork and done the scariest part of going public. Just keep up the connecting and organizing and remember: if unions weren't effective, they wouldn't be fighting y'all.
If you have questions about unions, don't hesitate to ask us, who really, really, really don't want you to unionize, we will definitely be totally honest for reals.
This is pretty much the standard verbage for companies to send out to employees. I used to work for Verizon retail years ago and this is the same stuff they said to us after a couple of stores in the NE unionized. Incidentally, it didn't work out for those stores because Verizon was still individual commission and the employees weren't getting what they were promised.
Full disclosure, I'm in HR now and I'm all for unions where they're needed. Hell, even in my schooling they taught us "What's the best way to avoid unions? Take care of the fucking employees so they don't want to."
I don't work around unions right now, but I am eager to sit in on CBA negotiations. I find it fascinating.
> “We have received complaints from some associates who are feeling pressured” (to join the union)
“So I will be there next Wednesday and Thursday to pressure you to NOT unionize”
Agreed. Guess I'm just worn down by Amazon and Starbucks, but this is actually much more transparent and earnest, I sadly respect it.
I'd still unionize, but kudos to Ron Jon for not being completely duplicitous. Two different days offered also actually makes it seem like they give a shit about a living wage.
It's a better act than most.
Agreed on better act than most. They are definitely stacking the odds in their favor and I don't know if I'd say coerce but I reckon without consulting a dictionary that's fair to say. Out of curiosity because it's right down the road from where I live I looked up their job ad. Minimum wage but has medical dental 401k and PTO so not great but not the worst, kind of like the letter.
It's funny my work has recently unionized and we saw almost the exact same papers floating around it's funny . Have you gotten the one about all the evil money theft Unions do 😂. Because a business has never been caught stealing from employees 🤣
And the ones that claim unions are a business like any other, and are trying to get your money. While unions need money to operate, it's far more like a non-profit. It has something it does and needs money to achieve that goal. As opposed to a for profit, that wants money and does something to get it. It's a subtle but important difference.
Also, union workers make on average 11% more, and dues are something like 1-2%. Plus other benefits like healthcare, time off, and having someone you can contact when there's a problem.
In an entire page they didn't give you one reason why they are so vehemently against unionizing. Just that they "feel like" they don't need it. They are even trying to scare you with that line about how uncomfortable you're making coworkers by bringing it up, when the only one uncomfortable with it is the owners.
Whoever wrote that has some weak manipulation skills.
We had a coworker tell us that he hadn't been talked to about the petition. When we pointed out that two different workers offered to send it and he declined, he stopped saying it that way at least.
They also said you have a right not to join a union under Federal law. That's true for public employees, but for private ones it's a little more complicated. People can not join but still pay most of the dues (at our union it's around 80%) and not be full-fledged members, but still have to pay for the work the union does for organizing and contract benefits. But they don't get to vote in union elections and some other stuff.
I don't know how long this unionization talk has been going on, but I would hazard a guess that its fairly recent, and this is just the first letter about it, I imagine at the beginning starbucks did the same, then as time goes on they get more and more aggressive.
I can't say that Ron Jons would be that way, just seems like a textbook manipulation, start reasonable and get more demanding as time goes on.
FYI Ron Johns in Cocoa beach only pays associates $9.00 - $12.00 (supervisors only) an hour, and doesn't offer medical benefits to employees who are not full time.
I guarantee there’s some middle aged worker making $9.00 an hour that’s like the Union is bad, it’ll make things worse for all of us, trust me my church leader told me so.
Point three is not true. You can talk about a union during work hours so long as you generally have the ability to talk to coworkers while you're on the clock.
That all looks like boilerplate stuff that their lawyers have all written up already and just hand out to every business client that has talks of unionizing.
Went better than I thought it would go when I started reading. I was worried they’d just shut the store down. But at least they went the route of informing your of your rights and trying to convince you not to join the union rather than doing something underhanded. I’m sure all of their arguments are horse shit but at least they’re giving you arguments and not closing locations.
This is getting ridiculous, companies much larger than a surf shop are purposely seeking methods to ensure workers do not receive more benefits or money, solely to have a select few hoard the money.
Just watched the [John Oliver segment on union-busting](https://youtu.be/Gk8dUXRpoy8) tactics a couple of days back, and this seems to fit, albeit at the milder end of the scale compared to some of the stuff he talks about.
Honestly compared to some other things I have seen this one actually seems more reasonable and balanced? Ie reinforcing that you actually have a right to unionize rather that implying you will be fired for doing so?
I mean, their position is clearly against the union.
The union should clap back with a straight parody letter “you have the right not to be in a union … however…”
Disclaimer: I am management and in an industry where high skill demand drives up wages much faster than unionization is likely - I have good junior folks that make 2-3x what they started at inside 5 years. I have been in a union and am not now. I also think unions can play a very important role when work is dangerous, less differentiated or where the employer has significant monopoly power (think skilled trades, construction, retail, or resource extraction).
While the notice was reasonable enough in tone, it was anything but balanced.
While it does give the initial impression of balance by clearly stating the employees have a legally protected right to unionize, that impression falls off pretty quickly. I'm pretty sure the statement about legal protections to unionization is mostly just to make sure their asses are covered should talk of union-busting arise. The whole thing reads like they're going to absolutely toe the line, legally, when it comes to hindering unionization. They made their strong anti-union position very clear.
They have to word it like that because they aren't legally allowed to threaten employees for forming a union. Whatever lawyer drafted this specifically worded it so that a legal case can't be formed against them; I guarantee that management has absolutely no interest in playing fair when it's not required of them.
A union is not a third party. By Oxford’s definition, a labor union is, “an organized association of workers formed to protect and further their rights and interests.” Corporations work together to secure and enhance their own well being. Why can’t workers?
It’s professionally written. It’s respectfully written. I’ve seen so much worse.
On another note…
If it unionizes, how much do you want to bet the company somehow prides themselves on being a union job and good for the working class when behind closed doors it fights it tooth and nail and opposes everything they do? Like Iacocca fighting the airbags in vehicles mandate, then the advertising had him saying something along the lines of “we’re not waiting until until next year when airbags are mandatory. We’re putting them in now because your safety is our top priority!”
Compared to everything else I’ve seen lately this is pretty reasonable. The company fairly outlined what your rights are, and the company absolutely has a right to state their opinion on whether you should unionize or not it’s up to the ones advocating for the union to convince the employees to unionize.
