Also media, Welcome to ikadath here a podcast re union.
Good and not everything that is called co op is good. Sometimes they're not actually really co ops. I am your host, Mia Long, and today we are joined by the people struggling under the tyrannical fist of a co op, a thing that shouldn't be possible and yet somehow. Yeah, yeah, so we are. We're talking today with Es and Finley, who are booksellers at the Seminary co Op in Chicago. And yeah, we are welcoming the union back to the show. And dear God, what a disaster.
What a year at a spen.
Well, it's really great to be found. I wish we were back with slightly better news or yeah, since we were last here. Certainly, yeah, because when we last spoke, we had just sort of theatrically announced to art management that we were in an organized shop with the IWW and we were going to be bargaining with them for better wages and humane working conditions for us all. And they were like, yeah, you're a union, we so recognize that, and then they have sat on their hands ever since.
Yeah, So let's roll back all the way to the beginning and explain a little bit about what the Seminary co Op is for people who weren't here. How many years ago.
Was that though, that must have been last year. Yeah, yeah, it was a while ago. I don't go yeah, yeah, yeah.
So the Seminary ca Op is a set of two bookstores in Hyde Park, the Seminary co Op Bookstore, which is a misnomer on two out of free counts. It's not a seminary anym it's not a co op anymore. It is still a bookstore, although it is not for profit bookstore, which is a mysterious category of business that doesn't exist anywhere else.
Baffling.
Yeah, briefly, just to enerject, I do think when I would announce events and sort of give this exact breakdown for audiences, like I said, not for profit bookstore whose mission is book selling, right, And when I was hired of like about three months before we announced we were unionizing, the way it was put to me was other not for profit bookstores they do a lot with like family literacy or like specifically around women's issues.
But that was just.
Like an acknowledgement of the reality that bookstores don't make a whole lot of money and what we are providing is a not for profit bookstore is just the browsing experience. We kept books on shelves for too long. It just it seemed like a like a really romantic idea.
Of book selling that didn't have like a whole lot of legs underneath it, so to speak. Yeah, so it is nonsense, I would say, but that's me.
It's just a library, like we have this, it's called librarries.
Say they're a really big bookstore. I don't know.
It was vague, yeah, baffling, baffling, yes, yeah, And then I guess I guess the second part of it is like when they say it's a co op, what does that mean?
It means truly and as conspeech is more that it was founded by Chicago Theological Seminary students, and there was a reason for that.
Yeah, like they did want to buy horse books at the at the prices that retailers got them wholesale, And so the thought was, I forget their names, but we have the pictures of them.
It was like a Cavanaugh or something. But these two guys just you.
Know, if you were a student at Chicago Theological Seminary, we're even like a student at one of the other divinity seminaries nearby.
You just put an amount of money and you.
Were part of like you got your course book cheaper, you know, and under like a specific manager who came like a couple decades after that, Like then it really became like this is the neighborhood bookstore. This is part of like as they say, like the intellectual sort of cultural life of the university. But yeah, at one point it was a cooperative because like you were a member and you got your course books cheaper because you you know, had a certain amount of shares in the books.
But yeah, it was a think smarter not harder kind of scheme.
And then when they dissolved the like ownership shares and stopped being a co op. That was twenty nineteen when they organized as this not for profit. It's not a five oh one C three, they don't have nonprofit status.
It's this slightly different thing. And so one of the one things that has happened in the past year is we had an interim director who got us like basically a nonprofit sponsor who lends its five oh one C three status to other organizations and allows you to take text deductible donations, but like, up to that point, we couldn't do that because we were not a legitimate nonprofit.
We were this other thing.
Yeah, So since twenty nineteen it's been that, and then since twenty twenty four, it's been that plus Chicago's standalone unionized bookstore.
For now, we're hoping that others follow in Chilah. They will, Yes.
I feel like it is not a great sign of your business being a well run when you are doing a thing that like rookie activist campaigns do when they're like, oh shit, we got a bunch of money, we need to borrow someone else's five O one.
Three status, Like yeah, great, great.
Job management, like but incredible stuff.
And like, for me, part of what's been so like just mying boggling is like the not for profit bookstore who's mission is book selling, does sort of give this, you know, if we're like a five oh one C three who often does it. They don't turn a profit or what they do, they reinvest it back into the
operations they're doing. But like, and we can talk more about this as we get into like the bargaining, but like, store financials have been so obscured and I hate from like truly, truly hate from a linguistic standpoint, just sort of this subtle like, oh, we must not be doing well, because to me that feels like the rhetoric that really justifies the pack that I'm paid sixteen ninety an hour and I have a Master's of Divinity from the Seminary of the Seminary co Op.
