It Could Happen Here - The Campaign Behind Chicago’s Only Union Bookstore

Episode Date: May 23, 2024

Mia talks with Caleb, Theo, and Finn, three members of the new Seminary Coop Booksellers Union about how they turned a campus bookstore into the only unionized bookstore in Chicago. Follow @semcoopbooksellersunion on Instagram Follow @semcoopunion on TwitterSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey guys, I'm Kate Max. You might know me from my popular online series, The Running Interview Show, where I run with celebrities, athletes, entrepreneurs, and more. After those runs, the conversations keep going. That's what my podcast, Post Run High, is all about. It's a chance to sit down with my guests and dive even deeper into their stories, their journeys, and the thoughts that arise once we've hit the pavement together. Listen to Post Run High on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Curious about queer sexuality, cruising, and

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and I'm very excited about it. I'm your host, Mia Wong, and with me to talk about this tremendous event are Caleb, Theo, andn from the seminary co-op booksellers union uh yeah welcome to the show thank you so much for having us this is so exciting yeah i'm excited too both because i think somehow in the most that i got almost three years i've been doing this show now jesus christ that is terrifying somehow i think this is the first bookstore union we've talked to which is remarkable i don't i don't know how it's taken this long but i'm so excited that y'all get the y'all the first i mean as far as we know we're the first in the city of chicago hell yeah we're the only in the city there are like past bookstores that have since closed which were unionized.

But yeah, as best we know, we're currently the only union bookstore in the city of Chicago proper. God, maybe there's one up in Evanston or something. But it seems unlikely. This is, I don't know. I've been drilling the Evanston knowledge into my listeners' heads now, so now all of you people in Rhode Island or whatever know about my hatred of Evanston. I think it's justified.

An extremely fair grudge. Okay, so speaking of grudges, alright, the Seminary Co-op is, it's an interesting bookstore in the sense that like it's it's it is on the campus of the university of chicago like it's just it's just sort of there and there's been a lot of things happening on that campus in the past month or so but yeah i guess what i wanted to i guess the place I wanted to start was sort of, okay, so UChicago is a campus that has a lot of union organizing happening on it in a bunch of, across a bunch of different kind of, they're mostly university unions, but a lot of different kinds of workers in the university have unions.

How did that sort of impact the way this campaign started? That's a really good question. I feel like there's a few things i want to talk about i think there's the the fact that a lot of us booksellers who come to the sem co-op were coming from many of us came from youicago or had been there at some point and had been around that kind of organizing so I think that that definitely has an impact I also think that many of us know people because so many of us are in the community we all know a lot of people who are organizers a lot of people in the grad student union and having them to talk to and kind of like bounce ideas off of and commiserate all of that has been really great

yeah and like i think it's been very emboldening to know that we have that support, you know, because we have friends and comrades and roommates in GSU, in faculty unions, you know, they kind of the whole time we've known that like, if we ever need to draw on that external support for any kind of, you know, public campaign that we have like a, a connection to like a broader labor of movement in the area that that'll be there for us.

This is something I guess you've already touched on a bit, but I think this leads into another question that I had, which was, yeah, I wanted to talk about the sort of the influence of campus and how, how, how the dynamics of that kind of change what these, what these campaigns look like? It's really interesting because our relationship to campus is a little bit unclear to us in terms of the way that the bookstore functions in relation to its university partners, because we work with them very closely. They're our landlord, among many other things,

partners because we work with them very closely they're our landlord among many other things but we are not directly affiliated with them and we carry course books but that's by professor request and we can't always do it and so it's a really close really opaque relationship I think the university really likes to have a bookstore that isn't like university affiliated on paper, but still very much is a part of the culture of the university. And so we see a lot of that kind of inform things like our stock and the events that the uh professors that we work with and of course like the students who come in and use the space and are physically in the space every day doing work um buying their books it's it's always weird kind of doing organizing in these spaces because like i don't know you're dealing with this mixture well you chicago especially is like this where there's it's this really kind of weird and volatile mixture of like a bunch of on the one hand like a bunch of very brave very committed like people who are doing organizing a bunch of people who are just completely checked out and

then a bunch of people who are going to go lead coups in South America and like I don't know that was my experience back doing actually god I was on the GSU picket line like how god that was half a decade ago Jesus Christ this is turning into the

