this post was submitted on 07 Feb 2025
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My workplace is voting on a union in two weeks, and we have an unusual amount of people we haven't talked to. It seems like a tossup at moment. I'm hopeful but not at all confident.

Management has officially been nice once the vote was triggered, but it seems a few of our workplace bullies who have carved out priveledged positions, and who don't show respect to other coworkers, have sided firmly on the anti-union side (I wonder why?) and are running around the store talking shit to everyone (and throwing in some transphobic bullshit while they are at it).

Some of them have showed up at our meetings to start sealioning and wasting people's time. Others are posting long screeds in the breakroom lying their asses off and basically acting on behalf of management.

After the first meeting I explained my experience and poured my heart out thinking they were there in good faith and I would be taken seriously, but of course not. Next meeting same fucking questions and pretending no one answered.

Some of it is continueing to ask for specifics we can't give, because it depends on the negotiating process and workplace surveys. All we can say is "It's up to us to decide that during negotiations". Is there a better answer we can give?

Has anybody else dealt with this shit? Any tips?

Our current plan is to not engage with them as as possible and kick them out of the next meeting if they show up.

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[–] Dimmer06@hexbear.net 18 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

You need to start talking to people yesterday and innoculating your neutrals/supporters. Tell your neutrals and supporters exactly what the company and the stool pigeons will say and make sure they understand your response so that when they hear those things they remember what you told them.

Your response a lot of the time will be "that will be decided in contract negotiations" or "that will be a democratc decision made by all of us". Make it clear that the stool pigeons don't want your coworkers to negotiate. They don't want your coworkers to have a choice. They and the company want to dictate the rules to you and your only choice is to obey or quit. Your union wants to have actual negotiations with the company and for everyone to have a say, even the people who aren't pro union. Your coworkers need to know that anti-union propaganda is an attempt to restrict them so that when they hear it they understand it's an attack on them.

I would avoid defamation of anyone but if there are characters that are particularly disliked it's not a terrible idea to point that out to people. Usually organizing focuses on leaders but there are anti-leaders who repel people. If your stool pigeons are anti-leaders you can use that.

[–] FutureUnionEnjoyer@hexbear.net 10 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Your response a lot of the time will be "that will be decided in contract negotiations" or "that will be a democratc decision made by all of us". Make it clear that the stool pigeons don't want your coworkers to negotiate. They don't want your coworkers to have a choice. They and the company want to dictate the rules to you and your only choice is to obey or quit. Your union wants to have actual negotiations with the company and for everyone to have a say, even the people who aren't pro union. Your coworkers need to know that anti-union propaganda is an attempt to restrict them.

Hell yeah, exactly what I was looking for. That's a great way to frame it. Thank you.

[–] Dimmer06@hexbear.net 10 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I really cannot stress enough the importance of making sure your coworkers understand this stuff as early as possible before they hear the anti-union line. Your opponents have the easy job of spreading doubt and confusion. You have the hard job of empowering people with hope and choice. Even your most loyal supporters can be shaken if questions arise that they don't know the answers to.

[–] FutureUnionEnjoyer@hexbear.net 7 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Yeah, this was understood to everyone in the OC. There were a few factors that made us trigger the vote prematurely. Our efforts got leaked early which made it more difficult than usual to assess people, since anti's would narc us out immediately, and the management was on a firing spree. In the last three months we've lost 10 people out of a workplace of about 90. Many of which we had gotten to sign cards or were in the OC from the start. The ones who got fired didn't want to fight it, the people who quit were burnt out by the job or felt unsafe working there and couldn't take it anymore, and several more people are ready to quit and are only sticking around so they can vote yes. It was kind of either now or risk losing people through attrition.

That plus Trump doing who the fuck knows what in the near future. It's been an unusual campaign from the start, from what we've been told.

[–] Dimmer06@hexbear.net 6 points 2 days ago

Damn that's really rough. You got this though. Never let the bosses hold you down even if the election doesn't go your way. Solidarity!

[–] KnilAdlez@hexbear.net 10 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Are the people doing this generally disliked? You can always start a rumor that they're doing this for kickbacks from the boss, convincing people to vote for a union just to spite them.

[–] FutureUnionEnjoyer@hexbear.net 10 points 2 days ago (1 children)

They are generally well liked enough by people who don't deal with them a lot, but I think their shitty behavior turns people off who work with them on a regular basis. Not sure suggesting kickbacks for work, but everyone knows the one person has management ambitions and has basically been in a management position for months now. We couldn't kick them out of the bargaining unit because their job title is technically not management. If we are successful I would expect them to try and sabatoge negotiations if they see an opportunity.