Yeah.
Well, and it's and I think it's also worth noting that, like even from the perspective of capital, like all of the giant tech companies didn't make money for like decades, and all those motherfuckers were walking off with like one hundred billion dollar payouts, you know, like they only ever started making money when they started like reeling in a bunch of government contracts for like web services and like
defense contracts and shit. And it's like, I don't know, like this is this is I guess on topic, but it's just something that makes you really mad where people talk about like running the government like a business and then like, you know, you get like the post office where it's like, oh, the post Office doesn't run a profit.
It's like, you know, doesn't what a fucking profit. Uber literally has never brought a profit ever, not once yes, now once right, Like it's like no, like like I'm sorry, welcome, welcome to Welcome to twenty twenty five capitalism, Like companies don't make profits. They either get contact from the government or their entire existence is either conning some venture capitalists
dipshits out of all of their money. Or it's like Peter theal has decided that your like surveillance camera company is ideologically important to him taking over the world, so he's going to give you one billion dollars and it's like, oh no, I'm sorry, Like our financials aren't good enough for you to pay you. It's like, motherfucker, Like have you seen the rest of capitalism, like eat shit, pay.
Your workers, Like yeah, oh yeah, God damn well.
We keep using that one meme over and over and then it is true, like we're trying to balance the budget.
It's the true. The candles drill, yeah, yeah.
Because our management is so infuriating. And they also in the year since we've been bargaining having an interim director and spent most of his tenure searching for an executive director to take over. That person is being paid one hundred and sixty thousand dollars a year to our knowledge Jesus Christ. And that's the offer that we know of. We have yet to get his contract even though we did make a formal information request for it.
Yeah, which is fucked. And it's also like yeah, like every time these companies are like, oh, we don't have money, and it's like, okay, I can find like an unbelievable amount of money that you have given to someone to like to give a random, non specific example that has nothing to do with with with any company that is in any way related to this show Live or Dead by a bored ape yacht club edft.
Like this is like they spend three hundred dollars on Google home speakers for fifty seventh Street books and I'm like, wow, my having that three hundred dollars would change my life. But also like you're paying that union busting lawyer thousands of dollars that you could be paid reverse yep, but that's that's capitalism.
Yeah, they have enough money to make your lives miserable, but they apparently never have enough money to you know, like bake your lives not miserable because they have to spend that money on making your lives miserable.
Yeah, and it's so intentional because making us miserable means that they are wearing down the number of people that they have to deal with and making the people who are left so tired and so frustrated and so much less capable of fighting them.
Yeah, and that feels like just you know, fens leaving. We've also had a number of folks, like our bargaining unit that the last time y'all spoke last year was like twenty five people. Now we're down to eleven, and they've refused to hire anybody part time with full time. Yeah, of course, but they've been giving seasonal workers sort of like extra hours, and that is someone's got to start counting they have like unless they work for ninety days,
they don't have to. And because they're seasonal, you know, YadA YadA, they don't really join our union as kind of what I understand why they are not considered eligible.
But it's like, the booksellers are the heart of the store.
The classification of signal workers and particularly of event runners, has been a point of contention throughout negotiations this whole time, because obviously, from our perspective, we want anyone who's working in the store in any capacity to be involved in the union. We want them to not have this random scab force that they can deploy at will. Yeah, And that has always been the point that gets revisited over
and over again. Just when we think we've gotten them, often too, being union members, they'll come back with their latest count and that's like, actually, I think because of X, Y and b Z that we just changed, they're no longer eligible to join your union. But they did just hire I think three people that they were training at fifty seventh Street last week, but they've made no formal announcement to anyone that these people have been hired.
Yeah.
I only know that they were like in the stores because one of them came to the co op by mistake instead of fifty seventh Street and was like.
Oh, I'm one of the hires.
Oh.
And so it's unclear if those are the seasonal workers or if those are new hires.
Those are I'll say the most recent member, like part time, full time member of our staff who's not me. None of us knew she was hired, and she just came up took a book right off my cart and I was like, bitch, what but she But those were events. Those were the seasonal workers at the store. The other day, Like I worked one of the Chicago Humanities events with them, and it is like, yeah, then they just changed the qualifking of who can be in the union.
