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Episode Synopsis "UnionIZE? "
I’ve been evaluating whether to sign on for unionizing our team at the grocery store. The core workforce at the store — those managing the groceries — is unionized, as are the meat/seafood folks and the Deli Folks. Clothing, Home (furniture etc), and our online ordering department are not union. The union sales reps hover around our department aggressively. They want us to go union so we can have their protections. Also they presumably are paid a bonus if we sign up lol. Originally I signed on as a supporter because I think that at a macro level, it makes sense to have union power pushing up against corporate power. Then I discovered I’d been mislead on some facts by the Union sales reps and demanded my paperwork back and that my name be removed from the support list. I received my paperwork back today and began reevaluating, appreciative that they quickly returned my paperwork. All in all it seems like an unnecessary layer between myself and the company I work for, frankly, without much upside. The union people remind me of door to door sales reps or used car sales reps. They are incredibly unappealing characters. Can’t answer a question straight. Won’t tell me what I want. Every question I ask, they veer into some emotional nonsense about the time some person was screwed by the company. I’m deeply disturbed by the idea of submitting to a set of rules that is overseen by an organization who utilizes these people as core representatives. I am much more comfortable with the risks and the rules of corporate policy. Perhaps this is my preference for the devil I know. Every time the union guys talk to me about the necessity of the union, they act like the fact that the corporation negotiates in corporate interest is morally reprehensible. It annoys me when they say that “they earned a billion in profit this year” as if there is some human earning a billion in profit this year of my back, rather than the reality which is that there is a big old pile of public shareholders, each of whom is risking their money and risking loss in order to hold the public stock, and each of which has to make a decision about when and whether to sell that stock to realize the profit. \Perhaps also I just really appreciate the benefits provided by the corporation relative to the lack of benefits when I ran my own stuff, and considering how simple the work I do for them is, I have a hard time complaining? It’s my first experience interacting with unions, and I’m deeply unimpressed by the way they attempt to cast all of what corporations do as being somehow without risk, like there is nothing at all at stake for the company, and like everything is at stake for the workers. I have to say: What makes us workers worth protecting? I could train any person with an IQ over 80 to do my job in like 5 days. What is so professional about us that we should be entitled to higher pay? That we shouldn’t be fired if we are bad workers? I don’t get it. I hate to sound so harsh, but it’s true. I wrote a bit of standup comedy about this in the early days of the pandemic, which I think is hilarious, though I suspect it’s not actually that funny. PLAY CLIP. Get full access to Zoom In Zoom Out at zoominzoomout.substack.com/subscribe
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