Mia thinks about her time at UChicago episode which it shouldn't yeah but I think that's something that is This is turning into the Mia thinks about her time at UChicago episode, which it shouldn't. Yeah, but that's something that is notable, too, is that like we have a lot of community support when it comes to people who are theoretically in favor of unionizing and theoretically in favor of labor power. And that extends all the way through our management team. Like they are very, very in favor of the concept of labor rights. And so it's really interesting trying to parse that dynamic sometimes of like, okay, these are people who are supposedly our biggest supporters, but at the same time, their actions do not very well line up with those ideals

i think having a section at our store that is devoted to critical theory and marxism um while not paying us a living wage is a real funny situation the irony stings real hard yeah it's this real read the theory. Do not act on it, but read the theory. It's been real fun. During your course book rush seasons, we have SEM co-op trading cards with pictures of different authors. It's always really fun handing out the ones

that are like, Karl Marx, SEM co-op's number one best-selling author. And no, it's definitely not because every freshman at University of Chicago has to buy him from us. Yeah, that's another kind of unrelated really funny thing. But yeah, like all of the UChicago econ dipshits at least nominally read Marx. Did they open it low odds but yeah i don't know that that that seems like a a psychologically destabilizing contradiction that you're dealing with all the time that same kind of like contradiction between like

spirit and practice just like it's also right there in our name where we're the Seminary Co-op Bookstore, and two-thirds of that is not true. We haven't been affiliated with the seminary in decades. We were for a time a member co-op, like REI, but we've never been a workers co-op. We haven't even been a member co-op since 2014. We are a bookstore, so there's that, but... we are a bookstore so there's like that but the old one in three ain't bad thing simply does not apply here that is in fact very bad well and i think that that is like a very big part of how the larger community sees our stores as well and the like mismatch there because yeah of course we're like on the chicago campus we are very much um connected to the student body and the faculty there but we're also like in the middle of like our neighborhood

where there are plenty of other people who are not affiliated with the college who are like coming in buying their books there's um the fact that like our our second location down the street 57th street books which has like our kids sections sections and like a bunch of other less academic stuff like that's very heavily trafficked as well. And the community's understanding of us as a like worker owned not not for profit, which is a very confusing term because it's not a non-profit it's a not for profit that that disconnect between what the community needs and wants in its bookstores and what the management has decided our bookstores mean to the community is uh it's felt that's like a very felt uh mismatch yeah so i'm assuming that that that's sort of the kinds of things that i mean obviously the the standard not getting paid enough etc etc are those those are sort of things that led into

how the organizing started yeah i think it's a lot the way that like the mismatch is so apparent to us and it really brought us together. Like we have such a unique sense of solidarity as a working cohort. I feel like there's a lot of commiseration because we walk a very weird line throughout our community. community and so i think it's a little bit just trying to assess what's going on in our stores and like what how does that compare to what management tells us on a regular basis and shouldn't we be doing something about that yeah i think that i know that our first like big pre-union meeting where we all got together in the basement of one of our houses and uh commiserated was like after a pretty rough like all-store meeting that we had had in which we had continued to get really no response regarding questions about a living wage or um how we choose stock for our store, how communication between management and hourly booksellers was just so lacking.

And we just got the same kind of messaging that was being given to customers, which is, we're working on it. All of these things that you're saying are so valid and we'll address them at a later date. Yeah, we were getting this great response of like, you know, we want to get you to not just a living wage, but a professional wage. And we have a five-year plan, but we were halfway through that five-year plan.

The five-year plan started right before the pandemic and had not been adjusted since and there was no information on how uh we were going to in the last half of this five-year plan you know suddenly increase wages to whatever a professional wage is let alone a living wage so that was just a very a very frustrating like completely empty answer i think we were all very we were all hurt and we got like the very first message in our group chat which was just like so we're we're gonna we're gonna unionize right incredible and that was like the start of it and that was like last i want to say that was january of 2023 was when that started yeah thereabouts

hey guys i'm kate max you might know me from my popular online series, The Running Interview Show, where I run with celebrities, athletes, entrepreneurs, and more. After those runs, the conversations keep going. That's what my podcast, Post Run High, is all about. It's a chance to sit down with my guests and dive even deeper into their stories, their journeys, and the thoughts that arise once

we've hit the pavement together. You know that rush of endorphins you feel after a great workout? Well, that's when the real magic happens. So if you love hearing real, inspiring stories from the people you know, follow, and admire, join me every week for Post Run High. It's where we take the conversation beyond the run and get into the heart of it all. It's lighthearted, pretty crazy, and very fun. Listen to Post Run High on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hola mi gente, it's Honey German, and I'm bringing you Gracias, Come Again, the podcast where we dive deep into the world of Latin culture, musica, peliculas, and entertainment with some of the biggest names in the game.

