chapotraphouse

i don't know what your workplace is like or your coworkers, but if they're just normal americans with no familiarity or instilled antipathy toward unions/communism then i would probably pull back a bit on the class war rhetoric. i would focus almost entirely on the concrete benefits they will personally enjoy from union membership, then use that as a bridge to discuss the sociopolitical aspects once the union is implemented.

i feel like most americans will reject the medicine unless you wrap in a slice of cheese first. either way, good luck!

tbh you lost me in the first paragraph. I don't know what your co-workers are like, but it needs to be tailored to them, especially the ones that are unlikely to vote union.

and I would take this post down, edit out your name and e-mail and re-submit. It would be all too easy for someone to find your employer and e-mail them.

Honestly, most people aren't going to read that. I wish it were different, but most folks are going to take one look at that, say "oh, cool", think "fuckin nerd", and never actually read it. You need to send some of these words to the gulag, make it go simple, fast, and hard. Imo, you'd almost be better off trying to fit it onto a business card and handing those out (if not literally, then as an exercise). This is part of why art is such a huge part of political messaging; the brain can get a message out of a picture a thousand times faster than it can from a pamphlet. Organizers past knew this, and it's why union art and songs slapped so fuckin hard.

I’ve read through everyone’s comments and I think i got too excited with the content and I think i should maybe lay off handing these out. I got too eager with it all and I’ll just wait till we’ve joined a union before handing anything out. I think their pamphlets will be a lot more easy to read and more inviting and have less agitating language.

Looks good. For me, I don’t even know what I’d say to try and convince people to join a union because I can’t for the life of me understand people who are anti union unless they are one of the very few people who benefit financially from anti worker laws.

Hey Katy, I agree with others about the pamphlet maybe not being the best language for the intended audience. I'd also be careful handing things out, even if you talk to workers you know have good intentions, they might lose it and leaving union stuff lying around too early will tip off management. With that said I do think having written material can be helpful as something to talk about. If there's a union in your sector try to find some one-pager that basically just shows unionized wages/benefits/rights compared to yours. If there's literally no unions for your type of job try to find some before union/after union material.

I truly cannot express how much I hate saying what I'm about to say but I'm going to do it anyway because I was once a bright eyed service worker hoping to make the world a better place for people like me and I was crushed by the experience of it. Hopefully you can take some of what I'm saying to heart and use it to guide your efforts and not end up as burnt as I did.

First and foremost, if you do work where I think you work (since you mentioned it a couple posts ago) then you need to understand how your employer fights union efforts. Specifically the fact that they might be indifferent to shutting down a union shop. If that happens you might be able to reach a settlement in court but someone has to bankroll the lawyers for that. The legal system is not designed to help you in this regard and will not support you until you have won. The current NLRB is arguably not even on the side of workers. Even if this doesn't happen your employer will not bargain with you unless you can force them too. The government effectively cannot or will not coerce them too. The big unions will probably not be helpful. Only a large amount of their employees being willing to fight can.

This brings us to our second issue — the unions. It varies a little bit regionally but there's a reason why your industry, and large national or international service economy employers don't typically have union presence in them. It's partly because of the companies but it's also partly because of the unions. Unions rarely show solidarity across workplaces or industries. Usually they look at new organizing as an investment. The common argument unions use against "right to work" laws is that they provide a service and should be compensated for it. Whether or not this is an effective framing is a digression but suffice to say, if you ask a union to invest resources into you the return on investment will factor into their decision at least somewhat. The unions will look at where you work, a small isolated shop with few employees and little to no chance of winning a contract on your own, and will probably not invest heavily. I could be wrong. I hope I am wrong. You would probably be working with the Teamsters since you're employer is sort of their turf now (due to the opportunism of one of their locals) but UNITE-HERE also represents people in your industry. Maybe an SEIU local would take you. Workers United might opportunisticly work with you but I'd advise you steer clear of them and UFCW. A lot of unions are pretty incompetent too so beware of that.

If you have things built out already the unions will be more likely to invest. The most valuable resource you could have is a network with other locations, especially a geographically focused one. A pre-built organizing committee at your location is also valuable. If you do have either of these, do not freely hand it over to a big union. The actual valuable thing in this struggle is the allegiance of workers and their labor-power. The company is trying to win it. The big unions are trying (trying might be too generous) to win it. Neither of them is necessarily putting the interests of you and your coworkers first.

