Thank you for all of the solidarity you have demonstrated throughout our union campaign. On Friday, March 10th, we officially won our union with a vote of 136-87. While we had hoped to send you a short celebratory email, we have been forced by recent events to instead make a renewed call to action. On Monday night, only one business day after our election victory, TCGplayer management fired Iris St. Lucy, a member of our organizing committee.
We had hoped that we could look forward to good faith contract negotiations after our decisive election victory. But management appears committed to continuing its flagrantly illegal attacks on workers and our newly won union. We will not let our rights be trampled on and we ask you to help us in securing them against union busting aggression.
We are calling for a renewed demonstration of solidarity from the TCG community: Can you take action by publicly showing your support for Iris on Twitter and calling out eBay and TCGplayer for their extreme anti-union actions?
We ask that you send tweets/post tagging eBay and TCGplayer and let them know that this kind of retaliatory action is unacceptable. Please use the hashtag #TCGUstrong. You can also follow us on twitter at @TCGunionCWA.
Here are the facts:
Iris is a member of our organizing committee and a vocal union supporter.
She was fired one business day after our decisive union victory.
As unionized workers, we have the right to union representation in any meeting which could lead to discipline or termination of employment.
It appears that the decision to fire Iris had already been made, and therefore her Weingarten Rights did not apply.
But Iris was told that she had no Weingarten Rights because our union’s win has yet to be certified by the NLRB. This contradicts an NLRB memo from August 15th announcing that workers have Weingarten Rights as soon as a majority votes in favor of unionization.
This signals to us that TCGplayer and eBay management are committed to continuing their campaign of retaliatory actions in denial of our federally protected rights to organize and join a union.
We stand with Iris! An injury to one is an injury to all.
In solidarity,
TCGunion-CWA mobilizing committee