Yeah, it's been very intentional, and it's been just like over and over they revisit and reclassified and less down.
Yeah, we've done I think too since you last spoke, like a couple of work stoppages and then picketed outside of our store as well, But that I don't know in terms of like sort of regressive bargaining through attrition that we're seeing and that they refuse to hire other people even though they're kind of shooting themselves in the foot. But just like our direct action has I think worked against what they're thinking, which is that we're tired and that we're not going to fight back and that we
are overwhelmed and we don't know what we're doing. But there are a lot of folks who do, have, you know, experience with these sort of direct actions like a work stoppage, and I think it's why it's great that we're wildly's but also like I do kind of like on the work stoppage, health flustered and not like upset, but just how flustered and yeah, just awkward management feels it's it's empowering for me. Yeah, but it's very much on purpose. Well, and I think that's one of things said.
It's too just like a campaign in the broad sense of continuing direct actions during negotiations.
Is it is that chance.
To connect with your coworkers and re solidify that you're fighting for something intentional in the face of the fact that you will probably start being scheduled more sparsely, you will have fewer opportunities during the workday to talk to people, and like that's just stuff that's going to happen while
negotiations go on. But like making sure that you stay in touch with your union as best you can and like show up for all the direct things that you can helps you internally combat that, which is really helpful.
Yeah, And I mean, like you don't like I sound like we ran into organizing cues. We spent like I think it was two years bargaining for our contract, and they didn't have the capacity to literally rely force half the workforce to quit.
But like, oh, don't worry.
They don't have the capacity to lose this many people are, seems and they are how few people they have?
Yep, this whole thing is it's just like a really really common managerial tactic, yeah, which is just like we're going to make everything unlivable and try to get as many people as we can to quit and then just make everyone else's lives a living hell, which is like this is I think I've said this before, but it's it's like the extent to which the strategy is just the the deliberate infliction of terror.
Yeah, well, and the strategy is just tank your business, which seems incredibly conintuitive from their perspective.
And like there have been events for like it's been a book about like Karl Marx labor organizing, whether it's a history or like a like sociology book, and folks are like, I waited to buy this book here because it's the Union bookstore, and like there is a way that us being a union bookstore could look given like that folks on our board are really progressive, people like Adam Gettichu, like State Senator Robert Peters, who's like running on a pretty pro labor background, Like us being unionized
could be like we are already at tourist bookstore, like folks come from everywhere in or like this is such a famous bookstore, but like it does baffle me. It does make sense that it's a common tactic, but also there's so much that could work in their favor if they were not just like so committed to busting this union we.
Hold on sidebar al Gritch. She was my professor.
Yeah, I talked to her today. Wait, she's just part of the management team. No no, no, there's okay, so this is part of it's just.
Like a different thing. Okay, sorry, sorry, this.
Is okay, No, no, no, this is this is where like us being a not for profit bookstore but not actually like having any legal standing as a not for profit gets a little confusing, and like Finn, you can probably speak more to how this has come up in the bargaining meeting. But when we I don't know if this was around before the cooperative was dissolved and shared are
basically like worthless at that point. But there is a board of directors, one of whom like is very very famous and at least among the folks I know, for effectively union investing employees at Experimental Station on sixty first in Blackstone when they try to unionize right. And also there are so many like Hyde Park progressives like RJP,
like I Adam Gettachuw eve Ewing as well. And these are people I really respect, but like because there's like this four cabinet, I think of folks who are have been in and out of bargaining meetings when we've had employees at other lead for unions who do have a connection to like for example, Robert Peters. It does very clear that like this governing board which does govern, they
have terms, but we're also a retail outfit. You know, usually like a not for profit, the board of a not for profit would be helping with like an annual fundraising campaign. It's unclear entirely what the board does in a retail outfit other than, at least in my experience, like giving advice, writing emails to try to bust this union, you know, before we unionized, albeit I had a very short tenure before we had unionized. None of these people,
none of their names matter to me. But because like there's so much confusion about is management going to be representing folks in the bargaining meeting or is it going
to be a board member representative. I've been just who is accountable to disclose what financial information and when or just any information and when, Like, yeah, Adam Adam Yettuchu is not one of our one of our bosses, but like there is just a lot of confusion that I feel about what the board is responsible for in bargaining and with the manage and what management feels they're responsible for.
