It Could Happen Here - New Seasons Labor Union and the Independent Union Explosion

Episode Date: September 15, 2023

Mia talks with Tylor Fellini and Alex Gage, two organizers involved with the New Seasons Labor Union about the incredible success of their union and the wave of large independent unions sweeping across Portland. https://nslu.org/ https://www.gofundme.com/f/new-seasons-labor-union-solidarity-fund See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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That's iHeart.com slash podcast awards. It's another union episode of It Could Happen Here, the podcast where we do a lot of things, but one of which is talking about unions, one of which is not doing great intros. It's me and Mia Wong. And today I'm here to talk about a union and a strike and a bunch of other stuff. And with me to talk about this is Tyler Fellini, who is an organizer with Portland Jobs with Justice and also a former New Seasons worker and Alex Gage, who's an organizer and store rep for the New Seasons Labor Union shop in Arbor Lodge. Yeah, both of you two, welcome to the show. Yeah, thanks for having us.

Happy to be here. Yeah, I'm glad to talk with you two. So I guess before we get into the sort of current stuff, I wanted to talk a bit about how the New new seasons union was formed and what that sort of process looked like and how it's been going since then? Yeah, I can speak to that. So the initial unionizing effort started at the store that I was working at, Seven Corners.

And we actually, the first conversation we had was April 1st, the same day that Amazon Labor Union went public and won their election. So it was like a really inspiring moment for us that spurred a conversation on the shop floor with a couple of coworkers, which quickly escalated to six of us meeting in a nearby coworker's backyard. We talked about the issues and we were all hitting the same things. We were all upset with the attendance policy, the way that New Seasons

was treating us and had been treating us during COVID. We were also upset with our pay, which is obscene and does not keep up with the cost of living in Portland, Oregon, which is a very expensive city. And we were also really upset with the healthcare that we have offered and how it's kind of deteriorated over the years, especially for New Seasons as a company that has a lot of people who've been there for years. And so there are a lot of people who've seen just the downward decline. So those early meetings went really well. We talked to coworkers on the floor discreetly, and everybody was resonating with what we were saying. We made a lot of progress really fast.

And then we had a meeting at a local bar here in Portland, Workers' Tap, which huge shout out to them. They are an amazing space for a lot of burgeoning independent unions to have some of their early meetings. So we met there with more members at our store, the Seven Corners location.

And I think we had like 30 people there, which is a huge turnout for a first showing of a meeting. Yeah. Yeah. And then from there, we moved pretty fast to getting cards signed for a showing of interest. And so in less than two months, we were actually filing our petition with the NLRB,

which is really unheard of. Yeah, that's amazing. Especially for a grocery store union. That is wild. Yeah, yeah. As soon as we went public, workers at all these other stores reached out to us. Our Instagram blew up. People were excited, but wanted to figure out how to do it at their store.

So we were kind of simultaneously trying to balance the plates of like keeping our store going and also helping other stores go. And, you know, by the end of the summer, we rolled into, we had our election, I want to say in September. And by the end of the summer, there were multiple stores that had gone public and announced. And here we are, you know, it's barely been a year since our first election win. It's barely been a year since then. And we have over 900 members, almost a thousand members in this very new union. That's incredible. That gets into another thing I'm interested about, which is Portland. Portland's a city that has been in the last, I mean, I would say probably the last five years, but especially in like the last couple of years, it's been

really, really active in terms of union organizing, in terms of sort of, especially independent unions. There's been an enormous number of them. The actual number of workers being organized is really high. And yeah, I mean, you talked about having this bar as a sort of space you could do meetings. Has there been any other stuff, I mean, from other independent unions, from other, I mean, just from the fact that there's so many like things happening that have like changed the dynamics of how these union organization tribes have been going? Yeah. So early on, you know, we were weighing our options as far as like, did we want to join an existing union or go independent? Like, what did we want to do there?