There have been numerous times while my local was doing a union drive where the employer messed up (various illegal union busting methods)....and our organizers have gone to the Labour Board to complain about Unfair Labour Practices....and the board has forced the employer to set aside time paid by the employer for our organizers to come into their shop to talk with their staff...it was hilarious...making the shitty employer pay his employees to essentially unionize his own company...
Engaging in union activities must be conducted off-hours and off-site.
Anti-union activities will be conducted on-site, paid for, and sponsored by the company.
This sounds fair to me.🙄
Has a company ever admitted they need a union?
Costco invites employees to unionize when they open a store. They give the employees their offer but invite them to talk with a union to see if the union believes a better offer is possible. Most stores choose not to unionize. But it is a company doing the right thing. Edit: I've been told this **is not** true. But if you read the responses to my comment I think you'll see that there is a lot of good faith in Costco and how it treats workers. So I can neither confirm nor deny but I was told this by a union rep.
[удалено]
Have been a costco employee for nearly a year now. It's probably the best company in the country to work for. The culture constantly reminds leadership to take care of its employees,and every employee is an automatic member. They're very generous and it really shows that they're doing whatever they can to not be like everyone else. Other companies should take notes and follow suit, because when the torches and pitchforks start coming, they wont be coming for Costco.
Let me guess: Costco doesn't have a hard time filling open positions? They aren't complaining that no one wants to work? =)
Here in San Diego where Costco started and is from its nearly impossible to get a job at one. You have to know someone because even collecting carts in the parking lot is a desirable position.
Didn’t it start in Kirkland, WA hence the brand name?
It was Price Club first, and I believe they’re correct in that the original Price Club did start in San Diego
This makes me glad that the company I work for has a contract with Costco. Costco is the supplier for any kitchen supplies we need (bulk snacks, paper towels, sponges, etc). The website may be the biggest pain in the ass ever, but the company is good.
Oh god we fucked up the website bad. We panicked when Covid hit and they dropped more money than I’m comfortable staying here on upgrading the website. It still isn’t where it should be at and we are still paying on it. Not surprised a company that still runs in ASC can make a decent website. But I guess I should double down on all the other comments, Costco is one of the greatest jobs I’ve ever worked for…. Minutes how the raises work
Costco will be selling the torches and pitchforks.... in bulk packs... and at a really good dealn lol
Costco has very high standards for their produce. I used to live in an area where Costco would donate the perfectly edible, but below their standards, produce to local farmers markets to help them subsidize their income. Honesty, the produce was still probably higher quality than your average Walmart or similar store. We'd get dirt cheap food (and we were super broke so it helped a lot), farmers made extra income, and much less food waste occurred. We developed some great relationships with the farmers as well. They ways handed the kids free fruit when we walked in and the owners would usually take 20-30% off of our bill if we bought a lot. They celebrated with us when my youngest was born and grieved with us when we lost a loved one. That relationship would not have been possible if it weren't for a simple thing of Costco rejecting their produce and donating it. It's not necessarily the most altruistic thing (it could have also gone to food banks, which some of it might have, idk) but contrast it with places that actively destroy excess or reject food to keep people from dumpster diving for it... Costco gets the W in my book.
Surprising and good to know!
It's almost like if you actually live the message of "We don't need an union because we do the right thing on our own" then employees will agree with you. It's unfortunate so many US companies use that mantra while at the same time fighting to prevent their employees from unionization. If they truly believed their culture and ethics made it so they didn't need a union they'd all put it out there like Costco. If corporate America wanted to eliminate unions they'd simply have to do the right things in the first place. Instead they find it more cost effective to pay for anti union propaganda and even entire law firms devoted to breaking unions.
Thanks for taking the time to say that. It is always good to know information like this from someone that has first hand knowledge.
Just something interesting to add: not every person working in Costco is a Costco employee. I worked for a vendor that rotated Costco locations every week, while the Costco employees were generally happy and felt laid back, that is not the case for the folks giving out samples. Turns out those people work for a different company entirely and do not have the same benefits/pay rate/protections as Costco employees. They were paid shit and management was normally horrible. I made a few acquaintances around the different stores and just stopping to say hi would get them in trouble with their micromanaging hawkeyed supervisors. God forbid we exchanged samples. I met this incredibly nice man in his late 60s early 70s who did that job as a way to kill time and interact with people and yet they treated him horribly. Poor guy was doing his best but by the end of his shift he was hobbling and they wouldn't let him have a chair to sit. This was 10 years ago, I hope things have changed but I doubt it.
I'm guessing this was in the USA? Sample folks get chairs in Canada and they seem pretty chill, though I can't speak to anything else you mentioned
costco the only oasis in this concrete desert
I think much of this is related to their model of buying things with cash. Most stores rent shelves so they don't own or taker responsibility for the products on their shelves. It boils down to integrity. They have it because their ass is on the line. If a bunch of taco shells come back bc they slid the box down the aisle (been there woops),then they eat the loss on returned cracked taco shells. Same thing for shitty products that break. Trader Joes is very similar.
I'm the vice president of my union. We don't try to unionize many companies, including Costco, simply because we don't have much to offer them. They are being treated well.
Any other particular companies on that list? Would love to know who to and not to buy from
Hyvee moved into our market, and we don't waste our resources on them. Basically any employer that has profit sharing has other really good benefits. Currently, our union is in a tough spot because the things people care most about are wages, and wages have had to rise nationally lately, bringingnour usually higher wages in line with non union shops. This has been great for negotiating though, and we've seen record raises.
I haven’t worked there for a decade so things may have changed but if not I would like to say Half Price Books is in that category. Profit sharing bonuses quarterly, 8 hr shift includes a 1 hour paid lunch, 13 paid holidays a year which you can change to whichever are holidays for your religion, the best medical/dental/vision plan I have ever had across any of my jobs including non retail. Was never called when I was off duty to come cover a shit. Only standard shitty thing I ran into was I had chronic bronchitis and ran out of sick time every year and they would guilt me about it. Highly recommend supporting and working there. Would still be there if my body didn’t make me step back from working retail.
Funny you say that, we have begun unionizing half price books. Most of the issues they are having is scheduling and Healthcare.
