in which I go off on my part-time employer's non-union-busting union-busting meeting

(this is the first time I've ever tried to write intelligibly abt labor and the economy -- labor movement and immigration rights allies, please call me out if any of my armchair theorizing is totally fracked).

Art Levine in the Huffington Post (hat tip: alternet) reports that an increasing number of corporations are using aggressive, "Wal-mart tactics" like firings and intimidation to prevent the formation of unions. These are the sort of tactics the Employee Free Choice Act is designed to prevent, by eliminating the secret ballot process and shortening the amount of time during which employers can fuck with shit.

Perhaps because of anxieties produced by the Employee Free Choice Act, my own part-time (retail) employer held a mandatory "union awareness" meeting twoish (I think) weeks ago, the first meeting of its kind I've seen after almost a decade of working for this company. They did not employ agressive, Wal Mart-style tactics. Rather, they went in for some classic "Office Space" style doubletalk and manipulation, a Bill O'Reilly-worthy "no spin zone" wherein they announced they were not there to tell us unions were "good" or "bad," but rather present us with comprehensive information so that we might make up our own minds. Their version of comprehensive information was a chart that compared "union culture" to our own corporate culture, characterizing our company as a place where hard work is compensated and management's door is always open, where feedback is solicited through "round-table conversations" and management values those who go "above and beyond" in their commitment to the "team." By contrast, our managers not so subtly implied that unions are unable to guarantee anything in the way of compensation, while closing off employees' access to management. Union organizers came off sounding a bit like creepy muggers who stalk you in alleys on your way to car to coerce you into signing union cards. Not surprisingly, the general principle of unions as a mechanism for collective bargaining and action and for protecting the collective welfare of employees was completely absent from this "comprehensive" conversation.

If the responses of my colleagues are any indication, our employer has nothing to worry about. Some of my favorite comments include (paraphrased) -

~"So if we unionized, I would lose all the raises I've gotten from working here for ten years?"

~"When I worked as a flight attendant, the maintenance workers were unionized but the flight attendants weren't, and when the maintenance workers went on strike they made it really difficult for the rest of us."

~"If we already have laws that protect workers, then why do we need unions?"

~"Who runs these unions, anyway? We've all heard stories about Jimmy Hoffa."

...Let's talk about that last comment for a second. Chicago is a weird-ass city where unions are concerned. We've got the worst of the worst here - some of the most corrupt, mobbed-up unions in the country. But we also have some of the best, most democratic, diverse and worker-driven unions, like the UE, the union that lead the worker action at Republic Windows and Doors last fall. There are also a lot of great worker organizing projects in Chicago and all around the country that for various reasons work outside union structures, often because of the contingent nature of the work or the undocumented status of the workers, in professions like the temporary staffing industry, cleaning services, taxicab driving or restaurant work, professions that represent the expansion of the low-wage service sector in contemporary global capitalism.

...Which brings me back to my employer. Right now they have nothing to worry about. Most of our staff remains thoroughly convinced that "we have it good." And in a sense, we do have it good -- when it comes to labor conditions and pay rates, everything our employer does is safe, relatively comfortable, above-board and in accordance with labor laws. But at the same time -- 8, 9, 10 dollars an hour may be above minimum wage but it does not constitute a living wage, not in Chicago, and I highly doubt many of my colleagues are able to have their housing expenses only constitute the recommended one third of their budget. Health benefits are not available to part-time employees and an increasing number of individuals seem to be combining part-time jobs rather than securing full-time employment. A year or two ago, our employer eliminated a longstanding system of standarized shared commission, and although most of us continue to make something comparable to what we were already making, some have suspected that this policy was used to bring new part-timers in at a lower rate than what they might have made previously. One of my colleagues joked that the only thing that really makes our employees any different from grocery store workers (who are usually unionized) is our elitism -- our company's name communicates a higher-end, middle-class ethos, and most of our part-time staff is highly educated, many occupying full time jobs in administration, social work, education, design and similar professions.

In fact, it seems to me that given such phenomenons as the outsourcing of middle-class jobs, the current recession and the entry of my generation of boomers' children into the labor force, there are increasing numbers of middle class or middle class-raised folks entering the service sector, either temporarily or more permanently, and I wonder if this isn't part of what's making employers nervous, the unsustainability of more and more educated folks working without medical benefits or living wages (clearly this is directly connected to the inflated cost of housing and our fracked up medical system)*. --I don't think it's any coincidence that self and Fortune Magazine-professed "great companies to work for" like Starbucks and Whole Foods were the folks lobbying to alter the Employee Free Choice Act legislation to require that 70 rather than 50% of employees sign union cards. ...I hope the Employee Free Choice Act passes, and I think it will be very interesting to see what happens over the next few years.


*I do not think it's ethical, sustainable or right that anyone lack access to medical care and a living wage, regardless of class/education -- I'm speaking here primarily of educated folks as potential source of employers' anxiety.