And a lot of that information is hard to find if you don't know the language that you're looking for. It's not really accessible to the average worker. But we found a lot of solidarity in folks who had been involved in other independent union efforts. Specifically, we met with Mark and Luis at Burgerville Workers Union. They offered a talk. Yeah, they're great. They were some of the early folks to reach out and help us. We were also able to talk to some of the folks at ILWU local five that represents pals workers and many others and get some support there. Portland is definitely a labor town and the solidarity that we felt kind of across the board was great. You know,

especially like early on when we had a lot of questions and we didn't have any answers and we didn't have many resources to, you know, hire a lawyer and ask them. So. Welcome. I'm Danny Thrill. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter? Nocturnum, Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonora. An anthology of modern day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters,

From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of my Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into how Tex Elite has turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech from an industry veteran with nothing to lose.

This season, I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel-winning economists to leading journalists in the field. And I'll be digging into why the products you love keep getting worse and naming and shaming those responsible. Don't get me wrong, though. I love technology. I just hate the people in charge and want them to get back to building things that actually do things to help real people. I swear to God things can change if we're loud enough. So join me every week to understand what's happening in the tech industry and what could be done to make things better. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com. Hey, I'm Gianna Prandenti. And I'm Jemay Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline, the early career podcast from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. One of the most exciting things about having your first real job is that

first real paycheck. You're probably thinking, yay, I can finally buy a new phone. But you also have a lot of questions like, how should I be investing this money? I mean, how much do I save? And what about my 401k? Well, we're talking with finance expert Vivian Tu, aka Your Rich BFF, to break it all down. I always get roasted on the internet when I say this out loud, but I'm like, every single year you need to be asking for a raise of somewhere between 10 to 15%. I'm not saying you're going to get 15% every single year, but if you ask for 10 to 15 and you end up getting eight, that is actually a true raise. Listen to this week's episode of Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I wanted to go back a little bit to talk about sort of the influence of, um, the, the, the sort of influence of the news about, uh, the Amazon labor union,

uh, uh, going wide and how that sort of worked. Uh, have, have you, have you seen a sort of similar thing with other, uh,

like not just sort of not, not just new seasons, uh, shops, but have you, have you seen other shops that sort of like decided to start organizing after y'all came out? I think that there is a general energy among the rank and file, right.

That some of the old ways that unions are organizing, we're not the most representative of the workers, which is in part, you know, the eighties. Right. And so kind of why we've seen sort of union representation stagnant, but we in part, you know, the eighties. Right. And so kind of why we've seen sort of union representation stagnant. Um, but we're seeing a major shift, right? We've got a lot of educated workers doing low wage jobs, um, which that, that condition existed in the 1930s and led to a major explosion in militant unions. Um, so I think there's a major parallel there. Um, and it's not just Amazon labor unions. Also, you know, the Starbucks Workers United campaign was huge. Right. And those are workers who service workers, restaurant workers historically have been left out of labor or underrepresented, similar to health care workers and just care workers generally.

And that, I think, is kind of the stereotype of like the working class as like a trad white guy in a factory um and we're seeing that severely upended right now which is really exciting yeah but that's that's a that's another dynamic i think is really is really interesting particularly in portland is that it seems to be a lot of independent unions and it seems to be i think partially because even even in the midst of the fact that like very clearly people want to organize there's been a lot of conservatism on the part of the sort of like larger existing unions you don't really want to like throw an enormous amount of money into these organizing drives which means you know if if this stuff is going to happen it's it's it's the independent unions um

and yeah i don't know like i i think i think your point about sort of i think your point about this are both both the highly educated workers thing and the way that you know sort of what's constitutionally considered a worker and what unions are willing to sort of throw money at are tied together because yeah i mean you know like the shops that you're working in the shops are getting organized just aren't the kind of thing that anyone's been organizing for like ever at the very least not since like the 80s yeah and i think it makes sense why they don't organize it's freaking hard it's a lot of work and there's a lot of turnover and you don't see those same faces.