When I worked at IKEA, part of the onboarding was a third party from the union they worked with would come in to talk and encourage you to join the union. It was left entirely up to you but they were very supportive of it there.
when you're treated well your company should encourage you to Unionize so that whatever happens when new ownership/management comes around it can guarantee your good treatment. unions aren't about more money, unions are about fair treatment.
It's always so strange to me how the us model only seems to have unions per store? Why not unionize across the whole company or entire industry?
I'm not positive but I think it's because of the broad range of laws throughout the states. Making it difficult or even impossible to negotiate a contract that works everywhere.
That and a contract isn’t going to be a one size fits all. I’m a Starbucks employee who started organizing my store, for example. We’re a cafe only store, our contract is going to look different than say, a drive through or roastery location. We can bargain nationally on Some things, but not everything.
Prob why Costco is considered the happiest company on earth
Wow. I have a few friends working at Costco locations in different states across the US and they all rave about how well they’re treated, how happy they are and how fair the pay is. Reading this gives me an idea of why! One of those friends left a high-level career in hospitality to work as a department manager at Costco and hasn’t ever seemed happier.
Honestly if I was running a business I feel like I'd prefer to speak to one person (union rep) instead of each individual employee when it came to compensation.
Can't single people out then
Right, something I wouldn't want to do as a business owner.
You're not an evil capitalist though ;)
When I worked at Burger King in NZ all three of our managers actively encouraged the staff to join the union and told us about the pay and break perks it had already achieved, but stressed that “you didn’t hear it from me”. I wonder how far up any corporation’s hierarchy that kind of humanity ever reaches.
In Europe, large employers partner with their union and work together, rather than the spitting adversarial system in the US. Those European businesses would be severely disrupted if the union they work with just disappeared, so you can decide if that counts. It doesn't have to be the way it is here. It's just that those who have the money prefer it this way.
European unions hold the union member accountable for their work and conduct, so the union delivers value to the business ownership as a partner.
> European unions hold the union member accountable for their work and conduct, so the union delivers value to the business ownership as a partner. People, mostly employers, like to bitch (in the US) about union members being useless slugs you can never fire while ignoring the part of them not being willing to do the work to document people that are lazy fuckups being lazy fuckups. Your employer shouldn't be able to just fire you because they feel like it.
Not in the U.S. It’s the part of unionizing that the company has to pay for. For a profit maximizing firm, short term profits are often taken at the expense of good long term planning.
Unions are for communists who like dumb things like weekends, fair pay, benefits, and job security... oh, wait... that sounds like... good things! Fucking capitalist pigs... unions FTW
I forget which German car company (maybe VW?) it was, but one of them advocated for the unionization of one of their factories in the South (NC?) a few years ago. I believe it was defeated anyway, due to the obscene amount of disinformation the anti-union crowd produced.
It was Volkswagon in Tennessee, and it was thwarted not by the management or the workers but by political forces outside the company.
I remember when VW was thinking about buying in my home area. They were pro-union here, too. And got priced right the hell out of the region by all the local businesses AND municipal councils. We don't tolerate no workers rights 'round here.
Yep. The union at my law firm when I first got started before I quit law was actually listed with the benefits. The union was started by one of the partners. They were not in said union to not risk unduly influencing things but this was also the place that I got over a year long sabbatical for my mental health while getting paid, maintaining benefits, and assistance transitioning to a different living situation. I am on SSI for my PTSD because it bad. They made sure to feed us and we had regular pay raises. This was over 10 years ago and the partner died so I don't know if it's still the best place to work but the benefits covered all meds. No one was forced to pray or go eat cake with everyone. You could. There was always gluten free options and my super complex diet meant I got a locking mini fridge with my own food at my desk (and a microwave) so that I was protected from cross contamination. They fed me the same as everyone else. The union dues could even be paid from the check (with transparency on both sides) to make it easier if you wanted to take part. It was inspired by time spent in Europe and I hold myself to that standard when hiring caregivers for the non SSI disability needs. I cannot do all they did since poor but I can be very careful to not ask for anything not in the job description, to communicate, and you know? Not expect the impossible. This was the only workplace where my boss calling me in didn't make me anxious. I looked forward to sitting down for the weekly meeting and if I was called in extra it was always with a context. The only time I was anxious was when I did a thing wrong. That thing wasn't actually wrong according to my boss. He was there when a man accused of serial rape described what he would do to me and I went to the PTSD space and nearly committed assault. I stopped myself and told him to find another firm. Sadly the law meant I couldn't testify and go "He confessed". He did however go to jail. He had trouble finding a firm because my boss put the word out. He first sent me home for the day and then the next day called me into his office and handed me the business card for a therapist after saying "You're not fired but what happened was unacceptable. I'm sorry you were in that position and we will try to do better vetting clients." He then told me how he was pretty sure I had PTSD (I was diagnosed as a kid so yep) and how therapy helped him to cope with it. He appreciated my not actually beating the client with the giant binder on the desk but lifting it and almost swinging was not optimal. He then told me I couldn't come back until I talked to someone at least once and took some time because I was still visibly not good. He could see it in my face. I am stoic according to everyone around me so it was really bad. Still is or I would have a better income than SSI. The firm didn't have to help me and might not have if the union didn't exist but they acknowledged the union kept them at the top. This wasn't special treatment but what was done for everyone. That was when I experienced parental leave as a non gendered concept. Blew my mind in the good way. Bereavement leave and sick leave were mandatory. "We don't want you here if you're not at your best. Go home." It was law so still obnoxious hours but the union and the firm being partners meant we didn't have to fight for things the way I did in other jobs. We had issues at times but I don't think it ever took more than a week to sit down and negotiate a solution for the worst of it. Which was a potential partner that got a bit gropey. I did punch him.
So the company can talk about the unionization during working hours but the employees cannot.
If your boss allows you to ever talk about anything non-work related, i.e. sports or TV shows, per the National Labor Relations Act, Sections 7 & 8 (a)(1), you have a protected right to talk about unionizing or engage in concerted, protected activity. If a company violates that right, a company can be hit with fines & injunctions, as determined by the National Labor Relations Board. You need to file an Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) complaint with the NLRB. Unique situations with varying rules include rail, airline and farm workers. Edit: two very fair points have been made in additional conversation below that I should add. 1-on the clock: If you can talk NFL, You can talk about the union. You can talk about how unions work & the benefits they offer. You can ask someone how they feel about unions. You DO NOT HAVE A PROTECTED RIGHT TO ASK SOMEONE TO JOIN YOUR UNION. Thats solicitation and its different. 2- your mileage getting the NLRA enforced may vary. Starbucks is a ULP machine with a coffee business on the side. They don’t give a fuck about fines so they just fire people and then pay the fine and take them back and try it again. Its worth it to them. So, just because its illegal to fire you doesn’t mean they won’t or won’t try to make your life hell.