And I can clear up a little bit of that because what we were told when we first unionized and when the management team was kind of shifting and reorganizing itself around to the board was the board is there primarily to advise and supervise and hire the executive director for the stores. And so there is a financial contribution, Like they're all significant donors. That's part of the way that they secure their seats is making a large donation
to the stores. But then, at least according to them, from that point forward, they have no managerial oversight over the operations of the store whatsoever. It is not their responsibility. They don't make any decisions about the budget, they don't get involved, they don't want to be involved. And they were embarrassed by having this attitude when previous management went off the rails and nearly drove the store into the
ground by buying stock on credit cards. What but then it's the whole thing that we do not have into But that's.
This is bonkers.
Yeah, oh yeah.
That is to say that somehow that experience did not act as a wake up call for this board of directors and they said, what we will do is hire the next way man we can find and take our hands back off the wheel.
Jesus Christ, is this an institution that people like it would be helpful to put pressure.
On or that's what It's hard to say because there's this and I think I talked about it the last time we were on the podcast, But there's this responsibility carousel between management who in a bargaining session. Because the other thing is because we can't tell how involved the board is, because they tell us that they're not involved at all, and then they make decisions and we hear
about the decisions that they're making. We have asked repeatedly that they be involved in bargaining and that they send someone to represent them, or they like participate and have an opinion on the way that the stores are run, and they have repeatedly refused those invitations, requests, demands, et cetera.
Yeah, it seems.
Their involvement has been to recommend that our management hired Jenny Golds to be their lawyer.
And that is about as much as they want to do.
Jesus Christ like two things too.
And I think there was supposed to be a board member president at the next bargaining meeting, but because our meeting was contingent on having the full financial information that we requested literally a month ago. And when we requested that information, the next day a board member, the president of the board said, Okay, we'll get this to you.
We got it.
I think you might know more about the timing of this fit like at the last possible minute.
We got at the day before the meeting. Oh god, yeah, and it was half of what we asked for.
Yeah, And then we said this is not what we requested and we cannot meet because we said we couldn't meet without this full information. They were like, we're disappointed that you can't do that, and we were like, yeah, shocking.
Yeah, we are back.
Let's get more formally into like what the marketing process has looked like. It sounds like it's been extremely chaotic. They've been not running over information. It's deeply unclear who he's making decisions which all seem and like I say, this is my professional opinion, not good a technical anout life assessment. Yeah, this is why they pay me the mediocre bucks.
Well, I think you were just so well informed, yes, journalistic insight.
Yeah.
So the way that we set.
It up on our end when we entered into negotiations was we had a core team of three people who were going to be our core bargaining unit who would attend every meeting, and then we had a small team of like three more people including myself, that were like alternates in case something that scheduled on one day that one of the core team couldn't be there, and we made sure that we would always schedule one person who was not aotiating to be at the meeting and take notes,
so that like none of the people who were negotiating you had to do that at.
The same time.
And when we first started negotiating, the management team was sending Dan Meyer, the interim director, and Nan Kanno, who's our deputy director, who is basically the one person on the management team who is not she's not supposed to be a direct supervisor. She has not actually let go of the people that she was supervising, but she's like in that middle space between like supervising management and like
director management. But she has since stepped down from negotiations because of the way that she's been involved in the rest of store operations. She was like, I can't come to the table anymore. And so the latest meeting that has been rescheduled is going to be with Kevin Bendle, who's the new executive director. And then one other name that I forget who is either a board members as thinks or I'm not sure, well she would be, but it is.
It is a board member. I think it is Tira Goldstein. Is her name Tia Goldsten?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Every so often in negotiating sessions, Dan or Nai would make some reference to like a financial decision that we were trying to bargain about, being like not their choice and being something that would be up to the board, and we'd be like, so take it to the board, and then we'd be like okay, and then we would never hear anything about it ever.
Again, incredible, incredible work. Seems like a great tactic to never address anything you're supposed to be addressing.
And so the way that we were negotiating, we were trying to come to terms on things that didn't affect the finances of the store first so that we could land some easy wins and like feel like we were making progress and then address the stuff that we expected to be thorny or later.
But then what that ended up.
Being as meetings went on and on was them asking us constantly like, but what is it that you guys really are like prioritizing, Like what is the thing that matters the most to you that like you have the least give on And we're like, it's wages. You know, it's wages.
It's been waites this whole time.
And they're like, but like, what if we were like asking you to give up all your benefits to get wa It's just.
That you want.