That's why we can get from having our first meeting to filing for election in two months, because if it doesn't happen in two months, it's never going to happen. And we get it done. We get it done fast. And then we see all these other like as a grocery store, we get deliveries from bigger union, you know, drivers and such. And we've seen what's happened with their campaigns, where if they're not like totally invested, they can get decertified within a matter of weeks. But we haven't had any of that yet yeah which which is really impressive and you know that's another thing i'm interested i've been asking a lot of people because turnover is one of the big things that's been sort of you know it's it's been the wall that the existing unions hit and we're like this is too hard we're going to go do something else and i've been i'm wondering how y'all have been dealing with

the turnover problem because it's i mean it is definitely something that's difficult to deal with but you know it's it's not something that makes it impossible it's just hard and i'm interested yeah i'm interested what your sort of strategies to uh manage it have been I think it's a matter of passion. I think Tyler is a great example, like is no longer a member, but sees this as like the way that we can move our society forward in general. Like the labor struggle is the struggle. Like there's no war, black class war. If we don't do this, what are we doing here? So we stick around and we're doing this for free. We're not getting paid for it. We're doing it because it's the right thing to do. When Arbor Lodge and Grant Park had their walkouts on Labor Day weekend, there was a customer at

Grant Park who called out to us that we should just go open up our own workers co-op. And my response to him was that, you know, if we leave, there's just another batch of workers that are going to go through these conditions. Like the goal is not that like, I want it to be great for me. Like I don't even work in new seasons anymore. I want it to be great for my former coworkers who are still there and for the people that I don't know who are going to come behind them. And that's, that's how you get around the high turnover pieces, like the passion and dedication and the drive to make conditions better for the people coming after you, which is really antagonistic to the way capitalism wants us to be very individual oriented. We just care about ourselves and our day to day. But that's the really great thing with the worker power is that collectively we are so much stronger much stronger collectively. We can actually stand up to the boss and win. Right. And, and that means just reorienting how we think about the world, right? Like, like this job sucks. How can I make this job better? I can just quit

and go get a better job. But if I change this job, then the people who are still here also get better working conditions. Yeah. And I think that there's kind of, there's a, there's a kind of flip side of that too. Right. Which is that, you know, even if you like, you know, like turnover just is inevitable to some extent, even, even if you have people who like want to stay and fight, right. Like people are just going to have to leave. But on the other hand, you know, if you're, if you're, if you're in a unionized workplace and if you're specifically, if you're, if you're in a union that has a sort of militant culture, what you're doing is you're changing the actual class itself, right? Because now your worker who, I don't know, is moving to Arizona or something, right? They are now also much more militant and have this sort of experience of organizing that they may not have had before.

And this, you know, it's like you're... Any individual movement you're doing in any, any, any individual movement you're doing in one place is building up the entire class. Yeah. And we can see that we've like been attracting people who are interested and becoming involved in a movement and, you know, whether they just graduated from college or they had some sort of distant relative who was in a union, they come to new seasons thinking, oh, I want to get in on the beginning of this. And we've seen like a big push of that recently. And people who leave, they want to go, you know, organize their next workplace, you know,

regardless if they were fired or whatever, they, they want to keep it going. So, and I think to build on that too, um, you know, salting is a practice that, uh, traditional unions typically do to kind of change a workforce. Um, and when you salt, usually you're paid by the union to go in there. And so you're getting paid by the employer to be there and the union is paying you to organize. But we've seen a shift now where people are voluntarily salting, right? People come like out to get a job. They don't need the money motivator. They just want to fuck shit up, right? They want to change things and like be antagonistic towards the boss. And I think to me, to go back to an earlier thing you asked about, like kind of like why Portland, right? Like I think one thing

