I'm feeling really dejected right now.
I started a new job a few years ago in a conservative area in Appalachia with a good history of unions, but most of the unions around were started decades ago. It's a pretty good job in the tech field, pay and benefits really suck but the company is pretty flexible about time off, moving departments, etc. Management is really disorganized though and that's a big frustration. There are thousands of employees.
From the beginning I wanted to try unionizing. My last job was absolute shit and I saw coworkers be put in actively dangerous positions, and it was kind of a wake up call, so I wanted to try building something here. So I've spent the last 2 years trying to organize my workplace.
It started slow cause I was new, but I thought it was going pretty good otherwise. We have like 90 people in a spreadsheet who have come to meetings, but probably have a team of 10 or so people who meet every week to strategize. We've gotten some small wins in different departments, and generally people are sticking up for themselves more and asking for more. And actually we got a bigger than normal cost of living raise this past year, not enough to cover inflation but definitely linked to the work we're doing. I think management knows what we're doing, but they haven't called it unionizing because we haven't called it unionizing, we wanted to grow more before being public and doing a card campaign.
But it just isn't happening fast enough. People in the group keep leaving for other jobs, or stuff comes up in their lives and they don't have time. And other people are saying we're not “really” a union because we don't have a majority yet, but we're trying to organize literally thousands of people. I get what they're saying but it feels like backseat driving because they aren't putting in the work to actually change things or build a stronger union. We don't have an affiliation with a national union yet cause the closest one for the work we do is CWA and when we've talked to them it really didn't seem like a good fit.
Yesterday one of the core organizers said she doesn't want to do it anymore. She was just at her breaking point with people who don't have any sense of solidarity. She's from a working class union background and a lot of our coworkers grew up middle/upper middle class and they just don't get it. And I agree with her, they do kind of suck. But I don't see myself NOT trying to start a union.
I don't see myself working here forever either. I feel an obligation to people I've been organizing with, but it feels like they don't feel the same thing back. I know if I keep pushing I can find new people, but I'm starting to wonder if it's time to call it. It sucks because we've gotten so much done already. But I don't want to burn myself out when even people I'm unionizing with don't believe in it anymore.
Any advice from people who have been here?