And we were like, Okay, that's not how negotiating works. And then, in an email that labeled it their best and final offer, which is language that they have yet to take back, they sent us a version of the contract bargaining agreement that we hey, let me just back
up for a second. When we first started negotiating, they asked us to draft the entire first draft of the collective Bargaining Agreement ourselves, what which is incredible well standard, and we were like, that's fine because that gives us a leg up in terms of like studying the initial terms.
I guess we'll do it.
But like, yeah, incredibly nonstandards, super stupid, not that we should have had to do.
Yeah, I've never heard of that before.
But so when we drafted it, we drafted a three year term collective Bargaining Agreement with a bunch of stuff about procedure and wages and benefits that we wanted done. And so zooming back forward to that best and final offer, suddenly the draft that they've sent us back of the Collective Bargaining Agreement is.
A two year term.
And up to this point, all of the offers that had gotten anything close to our ask on wages were in year three, and everything in year one and two was still like twenty five cents fifty cents increases. And so suddenly year three, which was always the only year that made any improvements for us, is gone, and you did not improve any other parts of the contract to make up for that unilateral decision.
So that's just progressive bargaining yeah, it is. It is, which by the way, okay, do you want to explain to our dear listeners what regressive bargaining is and why you're not allowed to do it?
Yeah.
Regressive bargaining is a dirty negotiation tactic where one side, without making any sort of give and take concessions like they should to balance a big move, just unilaterally decides to change a term, especially a large term like wages, contract term, et cetera. And so it is taking something that has been tentatively agreed upon and like in good faith taken as a part of the contract that will stand, and acting it.
Yeah, and you are not allowed to do this. This is this is under the under the terms, under the terms of the National Labor Relations Act, which you know, who knows. But by the time this episode goes out, there is a small chance it won't exist anymore. A bunch of provisions of it are under attacked right now.
But like that is, we have a few unfair labor practices filed with the NLRB since the terms of negotiation have been in effect, and they are not in fact progressive bargaining charges but issues of status quo where they're trying to change the way that they do scheduling, change the way that they do like absence discipline.
Which are topics that are covered in.
Bargaining and should only be changed in bargaining while bargaining is active. But they're trying to change them and then say that these have been the policies all along, and so.
God literally gaslighting. Yeah, like actual, actual, straight up. You could pick up the gap the psychologue the psychology textbook plight to it, like.
Oh yeah, just pick up that whole lamp and we have their words in writing of every step of the way where you can see the language change and be like, no, you are the person who said before that it was
this other thing that was you. Yeah, So we filed unfair labor practice about those things, and you can in fact not track them anymore because since the government shut down, you can find a little pdf that explains, yep, that all ulps are going to be pending indefinitely, and that is all you can find.
Yeah, and it's also fun because Trump I legally fired one of the Democratic people on it. So you don't have a korum any on the board of the National Relations Boys. They don't have a korum anymore, which is a shit show and snaking any NLRB like attempt to get anything done to the NLRB really annoying.
Yeah, yeah, I think the direct action has been helpful, where like just that reality would just they just it would drive me crazy.
And it is.
It is gaslighting. This is traumatizing. If your boyfriend does it to you, it's a red flag. But when your boss does it to you, you know, it's like, yeah, the public's fine with it. Business, Yeah, it's acrost the business. Yeah, it is just the continuous, non stop onslaught of regressive bargaining tactics that like from the minute we started, despite the fact that like I was sitting next to the director when we said reunionizing, it was like a split
second before she said, yep, we recognize it. And so our direct action at the workstoppage. I remember our first work stop and he sat for half an hour. Management was very cool with that. The second time we did it, we did it for an hour. We should have done our homework better because we didn't know that you can't, like like leaf live it on store property because he us Chicago is our landlord and kind of like not
store property. But I put on my clerical collar. I put on a T shirt that had like given to Caesar, what is Caesar's and also like a little footnote.
About you know, run me my money.
You know there's a lot obvious instruction from Jesus out of Luke that's like pay the work or their wages. But I was wearing my clerical car. I set up the PA and I and I was loud. There was a Hyde Park Harold reporter who you know took my comment who I remember him walking over to Nien and I I think asking her for her comment. I had a bluetooth speaker that was Dan's right playing never never fight a man with a perm by idols and I
will not forget. I will not forget the way our the deputy director approached me, She was like, Okay, this is fine, this is all fine. I just want to let you know this is fine, but can you please turn the music off. And it took me about twenty minutes to just turn the buttons down slowly, But like that we were reprimanded.