about Portland is people in Portland love a protest, right? Like we don't need much of a motivation to go throw some rocks at cops, right? That's I think one thing about Portland is people in Portland love a protest, right? Like we don't need much of a motivation to go throw some rocks at cops, right? That's kind of in the culture of Portland. And so there is this, this orientation towards struggle that does exist. And right now that energy, you know, we, we went through the George Floyd uprising and a lot of energy has been funneled into labor. And it's been new voices in labor. It's not the same, you know, 10 people now kind of talking. It's all of this new energy. And for the most part, most of Portland labor is being very accommodating and making room for those people to get in there and be heard because folks recognize that they're on their way out. Right. You know, folks in their 50s or 60s, like, they're, they're towards retirement, right? And so it's as younger folks coming in that are going to change it, you know? Yeah. And I think there's an interesting dynamic with this too, which is that, you know, okay, one of the, one of the sort of conditions of, of the last sort of like 40, 50 years of capitalism, like is, is this sort of high turnover rates and also is this you know is this thing where you are like you as an individual worker are shifting jobs really

really quickly and that you know that's in some sense an issue but that also means that like i don't know like if you have a bunch of people who you know spent like spent 100 days fighting the feds and you know still still may like have have developed just like the sort of militant hatred of the cops and you know i've developed sort of an anti-capitalist politics yeah you get you get more of the sort of salt stuff you're talking about because like you know screw it like you know if you're gonna be working like a shit job anyways you might as well like go work one where you're salting and starting a union because there's not actually like i don't know it's not it's not it's not like you're like getting career advancement in the service job right

and yeah i mean that seems to be driving like at least some of the sort of of how this kind of like how the independent union union organizing in portland's been moving yeah i think i'd also like to point out though that like a lot of people for our union specifically new seasons has always been like the progressive business and it's always had a reputation of like being a great place to work. They're really inclusive or whatever. So that's what attracts like a certain crowd of people. And when they get there and they realize that like they're getting screwed over just like any other place that they've ever been at. That like fosters this new feeling of like well I'm vulnerable no matter what

I do like there's nowhere I can turn to trust my employer and how do I preserve what little dignity that I do have at this workplace because generally speaking like our jobs are pretty okay, minus the corporate business side of things. Most people enjoy going to work, maybe, but they want to enjoy going to work. So having that kind of double-edged sword has um been a catalyst for us to just build on what alex said too i think it's really interesting that a lot of the the surge in uh new like independent union stuff has been you know uh new seasons starbucks uh to a degree uh rei trader joe's all these places these progressive workplaces right and what's's happened is that so often we've had interactions with customers where they go, wow, I assumed that the prices were so high because

your wages were high. And we're like, dude, most of us can't afford to live in the city, right? Most of us are using public transportation. Yeah. And it's just not true, right? And so it's workers who get jobs at these progressive places that drank the similar social Kool-Aid that the customers drank of assuming that these businesses have good business practices. And what's happening is that they're just getting greedy, right? This is the case everywhere. It just hits a little bit different when your employer pretends you're friends and then stabs you in the back. Yeah. Not all workplaces have this kind of like, oh, we're like progressive sort of vibes thing. But I feel like businesses that have that reputation are also more just more vulnerable.

It's not just that like their workers like realize how hypocritical it is. It means that they're it means that they're more vulnerable to sort of like damage to their reputation when people find out that like, oh, my God, hold on. You're making how much money like. Yeah, and I think, think yeah i don't know i'm interested like how how effective has that been for you sort of like leveraging that i think it's been really effective i mean you know and not just us i think a really good example of exactly what you're talking about right is the shareholders of starbucks are holding howard schultz accountable because he is wrecking that company right right? And so with New Seasons,

what it means is that they play a very sneaky game. They fight us in the back room. They make sure it's not public facing. Anything we can do to attack their public image, like it hurts. I will say too that, you know, we're kind of standing on the shoulders of Burgerville Workers Union here, where Burgerville was built on this reputation

of like local, friendly, like we're the alternative to like corporate fast food. And they had security guards and strike busters literally fighting with picketers in the past and it tanked their reputation. And so New Seasons management has clearly looked at what Burgerville management did and been like, we're not going to do that.

