Archived There’s talk

[Cosmo12309]

So there has been talk about unionizing at my store. I think corporate is aware now because lately there has been a variety of different leaders visiting my store and speaking to team members. If they pull me aside and ask me questions should I be honest or quiet? Several team members would not say a word when they were being talked too and told me not to say a word because I would be protected.

 

[countingsheep]

That can be a messy business if it were me mums the word regardless if you are involved or not.

 

[SrTLall]

If you're being protected, why would you need to keep quiet?

 

[Kompa]

Target would shut down your store before any union formed lol

 

[Times Up]

I'd pretend that I wasn't aware that someone was trying to unionize the store. Quite frankly, it's none of Spot's business what your interests are outside of work. At this point, they are trying to intimidate you under the pretext of "seek to understand".

 

[NPC]

I think Unions are totally useless for retail. I think they're actually bad for retail workers. BUT, I don't think it's worth it to sell out your store either, since the consequences can be as dire as the store shutting down. They're not asking for any benefit to you. So I'd stick to saying you know nothing about anyone trying to unionize.

 

[Militantagnostic]

 

[Noiinteam]

Keep your mouth shut!

 

[anathema]

Yeah, the u word is pretty dirty around Target. WE ALL KNOW WHAT HAPPENED TO THAT NEW YORK STORE OH GOD

 

[Planosss]

I'd pretend that I wasn't aware that someone was trying to unionize the store. Quite frankly, it's none of Spot's business what your interests are outside of work. At this point, they are trying to intimidate you under the pretext of "seek to understand".

Lol interests outside of work? They are talking about unionizing their store, how the fuk is that outside of work?

 

[HRZone]

Is this T1040? Where is that annoying poster who kept telling us to strike?

 

[commiecorvus]

I wouldn't talk about anything your coworkers are saying.
Play dumb as a brick wall.
Make them believe all the stupid memes about retail workers.

 

[NKG]

Is this T1040? Where is that annoying poster who kept telling us to strike?

This is T1041...the sucessor of T1040

 

[TheBeastPMT]

This is from Superstore when Cloud 9 wouldnt offer Cheyenne maternity pay

 

[commiecorvus]

My understanding is that it is a legitimate store with very specific problems that would give away its location.
I don't want the OP to out themselves to prove anything.

 

[Timeclockhound]

Being from a store who went through this mess and is still going through it. We had a lot of the same thing with different leaders coming through the store. They spoke to different team members as well as the leaders. No ramifications came from those who were with the group. These leaders are there to help sort through everything. They really explained what our rights as team members were and how different it would be with a union.
Sorry you all are going through this. It does disrupt the store and makes it hard to know who to trust.

 

[commiecorvus]

Being from a store who went through this mess and is still going through it. We had a lot of the same thing with different leaders coming through the store. They spoke to different team members as well as the leaders. No ramifications came from those who were with the group. These leaders are there to help sort through everything. They really explained what our rights as team members were and how different it would be with a union.
Sorry you all are going through this. It does disrupt the store and makes it hard to know who to trust.

Keeping in mind that "how different things would be with a union" is from the managements perspective and has such intense spin it would make great cardio.

 

[subotai54]

Lol interests outside of work? They are talking about unionizing their store, how the fuk is that outside of work?

I think more specifically its outside of the work performed for pay. If they're not paying you for your time, your time is none of their business. Even if it will be later their business, right now its none.

 

[HRZone]

This is from Superstore when Cloud 9 wouldnt offer Cheyenne maternity pay

Good episode lol

 

[Switch23]

Oh no guys NRVstrike reached your store too... his workers committee (which is the champion of LGBT rights) must have spread. Good for them I always wanted to join a workers committee.

 

[pellinore]

One thing about unions....you know how we have those "swap shift sheets?" Well....these would be a thing of the past. Union members can only work in their assigned areas.

 

[commiecorvus]

One thing about unions....you know how we have those "swap shift sheets?" Well....these would be a thing of the past. Union members can only work in their assigned areas.

Nope, at least not in the retail unions I worked for.
We picked up hours in different departments (that you were trained for) all the time.
The only ones that got snarky were the meat cutters, when I worked grocery but that's because they are a bunch of primadonnas not because of the union.

I think you will find that a lot of the stuff management tells you about what unions won't let you do is not true or only half true.
Contracts are negotiated between the company and the union.
You and your coworkers are the union, you decide what is in the contract... no matter what management wants to tell you.

 

[Parker51]

Your post advocates a

(X) collective bargaining ( ) legislative ( ) market-based ( ) vigilante

approach to labor relations at Target. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work. (One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may have other flaws which used to vary from state to state before a bad federal law was passed.)