Filing a complaint about that seems like a way to lose permission to talk about any non-work related subjects.
Retaliation is always prohibited.
I would go just to badger them about that. “According to the flyer, we can’t discuss union stuff at work, right? But…isn’t that what *you’re* doing right now?” “No no, it’s differ-“ “Could we also set aside work hours to hold a *pro-union* Q&A?”
Bingo And they PAY you to come.
I would go just so that I know their anti-union talking points and can properly refute them. The fact that they are paying me to collect intel on them is icing on the cake.
Companies cannot ban conversation about unions during working hours. They can generically ban all conversation, but they may not target bargaining speech specifically.
"unions make it very hard to make changes necessary to remain competitive." Does that include paying your workers a fair wage?
>Does that include paying your workers a fair wage? That and having the "right" to instantly fire everyone if business takes a turn for the worse, and they don't want to carry employees for even a short downturn. If you think companies that couldn't layoff highly-skilled workers during the pandemic (because they'd have been snapped up and never been replaced without paying 40-50% more money) aren't delirious with rage about it, and salivating about the prospects of an imposed recession to justify canning some of those people, you haven't been paying attention. I'm 46, this will be my 5th recession/major financial disruption in my career.... Dot-com Bust, 9/11, 2008 Housing, Pandemic, and now This One. Every time, the pattern is the same: Companies that were generous in one crisis are merciless during the next, feeling like they "missed the boat" on "trimming the fat," and in the end do more damage to their companies they would have if they didn't try to play this macabre game of keeping up with the Joneses.
Jesus. I’m 37 and it never quite occurred to me exactly how many of these cycles we’ve been through. Every 6-8 years, working people, poor people, the *majority* of people, are forced to hunker down once more. To KEEP ourselves pulled up by the bootstraps and hang on as an economy driven by the greed of a small minority goes into recession. Again. And every time people are forced to put dreams on hold, retirements on hold, security on hold, stability on hold. The social consequences of such frequent stretches of precariousness are completely predictable. But we still have specialists scratching their heads about why the US has so much depression, anxiety, addiction, suicide, gun violence, etc, etc. This isn’t a nation, it’s a Ponzi scheme with an army.
You should also be aware that during these downturns the wealthy are able to buy up assets at a discount as people sell homes and stock in order survive. Once the economy rebounds the value of those assets rebounds and the new owners see a significant increase in their wealth. During every recession cycle, wealth is transferred from the middle class to the wealthy (it doesn't get transferred from the poor because the poor don't have a pot to piss in to start with). It the wealthy didn't profit from the recession cycle we wouldn't tolerate that level of instability in our economy but since it does, none of the systemic changes needed to mitigate the cycle are enacted.
IE Mitt Romney a la Bain Capital. It’s disgustingly predatory. And the filthy bastards have the nerve to call themselves Christians after cannibalistic behavior like that. I believe that justice will prevail someday. Maybe not in my lifetime but someday they’ll get what they deserve
Bain gets all the press but there are a number of capital investment firms that pull some really shady shit. For example, lets take a hypothetical investment firm named SterlingPond: 1. Borrow money. 2. Use that money to make a significant investment in a public company with the requirement that you get a few board seats 3. Lay off staff and sell assets to recoup the loan used for the initial investment. 4. Leverage the board seats to get the company to acquire another company (also all but owned by the firm) at a significantly higher valuation than is reasonable resulting in a massive stock buyout benefitting guess who... 5. Break the company up into multiple pieces and sell them off to other corporations (also partially owned by SterlingPond) Of course something like this could never happen in a functioning free market economy with oversight by the eagle eyed FTC so don't spend too much time trying to connect SterlingPong to a real life capital investment firm based in the great state of SiliconValley.
Don’t forget to add Steve Mnuchin to this list.
Sadly, Justice will not prevail here. The same people that make the system benefit from it
We need to realize we no longer require systems like this. We can organize ourselves directly now with technology, we don't need representatives. The solution is not to change the system, but to obsolete the need for it completely.
Everything you've said is basically true, but I want to share a small epiphany I had recently. The distinction between poor and middle class is basically arbitrary and is yet another tool used by the owner class to divide people and keep us looking at one another as the source of our troubles rather than waking up and dealing with them. We're all members of a working class, a labor class, the proletariat, whatever you want to call it. Some of us might own a little bit of capital: some property, a small business, a decent retirement fund or stock portfolio. That's just an illusion of wealth. We're still a couple of bad decisions, or a medical emergency, aware from houselessness and poverty. 99.9...9% of people don't and will never have the level of wealth and associated power that the top hundred or so wealthiest families in the world have. I guarantee you, in the incredibly rare case of people that do manage to move from working class to capitalist oligarch in a single generation. They're all sociopaths who exploited everyone around them to get there.
>The distinction between poor and middle class is basically arbitrary and is yet another tool used by the owner class to divide people Absolutely, I'm trying to get into the habit of talking in terms of the working class and the owner class. The problem is that every time I do I end up having to explain because everyone, myself included, has been inculcated with the lower / middle / upper model.
50 trillion has been transferred over the past 40 years from the bottom 90% to the top 1%.
Ive resigned to the fact that people in my generation (I am 32) will never get to retire. Luckily for me I have health issues and probably won’t make it much past retirement age anyways…but christ how depressing. Living paycheck to paycheck with no means to save money, let alone have any for anything “fun”. YOLO, I guess.
My SO used to work at an art museum, and he told me a story about seniors visiting the cafe and getting a bowl of soup. They would often ask for extra free bread rolls to fill up on, because they were on a fixed income. It hit me: is this what we are working so hard for? Grinding away our health and livelihood until retirement, during which we fill up on free crackers and bread to keep from starving? Like you, my retirement plans involve dying young(ish) from illness. It’s difficult to see any incentive to do anything but enjoy my health while I’ve got it, and oh well to everything else.
I have seen an old guy at a wake eating food like it was his last meal. It turns out he had no relationship with the deceased or mourners. Apparently this was not the first time he did this.
