Panty liners is honestly a brilliant idea! I used to go sans underpants but uh, tight jeans is not the jam for that. I think having multiple pairs of pants you rotate through+panty liners would be the best bet.

ohhh I see what you're saying. I appreciate the concern for security. I'm really bad with considering that, I should rethink that.

thanks for this again. Is it okay for me to message you about it a bit more?

my actual union is pretty small, its like maybe 1/7th of the whole org population. I think we do tend to split and talk to different folks, but the two anti union folks in my department are vehemently opposed to changing their minds in the slightest. Heels dug in hard. I'm hoping that over time as they see updates and such they might come around but I don't know. As for talking to other people in the agency, we are all pretty siloed; working remote and in different buildings across town. Especially since the pandemic lock downs it's been even worse. I think some of us have tried to have conversations with the non unionized folks but it still does seem to be for naught. Idk WHY the first BU didnt start giving updates/announcements to the whole agency to try and innoculate people a bit, but i definitely plan to with our negotiations

I went into the defederation post on blahaj last night and I saw some of those sentiments, it really was upsetting to me. I haven't experienced much abuse because I'm not "visibly queer" but that shit is such a braindead take and it definitely hurt my feelings and made me feel angry for everyone here who has experienced abuses like yourself. Fuck em

Yeah, the narrative control had been frustrating because the first BU had been so hush hush about their negotiations and never stood up to management during all staff meetings that management took control. Every meeting started with "so union negotiations are going great!" Followed by a new rule or power taken away with a "sorry guys it's because union!" tacked on at the end. My dept wasn't unionized and we were afraid to push back on that then so I really want to start pushing back and getting way more vocal/transparent when we start negotiating, AND to push on this particular issue.

Our union rep has told us multiple times that since this is our first contract negotiation that the conditions of employment would be frozen until getting a ratified contract, which includes frozen wages. We don't get normal raises, it's been like 5 years so idk if that has something to do with it?

Fuck that's so wild! We already get bricks thrown through our windows, but man there would probably be dozens more. They can't keep fixing the windows forever! Lol. Really though I think we are going to steer into becoming more public since the first BU is getting into Financials. It sounds like for next negotiation meeting they've invited a local solidarity organization to have a lunch outside the meeting place as a visible sign of support. And I think we'ee going to ramp up gradually. I'd already been thinking about creating a Twitter and Instagram, contacting union represented colleagues at the county, going to the local weekly paper and so on. Just gotta keep up the energy for it all, that's the challenge

Lol I'm bad at math. It was more like 93-96 percent depending on how many employees we had at the time. We've had so much turnover we can't even keep track

I have not read those. I'm really bad at reading books, unfortunately though I do try. I have a huuuuuuuge list I need to go through. Luckily the only things that interest me are like, political literature and sociology

Our department just won our election two months ago where one started negotiations in February, and the other just doesn't want to collaborate with anyone for some reason, I have no idea why. We arent even exactly sure when we will start negotiating either. So I don't think it's realistic, which sucks because more people is more power.

I read in this article from a union busting lawfirm that they can get away with it so long as they can prove that it wasn't due to anti-union animus. Do you mind sharing your experience with fighting that? Also, it is true that before our first contract we cannot receive raises across the board until after negotiations?

That's a really fucked up decision to have to make and I think that's hugely why everyone is very against striking. Also because our strike fund is like 200 dollars a week per employee lol. But I saw elsewhere in this thread that other unions can help with that too which could ease the fear of my coworkers

See that's the hard part, my department is largely funded by our contract so if we stop reporting then we lose the grant and then lose our jobs. So I know there are things we can do, we just need to get really creative. I think we are going to lean in to garnering more community support and being publicly vocal and ramp up that way. When I've thought about striking, I've thought about picketing by providing as many of the same services that we do already outside of our buildings

Dang the numbers part is such good advice! I've read a couple articles on bargaining strategy and avoiding concessions and of course they'd try to trick you with the numbers.

That's so awesome, I really appreciate that offer I may hit you up. I've been trying to get as many resources together as I can. It's also a unique position being a non profit because financial bargaining is so different from for profit business!

This is such a based fucking response thank you so much

I've shared a ton of info in other responses, but basically I feel like my particular union is pretty weak, im convinced that my union rep is inept as hell. They are currently bargaining a first contract with another BU in my agency so hoping that can move things along for us in terms of boilerplate language but we will see. The agency hired some of the top union busting lawyers in the state, who in a news article, admitted that a tactic of theirs is to force impasse. It's been one full year since they were recognized and they are getting down to the Financials of the contract, where management has attempted to cut benefits that exist already (sick time accrual specifically).

