I work for a small-ish company of laborers. We have ~100 full-time employees who work in labour, a small team of administrative employees, and very few managers all things considered. The reasons for this are part of the reason I need to be vague in public talking about this, because the details make the company very identifiable to anyone who knows anything about the industry.
Some previous employees tried and failed to unionize over a decade ago, but the vote was very close. Since then, wages have stagnated to a degree that make me laugh and cry, we are being pushed to work more and more overtime, and in general morale is very low. I am in contact with a small group of very well-connected employees who are 100% on board with unionizing, and I believe that we can successfully get the required signatures this time if we play our cards right.
- How does one go about choosing a union to work with? I have done some Googling but the results are useless. I need some kind of leftist search engine, please! I know of the major Canadian unions like Unifor and Teamsters, as well as the IWW, and then the very specific ones like the postal union or the teachers’ union.
- Does the IWW even do workplace organizing? I was under the impression that it was more of a thing you joined solo.
- Are any of the bigger unions in Canada actually useful? We need a hard wage correction upfront and then guaranteed cost of living increases after that, and I don’t want to do all this work to have some centrist ‘union’ let us down in negotiations.
- Do you know of any trade-specific unions for things in the realm of carpentry and space finishing? (Again sorry for being vague in public about industry) I know that my industry is largely unionized in the US, but here it rarely is. I have not found any info from my Google searches as to which unions those other companies work with.
- If we can’t find anything that’s a good fit, is it advisable to start an industry-specific union for us and others? Is that doomed to fail?
- I’ve found a few different groups that say “contact us if you want to organize your workplace” but basically
- Most of them seem US-centric and we are in Canada
- I worry that they’re ops lol
- Not sure if this is the IWW’s wheelhouse or not. I don’t want to take help from them and then form a union under Teamsters or something, kind of feels like wasting their resources idk maybe this is fine??
- So uhhhh please recommend a good group to talk to about this in Canada! Or I mean a US group is fine so long as they have the knowledge about local rules and can help us.
- There is some complex stuff to explain about the company structure that make it hard to know how many people we’d have to get to sign cards and I would really appreciate someone knowledgeable messaging me privately so I can explain a bit, or point me to a good group where I can ask this question
Gosh sorry I am rather at a loss of where to start here so I’m someone could just give me a stick and point me in the right direction I would be exceptionally pleased, thank you!!
Edit: as a bonus I may have slam-dunk proof of wage theft by the company not paying certain employees overtime, would be great if we could also get some resources on how to retaliate for that in as big of a blow as possible. ✌️
It sounds like you are private sector, so any of the private sector unions will be good to contact. It is worth contacting and meeting with a few to feel them out. Bring a small team with you though, this is good for two reasons: you get other opinions, and you show them that you aren’t just a single person trying to unionize a workplace. IMO (and to be clear, this is just my opinion) don’t bother with the IWW, they basically don’t exist. You need money, staff, and experience, and the large unions have these (even if they are libs at the end of the day–but being part of them does mean you can send delegates to conferences, etc…, and move them in a direction you like).
You will have to meet with the unions to feel them out, and I only know about public unions, so I don’t have specific advice there. It really comes down to a few things, your local, your staff rep from the union (the person who helps you bargain), and the union itself. Make a list of unions that may be relevant to you (i.e. Canadian Private Sector Unions), and then look at whether they have locals who have recently been on strike, how much the union itself supported them, and the outcomes of their contracts. But do reach out and make contact with them (using your private email ofc). Starting your own industry specific union is likely not a great idea in such a small workplace.
IDK what province you are in, but that can have a bearing on specifics too.
This is very basic, but here is the CUPE guide for unionizing: https://bcorganizing.cupe.ca/process/. You already sound like you have the beginning of an organizing committee, so the next step is to solidify that, and then talk to unions to get advice in person.
A side note, but I was recently a party to a failed organizing drive of a small workplace, and it failed because the potential members where not properly informed and the organizers got ahead of themselves.
Yeah, I think most of the public sector stuff is unionized already tbh. I’m going to look at the well-known unions like Teamsters etc, but it’s so hard to get a good overview of which ones suck the least. All the good stories I’ve seen recently in terms of won battles have been in Quebec which doesn’t really help us out.
I’m definitely in the phase 0 of this: research. Going to do as much as possible before I launch into phase 1: planning. But planning is my strong suit and I’ve already got a few ideas for as to how I could go about mapping out employee social connections etc. I plan to not let this attempt fizzle like the last one did. It was before my time but I’m told that they didn’t have the right people behind the effort. Marx give me strength
Anyway thanks for the info, I had entirely forgotten CUPE existed.
Yeah, public sector is heavily unionized, but not entirely, especially when it is in that weird public/private middle ground. I’ve been part of two different unions. Both had/have their issues, but in one case it was primarily a problem with the local. If you start a new local it is kind of nice because you don’t have pre-existing apathetic execs who are useless. Even if you get unionized, the process of agitation doesn’t end or else people get complacent.