It doesn't stop them from being shitty. They're just, they're more polite when they're shitty to us. They're still just as shitty. They're just, they smile while they stab us in the back. Welcome. I'm Danny Thrill. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter?

Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonora. An anthology of modern-day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you. to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows

as part of My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into how tech's elite has turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, better offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech from an industry veteran with nothing to lose. This season, I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel-winning economists

to leading journalists in the field, and I'll be digging into why the products you love keep getting worse and naming and shaming those responsible. Don't get me wrong, though. I love technology. I just hate the people in charge and want them to get back to building things that actually do things to help real people.

I swear to God things can change if we're loud enough. So join me every week to understand what's happening in the tech industry and what could be done to make things better. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com. Hey, I'm Gianna Prandti.

And I'm Jimei Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline, the early career podcast from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. One of the most exciting things about having your first real job is that first real paycheck. You're probably thinking, yay, I can finally buy a new phone. But you also have a lot of questions, like how should I be investing this money?

I mean, how much do I save? And what about my 401k? Well, we're talking with finance expert Vivian Tu, aka Your Rich BFF, to break it all down. I always get roasted on the internet when I say this out loud, but I'm like, every single year you need to be asking for a raise of somewhere between 10 to 15%. I'm not saying you're going to get 15% every single year, but if you ask for 10 to 15 and you end up getting eight, that is actually a true raise.

Listen to this week's episode of Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Yeah, so on the subject of stabbing us in the back. So there's been a bunch of stuff going on recently. I was wondering if you could talk about like the i don't know the recent unrest question mark need to figure out a better way to phrase this but yeah so yeah we've been building up we have i mean since day one of bargaining which started back in like december or january um it started in January yeah so we we've known that eventually it's going to get to a point where

we're going to need to show some force so you know we go in there with good faith and little by little we find out that the smallest ask is going to be impossible and we find out that they're going to be impossible.

And we find out that they're going to do whatever they can get away with every time they can. So they started with, I mean, they did all kinds of things, but the one catalyst is they changed the attendance policy for non-union workers and non-union stores to make it more lenient, which was one of the issues that we campaigned on was the attendance policy because it's ridiculous and people get fired all the time. So we demanded to bargain. They didn't have a response. We brought it up in bargaining at the bargaining table. They said that they would work on something that we could implement before we ratify the contract.

But they had to put it through their DEI lens and they had to. Yeah. lens and they had to um yeah yeah and you know all the things that corporations say to just delay it and kick the can down the road so we're still in good faith saying like okay you know go ahead so then we did a petition where all the stores um individually had people sign a petition. We got hundreds of signatures. And then we did a march on the bus asking them to sign this MOU, a memorandum of understanding saying, you will give us that same policy. We filed a ULP saying, like, this is illegal.

It's obvious discrimination. And then they just kept saying, okay, we're working on it. We're working on it. We're working on it. So they never did. Then we did a rally and we showed up at the headquarters with, I don't know, probably 200 of us. Hell yeah. with, I don't know, probably 200 of us.

Hell yeah. And marched up to the office and chanted and made a scene and told them they have one more chance to sign the MOU. They didn't sign it. So then we organized the strikes at the two stores and gave them one more chance to sign the MOU. They didn't sign it. We already knew they weren't going to. So, yeah, we shut down those stores for the rest of the day at Grant Park and for one hour at Arbor Lodge.