If you love hearing real conversations with your favorite Latin celebrities, artists, and culture shifters, this is the podcast for you. We're talking real conversations with our Latin stars, from actors and artists to musicians and creators, sharing their stories, struggles, and successes. You know it's going to be filled with chisme laughs and all the vibes that you love. Each week, we'll explore everything

from music and pop culture to deeper topics like identity, community, and breaking down barriers in all sorts of industries. Don't miss out on the fun, el té caliente, and life stories. Join me for Gracias Come Again, a podcast by Honey German, where we get into todo lo actual y viral.

Listen to Gracias Come Again 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 offline on the i hot radio app apple podcasts wherever else you get your podcasts check out better offline.com yeah that's it that's i guess it's a pretty fast campaign by the looks of it it Yeah, about a bit over a year. Yeah. Congratulations to you all, by the way. Thank you. Thanks.

It's really thanks to the team that started in January, though, because they have been really, really proactive about reaching out to people when there are new booksellers, because I have kind of a weird tenure at the store I've worked there two separate times but I wasn't part of the January meeting but when I rejoined the co-op in August I think within the first week that I was there one of my co-workers like came up to me while I was at the register and like in the standard getting to know you kind of speech was like and how do you feel about labor organizing?

And I was like, very in favor. Why do you ask? Yeah. That, that by the way, dear listener, if you're in a union, that is,

that is what is known as good practice. It is in fact, a thing that you need to do whenever someone new joins your workplace and you have a union, bring them in. And if you don't do this, your unions will stagnate and die. And there are, there, there are will stagnate and die and there are

there there are like there are actually there are unions out there who will get mad at you for doing this because it takes resources or whatever and don't listen to them please stop simply do not do this this is the only defense against turnover which is huge in all of the industries that most need to unionize yep yep we have really crazy turnover like i think that of the original people who started talking i mean and this was like there was a previous unionization effort too before our time that we know very little about but of the original like january folks very few of us are left just because of the turnover rate which is immense and we get like groups of like three to four people hired at once every six months or so and it's like okay how quickly

can we scope folks out how quickly can we like do like a one-on-one and talk to them about how they feel about labor organizing. How can we get a sense of like what their main concerns are with, uh, with the job and what they want from unionizing. Yeah. Well, and the turnover is also one of the things that sparked this because we had a wave of folks who were fired, asked to leave or quit on their own terms.

And we had another coworker who knew that she was kind of reaching the end of when she could stay at the bookstore and was just very committed to getting some momentum going in her last handful of months here and created like the, I've said the group chat and was just very quick, like, all right, everyone were in the group chat, like this message. If you agree with the following statement. And then it was like, you know, statements about like how much you care about the job and then statements about like how much you agree that like a union would improve things.

And just about everybody agreed a union would be a huge improvement. And that was, I mean, that was also a really incredible resource because like before someone just created the group chat, we're in this really awkward phase of like three or four different groups of people trying to get a ball rolling and very like cautiously approaching folks. I had approached one or two people and very like cautiously approaching folks i had approached one or two people and then like that same exact question like how do you feel about unions

and then there was someone else who was going around asking the exact same question and you know i was also at reg one day when she came up and asked asked me that and i was like jesus do i not have enough patches on my jacket if this is a question i need to fix something it was a lot of like ships passing until the group chat got created and then we it was really quick we had we started having like meetings i i want to say we had one like every three weeks to a month in that first six months um we got together a letter of demands that we all read and signed it was i think at the time of the how many were working there it was like all but one maybe wow person signed it and we all

went to deliver it and read it to management and got a bunch of stuff right away this was like well before yeah well before we had um like signed with a union or decided who we wanted to unionize with and we still just through that direct action got so much done and i think that's part of the success that we've had so far too is we do just have kind of a large number in our cohort of impatient people which means that like once we figure out what we want, we're just like, okay, what's the fastest way we can ask for this and get it recognized? That first march that we did, that first letter was also just, I mean, it really like fueled all of the rest of this, I think, because the stuff that we won was so, I think, so immediately felt for everyone working there. What kinds of things, uh, what, what, what kinds of things did you win in that one? We won expanded health insurance. Um, previously very few people qualified for health insurance.