When you meet with unions do ask them how they would support you on strike. For me, one of these unions basically gave us a blank cheque (though they wouldn’t call it that), staff that were on the picket everyday pumping people up, and tirelessly worked to escalate. Part of this was because the president of the union itself was good, and we lucked out with good mid/lower level staff who had guts.
Solidarity and best of luck organizing!
it’s called a hot shop and like 90% of workplaces that contact a union all ready to organize are like this. 2 weeks later the whole organizing committee is some combination of quit/fired. Or maybe the boss bought them pizza and promised to change so energy is gone. I don’t know if the situation described will be like this, it might not be.
Me and the other guys on board so far are “lifers” and there’s been no event to get us riled up or anything. I’ve always wanted to do it but circumstances didn’t allow for it, but in recent discussions with coworkers I came to realize that we actually have several very good people willing to help out with this now. It’s been a boiling frogs situation at the company for decades. We all know there’s no point in listening to company platitudes because we’ve been around long enough to see the cycle. “Yeah we’ll totally look into it! Oh, we said we would last month? Well, I’ll move it to the top of my list!” Over and over. Can’t even get them to take a damaged piece of equipment out of rotation for repairs until it almost kills someone. Even when we tell them it’s gonna kill someone. So we’re on the same page in this: that the only way to get things to change is to force it, and that we can only do that if we all stand as one.
Can’t speak for anyone else, but I know that I tend to pursue goals relentlessly once I start. And pizza’s never worked before. 😛
Well that’s handy, because in many cases the way to get around No Strike has to do with refusing unsafe work. You “always” have the right to refuse unsafe work, even if you do it collectively. (Assuming your jurisdiction/industry doesn’t have some weird exception or carveout… consult relevant laws to be informed before you break them.) And you know what I mean when I say you have “rights” at work.
Of course the classic thing for unsafe equipment is that sometimes it gets broken worse so that it cannot be used and must be repaired/replaced. That’s kind of the nature of not keeping up with routine tasks. But on the other hand it’s cool to act as a group to educate the employer as to the wisdom of proactively conducting maintenance and repairs. Perhaps they can be made to see the light.
It doesn’t sound to me like you are in a hot shop. From what you’ve shared, if I was your boss, I’d go for the carrot not the stick. Give some sort of transient but significant in the short term concession that shows the company is willing to “work on the issues”. Everyone (or even more effective: some people) gets a $1 raise, or fire an unpopular manager, or promise to buy new equipment… next year. Maybe you or someone else in your group will get promoted into management or some sort of fakeass supervisor role that just came into existence. But all that depends if they are smart enough to hire and take advice from anti union consultants. If they are too cheap and go the DIY route there is basically no predicting what will happen. At the end of the day a DIY anti-union effort is governed by the inner emotional lives of the individual people who have power. Logic and even class interests may fly out the window.
Have you discussed with your committee what would happen if suddenly there was pizza, beer, sports tickets, extra days off, etc? Not just that you won’t be swayed by it but what about every other person on the job? Pizza is delicious. I wonder if it was in fact invented as an anti union tool.
The company has already tried pizza and sports days for retention, and I’m proud to say that four people showed up to the last sports day they tried! Pizza is something that has historically been seen as “literally the least they can do” and “I’d rather have the $10 that they budgeted for this.” It’s very hard to sway workers as cynical as ours with cheap treats, because they are not just unable to afford luxuries like pizza from a restaurant: they’re unable to afford basic needs like rent. No amount of pizza can take the pain of that away.
As for days off, unless the company is paying them at time-and-a-half, most guys won’t be able to take them. They rely on overtime shifts to make ends meet. I don’t know anyone who takes vacation except the president and the salespeople.
I’m waiting to hear back from the IWW now before I get too gung ho on the committee. But I think it’s safe to say that the cost of living crisis is so acute right now that it will be an excellent tool for us: we can always show our coworkers the wage-to-rent graph, and talk about how we can actually enforce regular raises with collective power. All of these guys have asked for and been denied raises so many times, most of the ones I’ve talked to are just fucking tired and don’t want to have to be the one to advocate for themself anymore. They were always happy to hear that one of us was going to fight for something for them, even if it was unlikely we could actually get it.
Sound good!
Don’t hesitate to contact any and all unions available to you. Even if they don’t seem like they typically organize your industry. They can tell you No but sometimes shops end up in a union that sounds kind of weird because it was the best fit. If there have been any local struggles you’ve heard of where it seemed like the union did a good job, contact them. Even if they are in a totally different industry you might get some intel on your options. And if you know anyone who is a member of any candidate unions, ask them what they think.
There is probably a District Labour Council for your area and they are probably worth talking to as they will know the lay of the land.
And of course when I say “you” I mean your committee because its important that these tasks be spread out democratically. Everyone needs to participate equally.