And it was powerful. We had a lot of support. A lot of people showed up. Yeah. Um, and to, to build on that too, um, you know, there's things coming up, uh, that we, we can't talk about yet, but I would say that, um, Alex, do you want to talk about the practice picketing? I feel like we could talk about that. Okay. So we actually can talk about the practice picketing i feel like we could talk about that okay so we actually can talk about we just filed a ulp yeah last night for bad faith bargaining yeah ulp is an unfair labor practice yes thank you i get caught up in the jargon so we just filed that last night for bad faith bargaining yep because they gave us the most ridiculous policy for attendance. It's basically

regressive bargaining, which is totally unfair. Yeah. Do you want to explain what that is? Basically, uh, the NLRB, the national labor relations board, they oversee unions and the relationship between unions and employers. Um, they demand that both sides come in good faith. Basically, don't screw around. Don't waste each other's time. The goal is to move towards some sort of compromise and an agreement. Regressive bargaining is when you backpedal and you offer something that is worse than what was offered. The attendance policy is, in my opinion, definitely worse. It is no better. I think it frankly takes the shittiest things of the past two policies and puts them together. So it seems pretty clear to us that it's regressive and that we can argue that New Seasons is not acting in good faith. They are acting in bad faith, which is illegal,

according to the NLRB. And so what we are allowed to do is file an unfair labor practice, the NLRB. And so what we are allowed to do is file an unfair labor practice, which basically, you know, it doesn't hold a lot of weight materially. However, symbolically, it looks really bad. And so, again, going back to like me, what you were saying about kind of like their image, right? Like these kind of progressive corporations, they don't want to look like the bastards they are. And a ULP makes it pretty clear, hey, this person's being a jerk. This company's being a jerk. So the more ULPs that we get filed that we win on, the bigger case we can paint that New Seasons

is actually being really unfair to us. Yeah, so then based on that, we're getting strike ready. We're making sure everybody can show up and be ready to assert our stance. We're not going to just lay back and let them take over. So we're going to do some practice pickets. And I'm sure you've been hearing that a lot, which is great for, I mean,

and if you want to bring it back to like the higher turnover rate and like, you know, the general apathy that you see in any union, people are just kind of afraid to be active. So we're looking at practice pickets as a way to get people involved in a really low risk activity. Can you explain how that works? Yeah. Yeah. So what we're going to do is each store will do a picket, but that picket will not be a strike. That picket will not um encourage shoppers to leave or discourage shopping in any way um we're not calling for a boycott we're just simply doing logistically what does it look like if we do a picket at each store in the most peaceful way possible. And then we do that at every store and we kind of gauge like, you know, how ready are we? And by doing that too,

it's a show of force to the company, right? Yeah. We're not doing anything illegal. It's effectively an informational picket. So legally, there's nothing that New Seasons can do to any of the workers that participate in it. However, they will absolutely see that we are prepared to do it. The Teamsters recently did this for UPS.

A lot of teachers unions have done similar things. It's a really good show of force to kind of leverage your people power and show the management that you're ready. And it has another effect too, which is something that the kind of basic cultural understanding of what unions are, how they function, what you need to be doing in any given scenario, like just physically how to do pickets, what you logistically need to do. That stuff has all sort of faded from the height of union culture in the 60s and 70s. And that's something that you have to rebuild because you know and and this is this is something that's both both in terms of the people in the union that sort of knowledge institutional knowledge has to be rebuilt and it also has to be rebuilt in the public because people sort of just don't you know like your support for unions is really high uh but people don't understand exactly what like you know people don't understand exactly what a union is doing at any given time

or like how it functions and things like that and you know then this is this seems like a really good way to like you know like hey this is a picket this is what happens when there's a picket this is an informational picket we're going to give you information. And yeah, so it seems like a good thing for building up that kind of culture on both ends. And it's a really good opportunity to talk to customers, get them involved. That's the thing is that, you know, New Seasons kind of tagline is the friendliest store in town. And the way that they built that, yeah, the way that they built that reputation, though, was by really encouraging uh workers to develop deep relationships with customers um and so we're using that to leverage

against the company now and saying like hey like you know you like me like you know me by name and i know you by name you don't know the ceo by name like let's talk let's talk about like what we're asking for and what you as a customer can do to support us in a way that doesn't feel antagonistic. Right. Like, like when we had the, when we had the walkouts on Labor Day weekend you know, we did a debrief and we were kind of like, how do we, like how do we engage with people where we can hold onto our values and still feel like we're being effective. And Randy, a worker at Arbor Lodge, his solution, instead of calling people who cross the picket line scabs and