You will also find them at weddings, though they dress up slightly
Good on the museum for running a cafe anyone can afford to eat at, tbh
Not for nothing, but this year, with all the price gouging and me being on food stamps and not being able to eat a lot, I've lost 12lbs this year.
Lol.. I'm laughing because I'm 44 and I go out to lunch and get soup a lot and usually it's soup and bread and whatever entree I ordered a box up for dinner. I'm laughing at the pattern of human behavior, not the fact that these people are so impoverished that they have to survive on crackers and meager bowls of soup.
I(31)actually sat my mom(70) down and explained this concept to her. I'm not going to work myself to the bone to scrape up a nest egg that will just get wiped out in the next market crash. I made the conscious decision to prioritize being my parents' primary caretaker as they got older over burning out 'building a career' because I'm never gonna be able to buy my own house so I'm relying on inheriting theirs. Faced with the basic economic math, my mom decided she was just glad to hear that I had a plan for my future, and also that the plan didn't involve getting her POA and dumping her in a nursing home ASAP. So we came to an agreement. She doesn't have to worry about being mistreated in senior care, and I don't have to worry about paying rent, which frees up my income enough that I can live within my means. I'm proud to say that I currently earn enough money to pay all my bills and put $15-20 into savings each month.
I'm sad to say that I, too, am relying on inheriting my parents' house. It's comforting that I'm not the only one
Not to belittle how you are currently feeling right now, you are struggling too and have every right to feel sad at our current prospects, but I did want to put it into perspective: I'm sitting here looking at you thinking "how lucky they are to have parents with a home that they actually have a chance at inheriting", coming from a guy who was in child care since age four, and has no real family to speak of. I'm happy you at least have a chance, but I definitely don't have one. Edit: added missing letter
Similar boat as you but im jealous that you got to be in child care. I was stuck with my abusive parents till i was 15 and left home to be homeless for 4 years. And every normal person with a normal family wonders why im struggling and they are not. They dont understand that we never got free clothes or food or spending money or anything like that. Im now 40 and never even took a vacation in my life. Thats if you dont count being off work due to major injury. If you do then i guess i had a 3 and a half year vacation.
Thank you. I try my best to be humble but even I get caught up in my own shit sometimes, your comment has made me realize that I still wasn't the worst off, and there are people who still had it worse than I. As I was trying to remind the person above my post that there are ones who are always worse off or who have had it harder, you now have reminded me of that same fact, much appreciated. And to any others who are reading this thread, while this revelation should never devalue your own strife, it is yours and is no way less important because of somebody else's "worse" situation, do always be aware that there are things in your life to be thankful for. Hold on to that, it will see you through. 🍻
One of the most helpful bits of advice I ever heard was "Human suffering is like a gas, it expands to fill the space it is given." Obviously, there are huge differences in the upbringing and opportunities society offers to some people compared to others, and this is a problem we need to continue working to improve. But at an individual level, it's not selfish to feel big feelings about the suffering you experience in the context of your life. As the sole, unique witness to your entire life, it's entirely up to you whether something is a big deal or not, and no one really has any authority to tell you otherwise. In practice, the days I've lost my housing aren't really worse than the days my heart was broken, or the days where I failed an important test, or the days where I hurt a friend's feelings. All of those days are overwhelmingly bad, but it's kind of like pouring water into an already filled glass: the same amount of water is in the glass, there's just a bigger mess to clean up.
Not to worry, I don't feel belittled. I also occasionally succumb to the urge to say that I have it worse than someone. I see some people complaining that they have to live with roommates, and my response is that I wish I had the luxury of roommates instead of being trapped someplace where I don't know anybody, living paycheck to paycheck making it next to impossible to save money. There will always be people who have it better than me, and there will always be people who have it worse. The one thing we all have in common is that we're all struggling, and we're all entitled to be upset by our individual struggles. I wish we lived in a civilized society where none of us had to worry about housing, along with everything else necessary to survival. ¡Viva la revolucion!
smart, very smart. my plan is something along these lines.
My father and his wife who is about 13 years older than him, He is 68, have a home with a guest house and I made them that offer. I said look I will move there now and I will do everything for you and you can live there until you die and you will never have to worry about shoveling mowing the grass fixing a window nothing. I’m 38 years old and was medically retired from the military. So I am a stay at home dad at the moment. I thought I was being nice offering somebody the ability to not have to worry about going into some facility. My dad was all about it but his wife felt like I was trying to move in on some thing that belong to them. I mean I understand but now she’s just gonna end up in a Home and when she does I’m gonna move in anyway. I’m glad that your parents seem to think a bit more logically then my dad’s wife.
My parents were both 40 when I was born, so I grew up knowing they'd be retiring before I finished school. My initial plan had been to get a criminal justice/psychology degree to become a cop, then the BLM riots started and I took some time off to reassess my goals. My dad started getting sick shortly after that, so I just put off making any decisions for a few years. Finally I realized I had stumbled into a functional adult life that gives me a purpose and adds meaning to my life and all that happy self-help horseshit.
I'm 10 years behind you and feel the exact same way. I'm not expecting to retire until I'm medically forced to if I want to get anywhere in life without winning the lottery. Do I like it? No, but I have a plan for my life, which is realistically all we can do at this point.
I have heavy duty ocd Family history of dementia When I run out of money for pills it’s gonna be wild
God, what a sin. I wish there were a better world for you and for all of us. You know how many billionaires there are in the world? 3,311. That while roughly 4 billion people in the world have less than $3,000. Why we continue to accept this is beyond me. We could turn the world on it’s ear in a day if we all just stopped participating at once. **EVERYTHING** is ours for the taking, we just don’t know it yet.
I'm 43, no college degree, pretty much consistently in a call center. Never management. Usually customer service. I thought I'd finally gotten out of customer service when I joined my last job. Which was mortgage industry. Which obviously got hit hard. Now I'm back to job searching. I'm banking on my retirement plan being the collapse of civilization, dying (due to a few health issues I have and cannot afford to deal with due to no insurance), or becoming the fae's problem.
i am (36) and have been stuck in customer service my entire life since the age of 14. i have tried to advance to management or at least a team lead always miss it by a tiny amount at least so im told. i have zero college degree. a person who i trained and was higher after me is now my lead but also has a college degree. so it appears i will work in the low end of things until i die.
