Let me start by saying that I absolutely understand every story I’ve read on here about people quitting their jobs, and I love it. I’ve done it myself. Walked the fuck out because of places not generally respecting human life. However, with my latest job I decided to do something different.
Instead of quitting and just hoping I would move on to something better, and develop another dream to be disillusioned with later on which I’m sure many of you can relate to, my coworkers and I instead decided to stand and fight.
As coworkers, we’ve gone through all of the classic corporate bullshit together; Unsafe work conditions, unfair treatment and incompetence from management, and the one we all love the most, exploitive compensation and pay structure. We make a company millions upon millions of dollars while their common worker absolutely and undeniably struggles to pay for food and bills. Everyone got a very clear view of what their company thought of them when we all filed taxes, and missed being classified by the federal government as “low income individuals” by a very small amount. This is especially crazy when you consider the fact that we work for a company in a state where the cannabis market is run by an oligopoly, so really only a select group get to make all of the money from weed sales….but that’s a whole other topic.
We are now days away from union representation and taking the company to a negotiating table, and fighting for everything we deserve as workers. Now I’m still realistic and don’t expect the world to come of this, however I will tell you a few things this has all taught and confirmed to me.
There is absolutely power in numbers, and the old slogan “Alone we beg, together we bargain” is also true. We had several employees be blacklisted by management for asking for raises, however now they are legally forced to reach a better agreement with us, and not just on the topic of pay.
I also believe that if we collectively, as a working nation, came together and forced all of these large corporations to respect our lives, and the fact that we give them the most valuable thing we possess in life, which is our time, it gives us a fighting chance now and into the future. We see it happening with Starbucks, Apple, Amazon, etc. People are tired of the bullshit and, just the like the people here on antiwork, they’re doing something about it.
Respect to everyone. Fight on brothers and sisters.