( ) No one wants to pay expensive union dues
( ) Large corporations and their lawyers have weakened successor rights and runaway shop doctrine to the point that they are meaningless
(X) If a union vote passes, the company will either close the store, or change corporation names and refer to it as a "real estate transaction"
( ) There is no effective recourse against the company bargaining in bad faith and refusing to negotiate a contract
( ) Team members can't afford long strikes
( ) The company can afford to tie up legal disputes in the courts indefinitely
( ) At-will employment laws allow companies to target and fire union organizers on thin pretenses
( ) Our guests will not respect picket lines
( ) The labor contract will work for two weeks, then we will be stuck with it
( ) The police will not put up with it
( ) Requires too much cooperation from transient workers
( ) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once
( ) Many team members cannot afford to lose pay or alienate potential employers

Specifically, your plan fails to account for

( ) Laws expressly prohibiting it
(X) Lack of coordination among unions, sometimes even at cross-purposes (e.g., Target's buildings are constructed by members of the IBEW, IW, and SPU, but Target's anti-union training videos have actors who are all members of SAG-AFTRA)
(X) Government and industry being too cozy and revolving-door (Target's top union-busting lawyer previously worked at the NLRB)
( ) Having to organize one store at a time
( ) Most work is easily done by scab replacements
(X) Avocado-toast-eating snowflake millenials are not up to the long hard slog that Depression-era workers went through to organize industries
( ) Jurisdictional problems
( ) Increased labor costs passed on to guests through higher prices
( ) Inability to compete with other businesses that are not unionized and have lower labor costs
( ) Unpopularity of weird new legislation
( ) Public reluctance to accept weird new forms of guest service
( ) Huge existing financial investment in the status quo
( ) Eternal arms race involved in the collective bargaining process
( ) Extreme profitability of union-free businesses
( ) Legally illiterate and morally indifferent politicians
( ) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with retailers
( ) Dishonesty on the part of labor organizers
( ) Labor costs that are unaffected by striking
( ) Decreasing cost-to-benefit ratios of worker-replacing automation from technological advances
( ) Current hours, pay, and benefits could be a ceiling, and not a floor, in any potential contract negotiations
(X) The UFCW has failed many times before to organize Target and has essentially given up

and the following philosophical objections may also apply:

( ) Unionizing may just be trading one boss for two
( ) Unions are easy targets for racketeering and corrupt influences (i.e., the mob)
(X) Model labor contracts intended for the hyperspecialization of roles in mass production a-la Frederick Winslow Taylor are a poor fit for the modern technological and service-oriented workplace
( ) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever been shown practical
( ) Any scheme based on opt-out is unacceptable
( ) The day to day details of how to seek and work jobs should not be the subject of flawed legislation
( ) Strikes suck
( ) We should be able to talk about a free market and right-to-work without being censored
( ) Labor activism should not involve fraud
( ) Labor activism should not involve sabotage of private property
( ) Labor activism must work if phased in gradually
( ) Why should we have to trust you and your union?
( ) Feel-good measures do nothing to solve the problem
( ) Firing them that way is not slow and painful enough
( ) German-style trade unions require highly structured multi-track secondary education and apprenticeship programs
(X) Socialism failed in Venezuela

Furthermore, this is what I think about you:

(X) Sorry dude, but I don't think it would work.
( ) This is a stupid idea, and you're a stupid person for suggesting it.
( ) Nice try, dummy! I'm going to find out where you work and complain to your manager.

 

[commiecorvus]

@Parker51 your philosophical objections are pretty much the same shit my grandfather had to deal with when he was organizing for the Wobblies.

You see the IWW believed in one big union and also weren't racist or sexist so they were happy to organize POC and woman in industries that everyone said weren't 'acceptable' for organization.
The bosses would talk about how the unions were con men, socialists, just wanted to take their money, how it wasn't going to make things better, two bosses instead of one, the organizers were thugs, and if all else failed the bosses would shoot at him.

He was able to organize a lot of people and was involved in one of the biggest general strikes in US history.

Right now those avocado toast eating millennials are the fastest growing group that is unionizing.
Yep, they have figured out they are getting screwed and need to get some power back.
Millennials Are Keeping Unions Alive - https://www.thenation.com/article/millennials-are-keeping-unions-alive/

This country was at its strongest when unions were at their strongest.
We need to go back to that.

So in the words of Joe Hill "There is Power in a Union". (A song I was rocked to sleep by.)

 

[SFSFun]

One thing about unions....you know how we have those "swap shift sheets?" Well....these would be a thing of the past. Union members can only work in their assigned areas.

That's not true. I work in a unionized grocery store and the only restrictions on working in other areas was you couldn't work in a department that was covered by another union. There was 1 for the meat cutters, 1 for food production (deli/seafood/meat/bakery) and 1 for everyone else in the store.