harassing them that way, he was like, I just said, hey, I'm disappointed in you. And I think that, yeah, let's just, we're going to just, if you're going to cross the picket line, I don't need to hurl insults at you. I'm just going to guilt trip you and let you know that I'm disappointed in you and you will feel bad as you're shopping. And I think that that's sort of how we can align the progressive values that attracted people to New Seasons to work there in the first place you will feel bad as you're shopping. And I think that like, that's sort of how we can align the progressive values that attracted people to new seasons to work there in the first place with how we do actions while still being militant, right? We don't want to be soft. We just got to make sure that like it vibes with what we're about, you know?

Yeah. And, and that's, that's another, you know, I think this, this also gets back to the sort of culture part of it, which is like, yeah, yeah like rebuilding the standard of do not cross a picket line is a thing that that has to be done because that's again that's another thing that has sort of faded and yeah like guilt tripping people is a good way to do it because yeah you know like sort of especially especially sort of like middle and upper middle class progressive people like really really they're a lot of their politics is about wanting to feel good about themselves and you know making making well i think if they can see yeah i think if they can see themselves in us too they will relate and they they won't want to go against their own values which is our values because that's the culture of portland generally speaking did you have anything else that you want to make

sure to get in before we wrap up um yeah we uh would love to push our go fund me yeah yeah that our GoFundMe. That can be found at our website, which is really hard to find. Is it at slu.org? It is, but yeah, you have to type it in. You can't just Google it. Okay, well, we'll just put a link to it in the show notes. Yeah, perfect.

Yeah, if anybody, you know, we're out here being an independent union. We have no money. We're just looking for maybe some sort of strike fund for those in need when we are strike ready. And also, you know, materials, whatever people can donate would be amazing. Final notes, I would say, too, is that, you know, when we started this, I mean, we're an independent union of grocery workers, right? We did all of this in our volunteer time. None of us are lawyers. A lot of us had never been in a union before or had very limited experience.

We built this all from the ground up with tons of volunteer hours of our own time after work. tons of volunteer hours of our own time after work. And we have gone toe to toe with Ogletree Deakins, who is one of the largest anti-union law firms in the country. That's who New Seasons has retained. We've gone toe to toe with them. We have a lawyer now who is really graciously letting us write her an IOU for the time being. But even before her, we were still able to hold our own against a major anti-union law firm, right? There is power in workers coming together collectively. It's not as easy as it should be to find that information, but it is out there and there are people who want to share it. And I would say that for me, the labor movement has been a really empowering place to come into.

You know, I have a lot of experience with sort of like leftist, like street activism. But I think that for anybody who wants to be involved in the struggle and is also like looking for ways to make inroads and develop community, like labor is where it's at, right? I mean, we all work and to a degree, we all hit our jobs and have something to complain about. And like, that's a commonality that stretches across the aisle and allows for a lot of solidarity in a way that the culture war really doesn't want. And really, like, you know, it's by design, right? The capitalists want us fighting against each other.

And the labor movement is a way for the working class to unite because it's about class war. Yeah, hear, hear. Yeah, and this should go without saying, I'm going to say it anyways, you also, listener at home, can do this too. There is nothing sort of magical or special about the people who do union organizing other than the fact that they decide to organize a union. So you can do this too. You can form an independent union and yeah, you can go hand your bosses a fucking ass and get better working conditions and get better things for you and your entire class in the process. Yeah. I would say Labor Notes is a great resource for early information. The Coalition of Independent Unions is on Instagram and workers from around the country

have reached out to them for advice. We're on Instagram. You can ask us questions. Reach out to independent unions and ask them questions. This is a labor movement made up of the workers for the workers. We want more workers to organize. Yeah. And I think on that note, yeah, this has been Naked App and here, go into the world and fight. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you so much, Mia. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media.

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