Um, we got that pretty tremendously broadened. Um, I mean, that's, I think how Theo and I ended up getting health insurance. We got things like improved maternity leave, improved bereavement leave. The definition of who you could take bereavement leave for was broadened. It was like previously a grid of like nine types of relation. And then it got just fully expanded to like include chosen family and just whoever you know you felt the need to claim bereavement leave for um as well as just how many days uh which was tremendous i mean it was like a week after the change you know got actually implemented into our our leave system that I found out a relative was dying. And because we had gotten that expansion,

I didn't have to choose between driving my grandmother to be by her bedside, be by this other relative's bedside or going to the funeral. I was able to take time off for both of those, which, you know, meant everything to me, meant everything to my funeral. Um, I was able to take time off for both of those, uh, which, you know, meant everything to me, meant everything to my grandma. Um, and so, you know, when, when we talk, when we're, um, looking at issues, when we're organizing and we talk about things that are widely felt that are deeply felt, um, that are actionable and like those kinds of changes are very deeply felt. And so there wasn't, you know, there really hasn't been a point since then when anyone could remotely make the argument that organizing doesn't create positive, impactful change. second time that I came to the stores was significantly different than the handbook that I was on board with the first time and it was because this list of demands had gone out in the interim because the policies about like just our character as a store and the way that we want

to interact with our community were completely different and it was very much that like booksellers who interact with the community on a daily basis had had a say in the meantime hell yeah okay so unfortunately we have to go to an ad break but when we return we will i don't know go back to what we were doing before question mark i don't know not not not my finest ad pivot but you know look if they if they if they paid me more they'd get more good ad pivots but they don't so you're getting the medium ones you gotta work your wage yeah hey guys i'm kate max you might know me from my popular online series, The Running Interview Show, where I run with celebrities, athletes, entrepreneurs, and more. After those runs, the conversations keep going.

That's what my podcast, Post Run High, is all about. It's a chance to sit down with my guests and dive even deeper into their stories, their journeys, and the thoughts that arise once we've hit the pavement together. You know that rush of endorphins you feel after a great workout? Well, that's when the real magic happens. So if you love hearing real, inspiring stories from the people you know, follow, and admire, join me every week for Post Run High. It's where we take the conversation beyond the run and get into the heart of it all. It's lighthearted, pretty crazy, and very fun. Listen to Post Run High on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm German and I'm bringing you Gracias, Come Again, the podcast where we dive deep into the world of Latin culture,

musica, peliculas, and entertainment with some of the biggest names in the game. If you love hearing real conversations with your favorite Latin celebrities, artists, and culture shifters, this is the podcast for you. We're talking real conversations with our Latin stars, from actors and artists to musicians and creators, sharing their stories, struggles, and successes. You know it's going to be filled with chisme laughs and all the vibes that you love.

Each week, we'll explore everything from music and pop culture to deeper topics like identity, community, and breaking down barriers in all sorts of industries. Don't miss out on the fun, el té caliente, and life stories. Join me for Gracias Come Again, a podcast by Honey German, where we get into todo lo actual y viral. Listen to Gracias Come Again 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 tech's elite has turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires.

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, wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com. And we're back. Yeah, so, you know, the organizing seems to have come together pretty quickly. I guess, do you want to talk about how you ended up being an IWW shop? I sent out feelers to just a bunch of different unions to got back to me, a larger trade union that I'm totally spacing on the name of or sort of commercial union. I'm the term for like the really big one,

the really big types of unions and the IWW. And I had meetings or phone calls with representatives from both of them. You and I put together kind of a graphic for sort of comparing like the pros and cons of two very different options, right? Like a big international union or I mean, IWW, obviously international. It's right in there in the name, obviously a smaller much more autonomous union and i i wanted to go iww i did my absolute best to not let that bias inform the the pros and cons lists and and whatnot and we you know we sat around um in this room here and just chatted it out, talked about our preferences, what mattered to all of us.

And what we decided was that amongst other things, one of the really big sort of organizing principles of this has been increasing our own agency and autonomy in the workplace. And the IWW's model just felt like it would give us the most control over our own campaign and and so that's that's how we ended up voting to become an IWW you know lead then campaign and now finally shop branch I think that the IWW really fit how our store and our organizing had worked thus far, too. It felt like it matched the character of our organizing.