Yeah, we got a very very email the next day left illustrating what the consequences would be if we tried to do a similar action again.
In that manner, and so we picketed outside their store. That was the next direct action that we did. But like I do think our most impactful direct actions have been the ones that have been noisy, that have been incredibly visible. When we picketed last it was on the first day of classes. We sell like a lot of core core course books for the college at the university, and so there were students. It's like that we were like, hey, do you have the bookseller who sold you that book
to have a living wage? And students like nineteen year olds are so outraged by the amount of money I make as a grown person.
I heard so much eat the rich that day from sillennials Kell Yeah, hell yeah.
But it is clear that when the public is made aware of what's happening at a store that a lot of people love just so much, like it is a part of the community, and I think so much a part of people's even like my own before I work there. Our experience of being in this fight knit bizarre community and folks.
Are upset like they and I think rightfully so.
And that's just I think, really the beauty of direct action is not just that it empowers us, but it really just like in a sort of spectacle way, says this is what this is what they're doing. You want a place that you love to run this way and to treat people like this.
So and I think they're really effective for that reason, especially because people are really like on our side when they talk to us, but they're also really surprised because like, part of the instant recognition thing, part of the being cool with us having union buttons on the register, part of all of that is the fact that management is benefiting from the illusion that they're on good terms with us.
And so like one of the reasons that we held that picket was to be like, hey, just because they are not stopping us, does not mean they have done anything to improve the material conditions that we have been organizing around this whole time.
Yeah.
Well, and also to be incredibly clear about this, like it's so obvious it has to actually directly be stated, which is that all of the things they are doing our union busting tactics, because their strategy here is to do a recognition and then go for the second place where unions most commonly collapse, which is once you're recognized as as a bargaining The second place they fail is getting the first contract and that that's what they're really
obvious trying to do. And yeah, the fact that people don't understand that they're just running a thing that like I'm trying to think of how to even describe it. Was like like that bookstore was like like it was treated as like something that was as an institution that
was like part of the university. That's like the way it was like treated culturally was this is like our thing, and these people are running it into the ground because they don't want to pay their workers like enough money to survive.
It's is just hideous and that's really all it comes down too when you look at what the facts on the ground are is the decisions that they are making are directly tied to the fact that they feel like they have no money, which is directly to the fact that they are paying the executive director too much, which is directly died to the fact that they want to have an excuse to not pay us anything.
Yeah, yeah, it's like, oh, wow, we don't have enough money because we're spending like one hundred and sixty thousand dollars on an executive director. Have you considered you can simply eliminate the entire expense by turning this into an actual co op. You could do it in like one day, and you suddenly would not have the administration expenses because those people wouldn't it be there. You could do this really easily.
Oh well, And as the like movement in and out of that position over the past year demonstrates, it has no effect on the operations the bookstore.
The thing that has any.
Effect on the operations of the bookstore is the fact that seven people have left, not been replaced, and all of their work has been redistributed across like increasingly siloed positions to the people who are left, so that you have no help on your particular assigned task that is now your seniors alone, and you just feel terrible in your little hole by yourself, which which there's is something like.
I know for a fact that like multiple people on that board know what a speed up is, Like that's that's a speed up. I know for a fact that you know what this.
Is, and most of them who know what it is have written against them.
Yeah, just kind of like expanding a bit larger.
The staff at the Museum of Science and Industry has also unionized and they were outside of their store, you know, threatening to strike, and so like I loved on the picket line, like I had a sign that said fire Jenny, and I went to explain.
To the U.
Yeah, I want to explain to the UI employee who Jenny was. The UI employee who worked at the Graduate Students United at Chicago, and she went, oh, I know who Jenny is, and that's I don't know, just yeah, it's sick that like somebody can make their living making my life worse than a's that's capitalism.
And also be like she has been involved that lawyer and like a number of like she busting trying.
To bust unions at U Chicago unsuccessfully and also representing Northwestern in a case where one of their employees accused them of sexual harassment and discrimination. You know.
So it's like you're you're really.
This, this is this is the person that you're working with. This is the tool that you're using, you know, is it too you would rather pay?
Yeah?
Yeah yeah. And it's also it's like that that that's the thing where this this whole metaphor of like the boss acting as an abusive partner is suddenly getting very literal in terms of who they're who are the people that they are employing do for their other ship, which is defending those people. Yeah, yeah, it's it's it's it's almost like there's a structural connection between management and patriarchy. Wow, who could possibly who could possibly have done this?