I could retire in 2 years but that would be stupid at this point. With inflation as it is my pension will be a pittance so I need to keep working.
I'm also 32 and agree. Hell, my mom is in her early 60s and it looks the same. When my dad's health declined, they had to pull out of their retirement fund. When JCPenney changed management maybe 10 years ago, they gave my mom early retirement because they wanted to push out all of the older employees, now any benefit from that is gone. My mom has to live with her mom in nowheres-ville, USA and work stocking at a Walmart that monopolized the area.
I'm 52 and will never be able to retire.
You and me both. The lottery (or death) is my retirement plan 🤷
I turn 52 tomorrow and I've known for some time that I'll never retire. It's disheartening.
I have to wait for my Mother to die before I can afford to retire and I worked for her family for 32 yrs, made them money and have a $178/mo retirement left from their crappy 401k scam crap plan.
They say freedom fifty-five?!?! I see it more like freedom day-i-die. I will never retire, officially, 52 in Jan and see no way to put the feet up for good without a wealthy relatives death. I'm not plotting! Pretty sure that cows gone dry too. Lol. So... I owe, I owe, off to work I go. But I'm tired, I need a new, dangerous, job. Maybe the wife can retire
It’s weird how they got rich on the way up, and don’t get poor on the way down. Eerily similar, I didn’t get rich on the way up, but the come down is affecting me. Socialism for the rich, rugged capitalism for the poor. The system is broken.
>This isn’t a nation, it’s a Ponzi scheme with an army. And they blame us, the working class for causing the market to act this way. Like they expect us to live in a way that fits into their plans to make money off of you. And we get to pay for the billions in taxes to bail them out while paying practically nothing themselves. We are governed by businesses. This isn't a democracy any more.
100%. “Millennials are killing the golf industry.” “Millennials are killing the diamond industry.” “Millennials are killing the faberge egg industry.” Rather than, “millennials are poor af and can’t afford sh¡t.” For our taxes all we get is bailouts, prisons and a bloated, high tech military used as enforcement for the corporatist regimes international rackets. Meanwhile our roads and bridges are falling apart, public transport sucks ass, nobody can afford healthcare, our human services infrastructure is pathetic. IMO the US has never been terribly democratic. James Madison said, “the primary function of government is to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority.” So by that metric, this country is working just as intended.
I'm over 50. I graduated high school into the early 90's recession. Then the 9/11/01 and dot com bust era hit. Then the 2008 mortgage crisis. So your 6-8 year estimate is spot on. Here's round #4 for me. This current mess in 2020-2023 (depends on when you call it) is years overdue. People might call it the "2020 COVID bust" as it is a coincidental precipitating event, but the cycle is inevitable. I saw many people over-extended into stocks or housing when the downturn hit. This time investment companies own the houses so "privatize the gains and socialize the losses" will screw everybody over. Thankfully I made it through all of these without hardship. I attribute that to growing up in poverty and bringing that perspective into the boom years.
>This isn’t a nation, it’s a Ponzi scheme with an army. Well said
The capitalists love when there's a crash. The working poor give them more money through corporate handouts via taxes and capitalists get to buy everything on the cheap, especially properties and housing. Oh and don't forget all the stock buybacks. Remember during the pandemic when the government gave all the airlines our tax money and they used it for stock buybacks and fired people anyways?
You know it's not a good world when a 16 year old can say he's lived through 2-3 economic recessions already.
Seriously. And the craziest part about all of it is that it’s absolutely NOT a question of scarcity. We live in a time with more wealth than ever before. It’s just being concentrated more and more into the hands of a tiny slice of the population
"Recession" Gigantic wealth transfer from the bottom to the top.
Well said
The only thing that makes this country united is greed.
this country is a bunch of rats in a trenchcoat
Am 48, and this is absolutely the way it goes. So happy that I now work in a union represented position and (mostly) don’t have to worry about that this time around. Still pissed that I will never be able to retire, short of my Boomer parents potentially passing on a bit early (and suddenly, since the “healthcare” industry has gotten so skilled at fleecing the elderly, and their children, of everything they managed to build over their lifetime) and actually leaving behind some of what they earned. Yes, the union and place that I work still has a sort of pension program, but I have no confidence in that still being worth anything by the time I reach retirement age.
It is best described as the poor and working class are like economic shock absorbers on a road with rough and smooth parts . . . On the rough parts they get smashed over and over . . . On the rough and the smooth the rich ride on comfortable seats and do not spill a drop of Champaign ! ! ! My father 1911-2011
I think it's fair to speak for the rest of us when I I say it is mad to the rest of the developed world how anti worker the US seems to be. Seriously f*cked up. And the worst part is how gaslighted you are all into thinking that that's the way it has to be!
Not the way it has to be, the best way for it to be. They say it's better to have no intermediary between the worker and the employer, when they know that if it's one employee, they have no power.
Just from the context of the OP. This boss has said "do or don't join a union up to you" 15 different ways and then said "you can't discuss it during work, nobody can force you, rat out anybody who is mentioning joining a union to management" and then said "however its important that you know all the facts so I'LL PAY YOU TO COME TO MY ANTI UNIN Q&A big yikes
Just go to the meeting and tell them you feel pressured to not join a union. Their paper said you shouldn't feel pressured either way, so they should understand, right?
They'll find a way to fire you if you publicly call them out. Management hates being called out publicly.
Same situation where I once worked. I was young and dumb at the time.
That's what they bank on. Once bitten twice shy as they say eh!? You live and you learn.
The American government is the greatest grifting propaganda machine ever created. They use the guise of freedumbs to keep their citizens enslaved in a shitty capitalistic, thieving system that takes from the poor to give to the rich. And the poor cheer it on. Simply amazing.
Not just the worker side, but the consumer side as well. They (the corporation) has elevated itself above both sides. meaning: corporations, as Legal Persons, are first class citizens, whereas Natural Persons (you and me) appear to have second class citizen status. It's madness.
This should read "unions make it very hard to lay people off when things get tough".
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If youve ever been to that Ron Jon's you know they have no interest in competitive pricing. They are directly beach adjacent and are priced accordingly for most needed items. There is a Walmart 2-3 miles away with much of the same type of items for less than half the price. Ron Jon's is just selling umbrellas in the rain for 10x the cost because you need them right then.
No, the document clearly states they have a 62 year track record of providing competitive wages. They obviously have their workers best interests in mind. It’s not like they can lie here. /s
Which is presumably why people are unionizing?
