Get ready for the wall of text Comrades. Gonna try to give some context on my employment and history with this company first before diving into today’s lesson! Long time lurker and labor rights activist reporting in. Gonna try to be neat and thorough here without leaving much out, though I likely will have to due to the length of my employment with this company.
I work for a grocery chain in California, it’s unionized but it is a business union whose interests tend to align with management’s, and today I was suspended again. I’m also a college student studying Political Science and Labor Studies. I’ve been employed at this specific store for over 3 years now, since before the pandemic started, and I have been an ardent unionist and leftist for quiet awhile now. Telling people about their rights and how to stand up for themselves is something I’m good at and something I’m known for in my store, management has hated me for this since the first time I had to call the union folks in to explain to them what the labor laws were. (Some quick background info, I sued my first employer after 2 years of employment after discovering she was breaking some 5-8 different labor laws here because she knew 17 & 18 year olds didn’t know any better at their first jobs, was an easy case where she basically admitted guilt but still took almost 2 years to sort out with lawyers)
I got this job in late 2018 as I needed rent money and found out there was a union gig nearby to where I live. First 6 months go by and I notice we have a pretty bad roach infestation in the bakery and deli areas. After months of telling management about the roaches and how unsafe it was, they tried to punish me and give me a written warning for seeing a cockroach in the store on my day off (as I live very close, this is where I shop too) and not reporting the roach sighting immediately. So I invoked my Weingarten Rights and had the union come in and explain to the leadership that they can’t do that for a number of reasons and that they actually gotta spend the resources to solve the fucking cockroach infestation.
First year down, already have the entire management team hating me and eyeing me down, spreading rumors and doing their usual sneaky gaslighting tactics but to no avail. I have a few managers fired, moved or otherwise punished for various labor violations over the years including the malicious workplace rumors and retaliatory behaviors. The union tried to give me a new relationship with the leadership but after doing what I have done, if I was a bad manager I’d dislike me too. (When I say labor violations, I mean a LOT. Everything in the book or that you can imagine, they tried. Their Jedi mind tricks don’t work on me or those I organize. Both the blatant and illegal to the other end of the borderline illegal/not as serious as some others or plausibly deniable. After all, many managers are not that smart, they’re very transparent.)
Then the pandemic happened! Early 2020 was a ride. Our company handled the start of the pandemic decently by enforcing masks (mostly) and offering limited Hazard Pay, increased time off/sick time, and hiring enough staff to ensure safety and productivity was met. This only lasted a couple months before clear cuts were being made by the employer. Soon enough half the staff was gone, the hazard pay was gone, ‘labor budget’ decreases, management cracked down and either forced people out via malicious managerial tactics like overworking them, gaslighting them, messing with their hours or availability, absurd punitive and retaliatory behavior all around. We have tons of great folks come and go the first year of the pandemic, many were solidly impacted by their time and experiences. I suffered several back injuries during this time as I had been forced into handling several department’s worth of pallets as my new general duty (since they need some way to punish and break me and also because I’m one of the only seemingly able bodied people they can retain). When you’re just moving massive quantities of melons and frozen chickens for 40 hours a week, and you’ve never done it before, and you’re being openly retaliated against, your body or mind will break. In my case, I had several back injuries from repetitive stress and heavy work (that others in my role were never required to do before or after this incident to such a degree).
During this time I helped organize several coworkers, get them signed up for the union, taught them about my experiences and knowledge of labor relations, and built strong internal radical unionist philosophy with the team.
Fall 2021 comes around. A long time friend needs a job, my place is hiring, and they happen to have taught me most of what I knew about the labor movement. Natural fit. They are openly trans and are quickly welcomed into the team and organizing committee, immediately spots OSHA violations and hazardous conditions and begins doing what they do best. After a few weeks of the internal organizing committee reporting safety and workplace violations almost daily, management amps up their own tactics against who they perceive to be agitators. This results in one new manager openly, blatantly, and nefariously discriminating against our trans coworker in front of some 5 other people OVER a OSHA violation that they tried to have resolved but management would rather discriminate, laugh, misgender and just bully their employees instead. We lead a walk out, the witnesses to the event, and this triggers the alarms for the big bosses. The next shifts for us resulted in 2 workers (the trans coworker and another who management had a history of targeting) being immediately suspended and I received a written warning. I was surprised I wasn’t suspended with them, considering I did the same exact things the other folks were suspended for, I assume it was because I had a reputation for having my punishments revoked or erased or otherwise combatted. Despite this, I am a cis white guy, and the other 2 coworkers were trans and darker than I am, so when we brought our cases to our union reps with very clear lines of retaliation, discrimination, and labor violations, well the union had a field day.