Between systems of abuse?
Yeah, like who could possibly have written about this? Check's notes? Looks at the books that were written by the members of the board.
Yeah, like, yeah, I'm so.
Mad about this, Like we'll niking after Empire is really good?
It is?
Yeah, And I like, I don't know how much I can like hold those individual members responsible and it seems like so many of them are like.
Just now finding out about it. Yeah, that's some abuse.
One O One is to make sure that the person that you are exploiting, that you were, you know, taking advantage of that they don't feel like they can say to people who could help them, this is what's happening to me, and that like the people who would be sympathetic, could you know, go and take the initiative to help folks? And ungrateful that we have a meeting with Robert Peters
coming up soon. It was supposed to happen that has not yet, and I appreciate how dedicated he is and his staff is to making sure that our union sits down and talks with him.
But it is also like there's a deep irony for him accepting an award from another union and rescheduling a meeting with.
Ourskay do it?
No, no, no, no, no, it's because we have Jacob. I always say it incorrectly asked me. Yeah, the BigInt. But that's also like part of the other great community support.
Like I mentioned that UE employee, but you know, there are other union employees who just because they love the bookstore so much, we'll.
Show up to every outreach to that that we have.
He was one of the first people to have a yard sign, and it's funny he was right next to this guy from my church who also has a window sign, and that's why I found out they were neighbors.
Yeah, that's really cute.
But like, I'm proud that we're Wobbles because there is a really long tradition of you know, being in Chicago, a lot of radical organizing that I think fits our spirit and also like the seminary co op spirit. It has been hard that we don't have a lot of resources towards bargaining, but like we're good at direct action and we also have I'll give it the ask Me award.
I'll give it a pass because Jacob's been so and other community members have been so helpful and just giving their time and their skills and their expertise.
So yeah, yeah, the MSI Union, the Grad Students' Union in particular, have been incredible allies to us and have been they were huge like presences on our picket because like, because we did an open store running picket, we have had only about half of our actual union members available because everyone else had to be on desks in the
stores keeping them running. And so the majority of the people who were like collecting signatures to get Jenny Goltz fired and otherwise improve our wardening conditions were people from other unions who were just out there being wonderful, awesome, solid orgy with us.
Yeah.
So my first picket line, I mean, I think I made it last EPs, but my first picket line ever was the grad student picket line in twenty nineteen. Those those are the first time I was ever on a picket and it rocks.
Yeah, and yeah, it.
Makes it really happy to see that the whole base of sort of union organizing from that has like you know, it's it's this thing that like I remember when this was, like you know, like I was there and like one of the big pushes and everyone they finally won, and it's like they're still around helping people because workers, workers fucking fight together and.
Well and then they'll always be like, hey, one thing that we know about Jenny GOLs is she likes to lose, and.
We're like, thanks, thank you.
Then it's not that she likes to use the quotea is she's very good at losing, which that's true.
Even better, even better.
Yeah, And like what you were saying about Gsu, I don't remember what I think Like two thousand and eight, two thousand and seven was like when they said we starting organizing for unionizing the graduate students. I had a roommate who was like a twelve year PhD student who was around when that shit started. You can just count hanging out with your wife in Australia as a field research, I guess, But well, she's just doing postdocs. You're just hanging out. But we had a baby yesterday anyway.
Oh but yeah, like I was around.
He came back to finish his PhD, like about the time like when the contract was ratified, and I just with what is it, sixteen seventeen months of bargaining no contract in the name of my blessed Lord Jesus Christ.
Like Jesus Christ.
GSU has had, like has such a wealth of knowledge because they've been through just like heaps of bullshit and it's years.
It's like, okay, I would I will like the fucking GSU think they had a whole thing when I was there, like in like twenty nineteen, the whole the whole thing was that And like Jennuay, this is like one of the most admirable things I've ever seen a union do, which was they refused to take their their case because the university was refusing to recognize them, and they they refuse to take their case to the NLRB because they knew that if they did it, there was there was
a pretty good chance that the old Trump nl RB was going to like bust every single graduate school union in the country. So instead of trying to win for themselves, they fucking didn't do it and just like fought on packet lines instead, and it fucking rocked. It was like that there. They rock, They're they're great, Like, yeah, yeah, shout out, shoutouts, shout out to GSU.
Yeah, shout out to Gsu.