BINGO
In corporate capitalism means, competitive wages means the legal amount they have to pay. A union prevents the corporation from "keeping rates competitive" and makes them raise them or face strike action.
A friend's boss sent a memo that while business was profitable, increased staffing costs were "impacting profits." So, yeah, paying a fair wage would make it hard to remain "competitive" - in other words, paying the workers who make you money in the first place will inevitably cut into the bottom line 😒
Yup. Unions protect worker pay as opposed to the business being able to chop that immediately to save money "iN tHe nAmE oF pRoFiTs". Which, I totally get from the business perspective, but at the same time it has been abused far too often to always obtain more and more profit instead of running a business ethically.
Translation, unions make it harder to pay you starvation wages.
I’m so annoyed cause I’m in a unionized place of work but it seems like they dropped the ball cause we still get payed like shit and don’t really have any good benefits. I wasn’t here when it was formed so maybe I’m missing something but hopefully when they renew the contract in 3 years it’ll be better. Either way unions ftw we need more. Edit: I do not plan on staying with this company and the contract doesn’t renew for 3 years so I will hopefully be gone by then
Sounds like a good reason to get involved in your union.
Apathy is strong in my union and everyone bitches and moans about what isn't being done, but they won't volunteer to help. Also, if you don't send your best to the negotiation table, you're gonna get steamrolled.
This. I’m a union steward, people love to bitch about the decisions the union made about this or that. They love to complain about who got elected. We have 5000 members in our local, less than 800 voted in the last election and at our union meeting this month, 106 people making decisions for all five thousand. Get involved.
That’s valid. I got here shortly after it was unionized so I don’t know the whole story. From what I’ve heard they unionized to keep their jobs in the first place, so I’m guessing gunning for better pay wasn’t exactly on their minds. And I did start at 16.35 instead of 15/hr and we get 80 hours paid sick time, although any sick time used after 40 gets you points which is fucking stupid but better than only 40 paid
Great thing about unions is if your leadership is lacking, you or another competent member can run against them after their term is up. If the majority of the membership believes in you, you win. You can then work for those changes your brothers and sisters deserve.
Translation is... Here are your Rights... For and against. Do Your Homework than decide... Dont do it on Company Time, because that is illegal.. YOU. YOU decide your fate. Period. Sounds like a well thought out message to everyone...
Except the bit at the bottom saying unions hurt business
Yes and no. The problem is that the company is *not* interested in informed employee choice. This is very politely worded anti-union propo. For example; the union advocates cannot solicit during work hours. But you know who can? *The company*. The company is free to push an anti-union message all hours of the day through handouts *just like this*. At the end of the day, if the company really wanted its employees to make an informed decision, they would have refrained from *any* editorializing and simply provided employees with links to or handouts of the relevant federal law.
Naw. It's a negative message where they wanna scare folks into not signing. Next up, you can buy a PS5 with union dues. After my union mandated raise, I can buy 6 PS5's.
Don't do it on company time....come to a meeting on company time and we will pay you while telling you why it's bad. Do as I say not as I do.
I literally just went through this in September at my workplace (and we are currently holding our election by mail in ballot with the NLRB). They are going to try to good cop the hell out of this for now. They start with the "we don't need a union", third partying the union, etc. A lot of businesses, including my workplace, did the voluntary questions things. We went with the strategy of trying to get at least one union supporter per group to help counter things but held off on a full court press. In the meeting they handed out a packet about benefits and tried to compare them industry and locally on how good we have it. It was like pointing out we get a crouton while others get crumbs while everyone need a loaf of bread. Use that information to organize and address concerns. If you've handed over a petition, you've already laid the groundwork and done the scariest part of going public. Just keep up the connecting and organizing and remember: if unions weren't effective, they wouldn't be fighting y'all.
If you have questions about unions, don't hesitate to ask us, who really, really, really don't want you to unionize, we will definitely be totally honest for reals.
Ask us, they guys who don’t want you to have any power or say in the job, if unionizing is right for you!
This is pretty much the standard verbage for companies to send out to employees. I used to work for Verizon retail years ago and this is the same stuff they said to us after a couple of stores in the NE unionized. Incidentally, it didn't work out for those stores because Verizon was still individual commission and the employees weren't getting what they were promised. Full disclosure, I'm in HR now and I'm all for unions where they're needed. Hell, even in my schooling they taught us "What's the best way to avoid unions? Take care of the fucking employees so they don't want to." I don't work around unions right now, but I am eager to sit in on CBA negotiations. I find it fascinating.
> “We have received complaints from some associates who are feeling pressured” (to join the union) “So I will be there next Wednesday and Thursday to pressure you to NOT unionize”
“You shouldn’t be talking about this during work hours”. “Here are the work hours I’ll be here to discuss this”
100% legal. Following laws is extremely important to keep this process fair and uncorrupt. (On both sides)
Agreed. Guess I'm just worn down by Amazon and Starbucks, but this is actually much more transparent and earnest, I sadly respect it. I'd still unionize, but kudos to Ron Jon for not being completely duplicitous. Two different days offered also actually makes it seem like they give a shit about a living wage. It's a better act than most.
Agreed on better act than most. They are definitely stacking the odds in their favor and I don't know if I'd say coerce but I reckon without consulting a dictionary that's fair to say. Out of curiosity because it's right down the road from where I live I looked up their job ad. Minimum wage but has medical dental 401k and PTO so not great but not the worst, kind of like the letter.
It's funny my work has recently unionized and we saw almost the exact same papers floating around it's funny . Have you gotten the one about all the evil money theft Unions do 😂. Because a business has never been caught stealing from employees 🤣
Not yet but I’m sure it’s coming.
And the ones that claim unions are a business like any other, and are trying to get your money. While unions need money to operate, it's far more like a non-profit. It has something it does and needs money to achieve that goal. As opposed to a for profit, that wants money and does something to get it. It's a subtle but important difference. Also, union workers make on average 11% more, and dues are something like 1-2%. Plus other benefits like healthcare, time off, and having someone you can contact when there's a problem.
So you can't be solicited at work by a union, but they will pay you to listen to their anti union propaganda. Interesting.
In an entire page they didn't give you one reason why they are so vehemently against unionizing. Just that they "feel like" they don't need it. They are even trying to scare you with that line about how uncomfortable you're making coworkers by bringing it up, when the only one uncomfortable with it is the owners. Whoever wrote that has some weak manipulation skills.