[–] KnilAdlez@hexbear.net 7 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

There is only one time I have seen management get fired, and that was when a large amount of employees quit. If you can get several people to commit to quitting if he gets in the way, it would severely harm their managerial ambitions.

[–] Terrarium@hexbear.net 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Dimmer06 gave you great advice. I'll just add some things on top of that.

The thing that stands out to me most is that you feel like you haven't talked to a lot of people. I cannot stress enough that the most powerful tool you have as people independently forming a union is the one-on-one conversation. You can accomplish this efficiently by:

  • Having a core set of reliable allies (like your organizing committee) all take on lists of people to talk to.

  • developing a script intended to meet specific goals (e.g. promote a yes vote).

  • Practicing ways that conversations might go and how you will respond.

  • Doing a round of conversations and sharing your results. Promote sharing of what did not go well and provide constructive feedback for how one might navigate that situation in the future. Some can't be navigated, just commiserate about those.

  • Repeating that last step until you have spoken to everyone and, at minimum, labelled your list using their propensity to vote yes. For example: a strong commitment to vote yes, unsure but leaning yes, they aren't leaning either way, they are leaning no, and hard nos (this is just a Likert Scale). Make sure to track when they were contacted and whether they requested to no longer be contacted.

  • Develop your script with the above in mind. It should start with a friendly introduction, include a short spiel that emphasizes how important it is to vote yes, and then usually end with them telling you how they are leaning. The conversion may continue in various ways. If they are a hard ues, you can ask them to join your effort. If they are a soft yes, maybe, or soft jo, ask them what concerns they have and use this chance to do friendly debunking. One someone provides a hard no, move on.

  • After you have spoken to everyone, develop a follow-up plan. For example, you'll want to get all of your hard yeses to vote ASAP. Help them do so whenever this becomes an option. I don't know what exact procedure you have to follow for your situation, but a good practice is to track whether they say they voted or not. Keep revisiting those who haven't with friendly one on one reminders. Turn the soft yeses into hard yeses by addressing their concerns or innoculating. Repeat for the maybes, etc etc.

  • Use this experience to define topics and innocuations for the larger meetings.

I've seen this basic approach work many times. It is usually a lot of work, especially in these final weeks, but then there is a big payoff.

Regarding the anti-union disruptive dweebs, I would just point out that their questions have already been addressed and out of respect for everyone's time we need to move on. Keep artifacts of previous explanations (notes) so that anyone curious can address their concerns afterwards. Offer to have one on one conversations with them later to address their concerns. This is a valuable skill to develop in general, basically handling unreasonable critics and disruption. And move on from individuals asking more than one question, say you need to give others the opportunity to speak or that you need to move on.

If these people act like babies, ask them to leave and don't invite them back. The crowd will understand, doubly so if you are patient and calm.

Anyways, you've got this! You've already made so much progress. You just neex to dunk on management for two weeks by out-organizing them.

[–] FutureUnionEnjoyer@hexbear.net 2 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

Thanks for the advice! We've been doing a lot of this stuff, so it seems like we are on the right track.

Not to be too confident, but we just did a count of hard yes supporters and I think we got this. inshallah

[–] Terrarium@hexbear.net 1 points 54 minutes ago
[–] REgon@hexbear.net 7 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

If you're at the point where you're having public forum meetings where everyone can show up and ask questions, then you're at the point we're you should call out people for acting in poor behaviour. If someone asks a question at a meeting, gets a satisfactory answer and then shows up to ask the same question again next time, then you need to make it clear to the community that that person is not to be trusted.

You do this by engaging in the conflict and calling them out. Politely, but firmly. Optics are a fuck, but we live in a visual world, so you have to appear rational, but a rational person isn't one who yields all ground.
When such a question is asked you tell them that they very well know the answer to the question, since it was asked BY THEM at the last meeting. You refer to the minutes of the last meeting. You then ask why they are still asking the same question, what is it they wish to gain by doing so.
Bullies are only bullies because they get away with it. We are taught to turn the other cheek, buf if everyone does that, then there's no danger in slapping people. You gotta strike back. These people are typically cowards and would-be tyrants. They lash out and then retract when they finally realise the interaction will not go easy for them.

Also you go out into the company and do the same bullshit backstabbing court politics they do. Dimmer06 details that much better than I would be able to. Really hammer home the point about unions giving you the opportunity to participate democratically in how the workplace is run.