Things have been getting out of hand at our work, and we’ve been making far below the standard for our industry for a while. I’m an assistant manager, and I heard many complaints and frustrations about the low pay considering the valuable labor & time provided by our staff. So we started talking. The staff decided on wages we thought would be fair, and we drafted a notice of demands for our owner, threatening a work stoppage during the opening weekend of THOR if we were not satisfied with the response.
Our GM is a really good guy, so we approached him with our plan beforehand, just to avoid blindsiding him with the shitstorm if things went south and many of us walked out. He went to the owner himself and explained to him that we were at risk of losing many managers and employees within the next few weeks. He gave him no bullshit, and explained exactly what was wrong. The owner was upset, but almost immediately caved.
In less than 24 hours, we got exactly what we were asking for, the new rates will begin in July.
Now we are thankful and lucky that our GM supported the cause, as many workplaces may not have a decent person looking out for them. But the empowering thing is that, even if he had opposed our demands, the owner still had no option. It was either give in, or face the impossible task of training an entire new staff within the next couple of weeks.
The lesson here is that ALL of the power is in the hands of the people on the floor. It may feel scary, but just talk to your coworkers (assuming they feel similarly) and stick together. The boss has no leverage if the valuable workers who keep the place running have nothing to lose, so if they know you could all get better paying jobs easier than they could replace the team, they don’t have a choice.