The discriminatory manager was fired or moved on, our coworkers were all freed from our suspensions and had them erased from our online files, and almost immediately after this a change in store leadership occurred. Both in terms of managers being either removed, fired or promoted out and replaced but also management seemed to switch to “campaign mode”. This meant that management was now writing anyone and everyone up for anything they could justify, no matter how small, petty or negligible it was. After all, they’ve seen what we are capable of. This resulted in several coworkers being fired or quitting around the holidays and new year. You know what every coworker’s primary concerns were that caused them to quit or get targeted? Wanting the departments to have enough staff to safely and properly function. But that’s too much to ask for. That’s asking for war apparently.
Management tried to spend a month deep cleaning and sorting their paperwork and praying the health department didn’t drop by. We found sooooo much mold around the store and in the refrigeration units. However, this resulted in workers being injured or overworked in new ways, scrubbing the insides of shelving units on the floor for hours can hurt people. Handling chemicals can result in medical issues. Needless to say, the brass was on management about appearances and safety for awhile. I have a meeting with the Department of Fair Labor and Housing of whatever it’s called on March 3rd about the above issues.
TODAY’S SUSPENSION
So in the last month we have been understaffed and overworked, across the board, and this resulted in folks finding other jobs or flat out giving up. Not much else to do when you’re being forced into doing 3-5 people’s worth of labor for less than a living wage despite profits being record high. Management showed no signs of attempting to actually solve the issues. They hired a few new people but the new hires came with workplace limitations and restrictions, making management’s attempt to properly staff the place rendered a failure.
Half the Deli department staff quit in the last week. I tend to be scheduled in the Bakery department as it’s what I’m best at and they put me there. Because the company cannot fix its labor problems the deli operates with 1 maybe 2 people now when a normal day pre-pandemic saw 6-8 workers coming in during the day. The customers are also a degree worse to deli workers than to bakery workers, like, constant verbal abuse and overworking is an EASY way to burn folks out, even the good workers.
I’m scheduled to be in the Bakery all week long, that’s what I do. Today several managers came to me and tried to pressure me into working in the Deli department to cover for the team that quit. I explained I was scheduled to work in the bakery, showed them the schedule we all use, and even offered advice on how to avoid having an entire team quit on them every couple months. Well clearly they didn’t like that shit lol so a little over an hour later they call me into the boss’ office with 2 managers and start going on about ‘company needs’ ‘being short staffed’ and ‘working together’. So I keep making them look and feel stupid, i explain that company needs aren’t an excuse to over reach and force me into doing things I’m not contractually forced to, I explain that being short staffed is the company’s responsibility and failure (not the workers), and that ‘working together’ would work if management would actually work to solve their labor shortage. Literally explained to them that I wouldn’t have half a team quit on me like that in the pursuit of monthly bonus incentive programs. This triggered them to no end, if you can imagine an angry stereotypical Karen, insert that image here.
Big boss keeps ignoring everything I’m saying and repeating that cop behavior “are you going to comply?” “So what you’re saying is….” Because they have no good plays and resort to their default training modules. I chime in with “if you’re going to try to force me to do something I’m not comfortable with and try to punish me I’m just going to be invoking my Weingarten Rights.” Boss gets redder in the face and starts saying something about suspending me, so I say sure, I’ll call the union and we can sort this out. I get my possessions, clock off, say good bye to those staring at me or playing a part in this, and got in my car. Called the union with a brief grievance and am now just waiting for a call back. Usually takes a couple days but I’m not too worried.
Low key needed the time to study right now and this also just gives me plenty of downtime to organize against them until they un-do their fuck up.
Management’s inability to do their job has led to massive workplace issues, safety concerns, labor violations, discrimination, and retaliatory behavior on their end. As usual, for their own survival on the managerial ladder, they must not take fault for their actions, but instead place their responsibilities and failures on our shoulders. Praying and smiling in the hopes that we just fucking take it good and quietly.
End Rant/
Some big key take aways for me that I wanna share.
1: Unions are dope most of the time. Some are more closely aligned with business interests rather than actually protecting their workers. My union seems to be doing a decent job, they aren’t perfect or miracles workers but neither am I.
2: Managers only care about their perceived power and bonus incentives. As soon as workers collectively stood up against management their morale and sense of power diminished, when their bonuses go away they quit or retire, when they are clearly guilty they’ll squirm for survival and avoiding accountability. Never trust them. They are just fucking work cops who are monetarily incentivized to screw you over.
3: Agitate, Educate, Inoculate, Organize, Union. Direct actions gets the goods. Sometimes it gets you suspended or fired or worse. Once I realized I would be changing jobs about as often as I have to have the union come down and sort shit out, I realized there’s no other option. It’s the same shit everywhere else. Use your protection and enforce your rights or they don’t exist.
If there is interest or questions I’ll be checking back here periodically. Work safely or not at all comrades! ️️