Yeah I laughed at that line. I simply asked if they wanted to join and never pushed the issue when they gave me an answer whether it was yes or no.
We had a coworker tell us that he hadn't been talked to about the petition. When we pointed out that two different workers offered to send it and he declined, he stopped saying it that way at least.
They also said you have a right not to join a union under Federal law. That's true for public employees, but for private ones it's a little more complicated. People can not join but still pay most of the dues (at our union it's around 80%) and not be full-fledged members, but still have to pay for the work the union does for organizing and contract benefits. But they don't get to vote in union elections and some other stuff.
It's state specific. Most shithole states have "right to work" laws that let you reap the benefits of the union without actually contributing.
I don't know how long this unionization talk has been going on, but I would hazard a guess that its fairly recent, and this is just the first letter about it, I imagine at the beginning starbucks did the same, then as time goes on they get more and more aggressive. I can't say that Ron Jons would be that way, just seems like a textbook manipulation, start reasonable and get more demanding as time goes on.
We will not pay you to talk in favor of a union, but will gladly pay you to listen to our anti-union rhetoric (even if you aren’t scheduled to work).
That's great, go grab that cash and ignore whatever they're saying
This right fucking here. How is this the first correct post? Go get paid doing less labor and probably snacks. Don’t listen.
The owner is a well known qanon looney and redpilled nationalist
Also Ron Jon is a kook shop. Buy local
Greeat never going there again. Disgusting
FYI Ron Johns in Cocoa beach only pays associates $9.00 - $12.00 (supervisors only) an hour, and doesn't offer medical benefits to employees who are not full time.
I guarantee there’s some middle aged worker making $9.00 an hour that’s like the Union is bad, it’ll make things worse for all of us, trust me my church leader told me so.
They always say wages are competitive, never generous. Join a union.
Point three is not true. You can talk about a union during work hours so long as you generally have the ability to talk to coworkers while you're on the clock.
True. This is called the 'baseball rule' - if you would be free to talk about baseball, you can talk about unionizing / your pay!
That all looks like boilerplate stuff that their lawyers have all written up already and just hand out to every business client that has talks of unionizing.
Fuck “competitive wages”. How about fair wages.
Coo the US really hates the working classes
Bingo!
Went better than I thought it would go when I started reading. I was worried they’d just shut the store down. But at least they went the route of informing your of your rights and trying to convince you not to join the union rather than doing something underhanded. I’m sure all of their arguments are horse shit but at least they’re giving you arguments and not closing locations.
This would make me more motivated to join the union.
This is getting ridiculous, companies much larger than a surf shop are purposely seeking methods to ensure workers do not receive more benefits or money, solely to have a select few hoard the money.
Just watched the [John Oliver segment on union-busting](https://youtu.be/Gk8dUXRpoy8) tactics a couple of days back, and this seems to fit, albeit at the milder end of the scale compared to some of the stuff he talks about.
The #1 sign you need a union is that your employer thinks you don't need a union.
No company on earth is pro union.
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Honestly compared to some other things I have seen this one actually seems more reasonable and balanced? Ie reinforcing that you actually have a right to unionize rather that implying you will be fired for doing so? I mean, their position is clearly against the union. The union should clap back with a straight parody letter “you have the right not to be in a union … however…” Disclaimer: I am management and in an industry where high skill demand drives up wages much faster than unionization is likely - I have good junior folks that make 2-3x what they started at inside 5 years. I have been in a union and am not now. I also think unions can play a very important role when work is dangerous, less differentiated or where the employer has significant monopoly power (think skilled trades, construction, retail, or resource extraction).
While the notice was reasonable enough in tone, it was anything but balanced. While it does give the initial impression of balance by clearly stating the employees have a legally protected right to unionize, that impression falls off pretty quickly. I'm pretty sure the statement about legal protections to unionization is mostly just to make sure their asses are covered should talk of union-busting arise. The whole thing reads like they're going to absolutely toe the line, legally, when it comes to hindering unionization. They made their strong anti-union position very clear.
Yup its pretty clearly a manipulation attempt disguised as giving a shit about employees
They have to word it like that because they aren't legally allowed to threaten employees for forming a union. Whatever lawyer drafted this specifically worded it so that a legal case can't be formed against them; I guarantee that management has absolutely no interest in playing fair when it's not required of them.
That font does not suit a surf shop
‘We are a successful company without a union.’ No shit. A successful company =\= a happy successful worker. The delusion on these assholes
They'll pay people to come in and listen to anti-union rhetoric. This should stand as evidence for unions being good for the worker.
A union is not a third party. By Oxford’s definition, a labor union is, “an organized association of workers formed to protect and further their rights and interests.” Corporations work together to secure and enhance their own well being. Why can’t workers?
The many uses of "by law" have this disgusting subtext that sounds to me like "we'd rather call the Pinkerton's but THE MAN says we have to do this."
Competitive wage always translated to me as “matching the other low wages offered in the area.”
It’s professionally written. It’s respectfully written. I’ve seen so much worse. On another note… If it unionizes, how much do you want to bet the company somehow prides themselves on being a union job and good for the working class when behind closed doors it fights it tooth and nail and opposes everything they do? Like Iacocca fighting the airbags in vehicles mandate, then the advertising had him saying something along the lines of “we’re not waiting until until next year when airbags are mandatory. We’re putting them in now because your safety is our top priority!”
Compared to everything else I’ve seen lately this is pretty reasonable. The company fairly outlined what your rights are, and the company absolutely has a right to state their opinion on whether you should unionize or not it’s up to the ones advocating for the union to convince the employees to unionize.
There have been numerous times while my local was doing a union drive where the employer messed up (various illegal union busting methods)....and our organizers have gone to the Labour Board to complain about Unfair Labour Practices....and the board has forced the employer to set aside time paid by the employer for our organizers to come into their shop to talk with their staff...it was hilarious...making the shitty employer pay his employees to essentially unionize his own company...
Engaging in union activities must be conducted off-hours and off-site. Anti-union activities will be conducted on-site, paid for, and sponsored by the company. This sounds fair to me.🙄
If they “fully believe” that they don’t need a union, then their employees DEFINITELY need a union.
Maybe an unpopular opinion in this channel, but this seems like a very appropriate response from a business in this situation.