It's definitely much scrappier. It, you know, the IWW having a history in Chicago definitely was a factor in my personal desire to be affiliated with them. I thought it was really cool to be joining that like long tradition of IWW shops in Chicago. I think that direct, the emphasis on direct employee action versus like contract bargaining fit very well for us as well. I think especially considering things like the turnover and how we wanted to make sure that, you know, if we argued a contract, if we bargained for

a contract now, that it would be difficult to know, you know, even a year or two down the line, if those points and those things that we bargained for would be what folks would want then and so getting to use more direct action and response um to make gains in the workplace has been i think a really helpful strategy and one that the IWW facilitates really well with how it trains organizing. Yeah, that all makes a lot of sense. And I guess,

you know, the question from there is how did management sort of react and what's been the kind of, what's, what's, what's, what's been the kind of relationship vibe since then? I mean, management voluntarily recognized us immediately um but they also had very clear notice ahead of time that we had been organizing like we had been

presenting them with demands on a regular basis we had been emailing them from an anonymous account requesting that they close the stores when the cold was too intense for most of us to safely get to work like they would be very very deeply buried under the rocks if they didn't know that we were like talking to each other so i think that they had a plan and they also know the character of our community which is very theoretically leftist and so they knew that they really didn't have another option because like we were at critical mass and they would look really bad in the eyes of everyone that they respect if they said nothing. announced to management that we'd unionized something like 21 22 out of 23 hourly workers were members of the iww we showed up in t-shirts it was a lot yeah incredible when you walk in when you walk in in your iww shirt to sit down at like an all-store meeting and then the next person walks in and they're also wearing that shirt and then the next person it's like yeah i we've got the

numbers something's about to happen oh and they knew they knew because we'd heard them i think like not two days before being like yeah we think that they're on the precipice of unionizing and we were like, you have no idea. Yeah, they took it as well as we expected them to take it, as Finn said. We had been in an organizing meeting the night before and had been in our group chat that morning preparing for all manner of different scenarios

if they didn't take it well and then and then they did how have they been acting after because there's there's definitely it can be a huge gap between voluntary recognition and then them actually doing anything yeah so the the structure of management is real interesting at our store. Like I said, we have 23 currently hourly booksellers. And then that to how many managers? Six? I think at least eight. Eight? What?

Yes, this is a fun quirk about our store. The manager to bookseller ratio is insane. And then we've got like our directors who are not counted in the manager number. Wait, there's more? Okay, so we've got five managers and three directors. Five managers and three directors for 23 hourly employees and i think that yeah yeah and they do love to use that ratio in meetings they talk about that a lot um wait yeah and i think that's a good thing wait wait no no no no we talk about it a lot like as oh oh definitely okay sorry i was

just like wait what and i think that well it's interesting because in these storm meetings it is usually only the director that talks i don't think we've ever heard managers talk in an all-store meeting so when the director voluntarily recognizes our union we also have to really look at the faces of every manager to see what they're actually feeling. And I think a lot of managers are, have, my suspicion is that a lot of managers share equal frustration with a lot of the ways that the store is managed even above them. managed even above them and i think obviously they can't say anything to us about uh how they feel about our union but but anecdotally they were so excited to take our picture after we announced that we had unionized that's really funny we did get management to take our photo which we had joked about in the group chat in the morning like lol wouldn't it be hilarious if we made the managers take our picture and then they sure did that's so funny yeah on a day-to-day level i think things have

been generally no more or less awkward than usual the vibe can be yeah bizarre on the vibe is also very highly colored right now by a lot of other big changes that are happening at the stores that have nothing to do with our union and so like it's very difficult to sort of suss out which weirdness is which but definitely i think the union weirdness is on the lesser end actually. Yeah. I mean, I think the only real indication we have in the last, in this kind of just little stretch sense we announced is that we've been

emailing with our director for like to schedule a announcement from the store side and you know we've sent basically a copy that we would like them to use and listed out what venues we would like it posted and they've been just very accommodating to all of that

we haven't been getting any pushback like how the store how or when the store announces to the you know mailing list and the community you know social media following and so on so you know there's that yeah it hasn't really been talked about that publicly yet it's about to be i do know that um when at the at the event that i was running or working at yesterday, the unionization, we got congratulated on our unionization. And one of my managers was just, that was to my manager's face.