I just started disseminating our BU survey this week and are going to have a first kinda celebratory party/mixer in a couple of weeks, I'm really hoping we get some folks but I think everyone is so burnt out from the structural trauma going on and the everyday trauma of our jobs; my coworkers have been responding to overdoses at least 1-3 times a week for months (we work with people who are unhoused/use drugs/have mental health issues or some combo). I'm starting to get pretty upset and demoralized because the organizing committee seems to be totally checked out since we won recognition, like I'm still going to union presentations online and doing research on bargaining strategy and trying to gather info and it's just crickets from nearly everyone else. So I dont think we have any other people who have a fully vested interest right now, but also I think are mostly just distracted by the work. That's really what I'm struggling with right now. I want to build that momentum so we CAN win a good contract but I can't force it and that sucks.

Fuck also to answer the point about "bad things happen when it isn't done": people absolutely are against striking due to ot disenfranchising our clients (we work with unhoused people). We really stressed that striking would be last resort and likely wouldn't happen. Crossing my fingers that's the case

Holy shit, dude tried to organize for a whole four years? Maybe I should be more grateful that it was so quick for me. Luckily our agency is propped up by social currency so if they really tried to fight union efforts the community would set them on fire lol.

This is a huuuuge reason why we were able to get many people on board. Not to mention random retaliatory firings that were completely out of process

Oh you're right on the money with that presumption. The white saviourism runs deep in the non profit industrial complex. People think that we should sacrifice livable wages in order to serve the underserved, that we dont need to better pur wprking/living conditions because we do this put of the love and passion for the work. Which yeah, we do but god damn we deserve to pay rent comfortably for taking care of the highest risk populations when no one else wants to. Our particular situation was a lil complicated though. If you wanna read my novel here goes:

We have many different depts at our agency, and before us there were 2 depts that unionized together as one bargaining unit. Then came one other dept, and then mine and our sister department that unionized together. So in all we have 3 separate bargaining units which is silly but that's how it panned out. FYI if you're not familiar a bargaining unit is the employees that will be represented under one contract.

In my case, organizing between the two departments was challenging to me, but seemed comparatively easy to the fights that other organizers have had to deal with. We are kind of the least appreciated depts in the agency even though we handle the toughest work. We also qualify for some of the programs that our clients do, we make such little money. A couple people in my unit have second jobs. Our agency has also undergone extremely traumatic change; it used to be based upon consensus, worker autonomy, and have a lot of radical ethics. Of course, that's all crumbling and being "restructured" with more of a top down business model. That was a huge impetus to unionize, so it only took a couple of months to get people on board. My agency didn't recognize our union cards, so we went to an election and won 98 percent of the vote.

Now, we didn't try to unionize the entire rest of the agency because we knew it would be impossible to do. There are a lot of old guard who cling on to the white saviourism so hard. Along with refusing to recognize that there are many new bad actors making horrible, fucked up decisions, and refusing to believe that consensus is done for. Also there are folks benefitting from the restructure, and those, mostly Gen Xers, who are extremely antiunion and refuse to engage even though myself and others have spent months of researching tirelessly. In my union we still have 2 employees who refuse to talk about it and continue to spread misinformation across the agency like how we will have to pay $200 a month in union dues which is ridiculous.

So yeah overall I think unionizing is pretty taboo in.the non profit world. There are very few who do direct service with marginalized communities, there are more that are climate oriented and law non profits, so the idea is growing but its still got a long way to go.

If you're more interested in the origins of non profits, unions, and the break down of social safety nets in the US I found this paper to be super fascinating.

Just curious why you wouldn't want it available to non hexbear users? To avoid trolling or..? Also thank you for requesting to pin it!

Thank you so much for this response! I've been in touch with EWOC(emergency workplace organizing committee) and they got me in on a Zoom presentation with Jane! I love the tactics of big open negotiating and full transparency, that makes so much sense to me.

I haven't reached out to other unions or IWW, even if you're apart of a different union will they be able to provide advice/support?

I feel like our union situation is kind of weird because when I look at message board posts or websites to get more info, it seems geared to much larger unions. We unionized with a local of a large national union. The local is fairly small; there are only two union reps and they do have a lawyer that they bargain with. For our unit, we are a couple departments of a larger agency that were able to unionize apart from the rest. We have like, 30 people. So we are pretty separated from the local so far, like not really sure what other businesses are part of the local, where it seems like usually there is a lot of participation in the local itself instead of individual bargaining units? I could be wrong.

That being the case there is no previous contract to negotiate from although there is another BU in the agency thats in negotiations rn so that may provide boiler plate language. There are no shop stewards or anything like that assigned, we would just pick from our BU. And we have had no help with organizing, there is no one at the local that assists with that specifically, it's been explicitly grassroots, workers researching, calling places, talking to coworkers etc.

I will say I've taken on the brunt of a lot of the organizing and I guess I just feel kinda blind like, what the hell is happening? Lol. And it sort of seems like our union rep is clueless. There are NLRB cases that I've read about where I've asked him for clarification on and he has no idea how to respond. An example was "can a business offer raises to non unionized employees and not the union members"? To which he asked if I'd heard of such a thing, and I responded with the source I mentioned. Doesn't inspire confidence, but we went with that union because the first BU chose them and thought it was a logical choice