Finally, you're going to learn the apathy and nihilism of the American service worker. It's going to hurt. When I was organizing it wasn't the company trying to quash our efforts or the union that fucked us over that broke my heart, it was the apathy and downright hostility workers had to improving their own lives. I don't know how to overcome it. I have ideas that are not the orthodox "sign cards, win election, bargain contract" strategy the unions have been losing with for the last eighty years, but they're untested. The unions will tell you it's all about one on one conversations and leaders which is partly true but from a different era of organizing and nowhere near as effective as they frame it.

I hope for the sake of you and your coworkers that I'm wrong about all of this. My message here is not to discourage your organizing, but I hope can innoculate you to some of the disappointments you might face. I'm happy to elaborate on any of this or anything else labor organizing if you want. Sorry for the long post.

Build an organizing committee first. Use a small agitation that is not about unionization to figure out who you want for the OC.

Do not let management know you are trying to unionize until at least 3 people have your back.

Something I stress a lot when doing walk-arounds at my workplace is that a union, while it has all this formal structure and dues and whatnot, is ultimately you and your coworkers coming together to fight and push for things that make the work environment better. Whether that's preventing outsourcing, a higher minimum wage across the board, or pay raises for particular job classes, it's not some scary outside force fighting on your behalf, it's just you and your coworkers working together.

I'm in a pretty conservative city in a very conservative state, so you might have more luck with the more overtly "combative" language, but I've found making it very concrete and directed at the things you know your coworkers care about (i.e. what they think sucks about working there) is better received than anything with lofty political slogans or anything abstract. Politicization is incredibly important, but it's hard to get people activated politically when they don't even recognize/understand the power that they already possess. Smaller, but more attainable, wins demonstrate this power to people, and that can make it easier to politicize them further.
So I guess I'd emphasize more that you all are the union, and the union does what you all want it to. Whatever you do, best of luck, this is so cool to see! I've done a few years of union work now, so if you have any questions you can shoot me a message and I'll try to reply as best I can!

I love it, but I don't know much about organizing, so I can only offer small corrections. I know it's just a draft, but if you'd still like them:

I think you did a great job making this but I agree with the majority of the comments here about it being too obviously leftist, too agitational, too much words in general, etc

Joining a union, for the average non politicized person, is a lot of work that can come with a lot of grief. You need to make it look easy and valuable. most people don't have the attention span to even read the first cover of a pamphlet. The other comments have described a lot of improvements so I won't reiterate them but you are doing a great thing and keep up the good work

Id keep this on the downlow. Dont let managers see someone leaving one of these out. Do you have a network of fellow workers to help?

Just wanted to wish you luck!

STAND - Stronger Together Accept No Defeat :D

For starters, you definitely know your coworkers better than us, so the approach you think is best is probably right.

That said, if I were to create something for my checked out coworkers at previous jobs I would have probably be a lot more direct and less wordy with the first page.

E.g., the first page would really just be - “why unionize” and then in big red text the three bullets you have - higher wages, paid sick leave, job security. And then under it, just some quick stats - union employees on average earn 18% more than non-union employees in the same field, etc.

Then on subsequent pages you can get into the nitty gritty of how the union operates, stop the war on workers, stand together, etc.

Ultimately, you want to nail them with - you will make more money with the union, and then if they check out after that, that’s all they need to know to vote in favor. Your boss might subject them to anti union presentations where he’ll say stuff like “you lose money because you have to pay union dues” or “it’s going to create a bunch of administrative paperwork and hassle for you to be in a union”

But if you can reach them first, in an easy to digest 1 sentence - union employees make more - then you will have already prophylactically guarded them against this.

Think of the CA proposition that classified gig workers as independent contractors. Gig workers were fucked by this. And yet, a large amount of them voted for it, because they had been convinced by their company’s ad campaigns and push messages that they would all be out of work if it didn’t pass. They voted based on the information they had - it was just misinformation. So too here - you need to give something extremely fast and easy to digest - more pay - front and center, and then if they don’t end up reading all the other text, so it goes, they have what they need.

Good on you for doing this! I have no comments as I am from a different country so can't really chime in much, but just sending general appreciation your way for actually doing the things!