And I think her reaction was like, oh, so, you know, they're taking it. They're being very polite about it. I don't think they know that other people know yet but um yeah if they if they when it happens i'm sure they're not going to be weird about it uh at least i hope not i think the main thing management wants to do everything in writing and i think that's correct in some ways. And like, that's about to happen. But in terms of how they will interact with us once it is fully public and fully announced and fully in writing, I'm not sure. reactions that we're getting now or the ways that they interact with us now that we have announced versus the ways that they may interact with us uh once we start really pushing for our demands that is that that could change pretty quickly especially when it comes to the living wage demand that is very at the forefront of what we're fighting for that's also been the one that has like the most

tension behind it uh when we've brought it up in the past and i think that once they realize that we're not just unionizing for uh for fun things might change pretty quickly and so we're just gonna have to be on we'll be on our toes. Because a big reason that we unionized was because we needed to have more weight behind that demand, because that was one of the core demands that has been made for the longest amount of time with the least amount of movement and the most empty promises. And so we wanted to prove to them, hey, you have to listen to us about this and i think that they might not have fully cottoned on to that yet yeah and i guess we'll

just sort of have to see how how they react to the the sort of hammer coming down on them now that they've spent all this time not actually doing anything yeah i, I think that's a pretty good place to wrap up. Unless there's anything else that you want to make sure that gets mentioned? Yeah, I mean, I think one thing I would like to say towards the end here is that a big part of what's been motivating us through all of this is seeing the sort of rise of labor power nationally with, you know, the strikes in LA with like the writers, the actor strikes, seeing, you know, teacher strikes going on with, you know,

the union stories that you all have been covering on, on this podcast with folks like Friday. And I just, yeah, I just want to say like, if for other folks who are working in a small space, in a retail space and thinking about unionizing, I mean, it's hard work, but it's deeply rewarding work. And if you put the time and dedication into it it is absolutely possible to organize your workplace especially if you're somewhere with 20 30 co-workers where you can get everyone into a group chat where you can get everyone together in you know someone's basement

someone's living room you know we're we're really at an incredible moment in labor as a movement. And just, if you're thinking about organizing your workplace, start talking to your coworkers, start talking to your friends. It's doable. It's hard, but there's power in a union.

And we can win hell yeah i think there's something to be said too just for the like sheer morale boost that comes from organizing with your co-workers because it makes everything better even as like your material reality doesn't change immediately your outlook and ability to manage it and to just feel like someone is in the same boat as you unparalleled really worth it it feels yeah it feels good it feels good to have something to be proud of something that you've put a lot of time into like coming to fruition and seeing all of these people that you've worked together with to help make like tangible gains for your community it feels like i think that

when you have a job that is when when you're working a job that sometimes makes it difficult to uh feel proud of yourself and what you're doing on a day-to-day basis for whatever reason, having organizing and having your coworkers there to make something really, really good, not just for each other, but for future workers and for workers at other stores who may see our efforts and go, I can do that too. That makes you, that makes me proud. And it feels really good to have something to be proud of. Yeah, getting to fight for your class is a great feeling. It's, it rules.

for your class is a great feeling. It rules. Yeah, so I guess, where can people find the union if they want to help support stuff? Gotta pull up our newly minted social media. Nice, nice. I had this ready to go earlier today,

and then I forgot to keep it open. No worries. We'll put the links in the description. These are some fresh, fresh fresh handles here we go yeah so folks can find us uh on instagram at sem co-op booksellers union uh sem c-o-o-p booksellers union or on twitter at sem co-op union which hopefully we will you know start posting on soon uh and that's gonna be the best way to sort of keep up with our store our situation from specifically the perspective of the laborers also if you're in chicago come and say hi come to our stories come talk to uh our like come talk to the workers

uh we have a lot to say we'd love to talk to you about it yeah it's it's a great place and it's gotten significantly better now that there's now now that it's unionized and hopefully one day i don't know fuck it i don't know i'll i'll i'll say this hopefully one day it is a fucking actual co-op hell yeah that's the dream that's all we want yeah so thank you all for coming on and

good luck and yeah hope hope management folds like a fucking wet paper towel hell yeah thanks so much for having us thank you so much thank you mia this was amazing management folds like a fucking wet paper towel. Hell yeah. Thanks so much for having us. Thank you so much. Thank you, Mia. This was amazing. Yeah.

Excited to have talked to you all. And yeah, this has been NakedHappen here. You can do this too. And yeah, we'll have exciting stuff coming tomorrow too. Yeah, go organize your workplace and make your bosses miserable and make your lives better. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media.

For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It Could Happen Here updated monthly at coolzonemedia.com slash sources. Thanks for listening. Hey guys, I'm Kate Max. You might know me from my popular online series, The Running Interview Show, where I run with celebrities, athletes, entrepreneurs, and more. After those runs, the conversations keep going going that's what my podcast

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