Well, and they are a great, great, great example to us all in terms of like how to persist on a fight through attrition, because one of the things that like you try so hard as a management team to do is just wait until ever and gets tired and leaves, and like it seems like Grand Students would be the perfect population just just wait out because they rotate out constantly.
But like just the way that they have managed to maintain energy through generations and generations of organizers and get it over the line at Long Lives is so encouraging.
Yeah, there's a thing I remember from I think the last place I read into it was like one of Mike Duncan's things about the French Revolution.
Like one of the things he talked about was like the ways in which part of what caused the French Revolution was that like they spent a whole bunch of time teaching all of these kids these like incredibly radical enlightenment ideas and then they were like, wait, we live in like the most absolute monarchy that has ever existed. What the fuck?
Wait we hate this? Yeah yeah, yeah.
Like wait, hold on, And it's like there is obviously always sort of contradictions between like the number of people I have seen write books about labor resistance and then like go bust unions is pretty large. But there's a reason why everyone from like Pinochet through like the Trump administration,
I mean back through like the original Nazis. It's like one of the first places and you know, I mean like the Greek riot place had this thing where it was like the first place you go when there's discontent is like you must stop the workers from from allying with the students.
You must do this.
When you're fucked.
Yeah, but the workers and the students love each other.
They're all kissing. Yeah, and we're the same person sometimes, you know.
Yeah, yep, yep, yep, all my comments that kiss on the forehead, yes, ah yeah.
And I think like that is I think like the positive element of all of this is like the way that one campaign winning can transform the lives of everyone else around you is so astonishing. And I've seen it happen in so many places where like one shop wins and suddenly everyone else is like it could be us it could be us.
Yes, it's possible. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, and I think that we're trying to capitalize on that and trying to make sure that we can be the next person to like capitalize on GSU's win and
help ms I do the same. But like, as much as we have really suffered from the at the table bargaining new ohating process and been really sort of beaten down in the past year on that battleground, I think we have learned so much about the the allies that surround us and the people who like want to do more than just email our board members, and we're like, we don't know what else you can do because we don't know who makes these decisions for you to yell at.
But we have so many people who have like signed up for an email list with us, so many people who are like ready to go as soon as we figure out.
What we need them to do.
Yeah, And that's been really encouraging and bolstering. While management continues to like just not acknowledge us when they feel too cornered, like they simply never spoke of the picket because it happened outside and so they couldn't be mad about it, so they didn't have to tell us all about it, but they also just didn't speak of it.
Yeah, this is Chicago is a motherfucking union town.
And that's what.
Yeah, I'll admit I'm angry when I go into work. They don't care enough to get the mold and the dust remediated, you know, and the DUTs and I can't really breathe when I go into work. And I also don't have health insurance right, Oh my god. Well I do have health insurance, but I have to pay for like you know, I have to pay for my own premiums through a marketplace there. Yeah, and that's that's not
really affordable. And like, as frustrated as I am like coming into work, it is it's the people, you know. And I think that's for a lot of folks who have stayed at the bookstore. I don't know how much you relate to this then, like it has been like other booksellers, the folks that we've gotten to know through the community, who like who do make a difference at least for me and whether or not I stay.
Oh, absolutely, Yeah, this is a good fight.
The union crew that we have is a incredibly worthwhile team to be on. It is a group of people that I feel very solid standing shoulder to shoulder with. I think that is, like, without question, one of the things that like keeps the stores a place that you can work, even if it's not a good place to work right now.
Yeah.
Yeah, And honestly, I think that would have sustained me a lot longer if you were different, you know.
Yeah, yeah for sure. Wait, okay, sorry, poole back to the part where you can't breathe because there's I feel like because there's bolts. I feel like you just dropped that very quickly. It was like, oh, yeah, that's like a normal part of the work.
What the fought Well, so for a very long time you've been allowed to request that you only work at the co op because there is a known mode problem at fifty seventh Street that they can't afford to or can't get the landlord to ameliorate. But there is also, at least in our lung experience, some sort of growth issue in the venting at the seminary.
Come up, Yeah, it's it's very dusty at beast.
And like I when I wear like a like a kN ninety five for a little bit, like that helps a little.
I take like five.
Bena drill usually and then that Jesus, that kind of that kind of helps. And that's more just I think, like I mean not more. That is in part like my own health. But if I had the resources too, yeah, be able to take care of my health and get what I need, maybe I could withstand the mold and the dust and the ducks a little bit easier.
But like that well, but also like like as an employer, it is your responsibility to not have your workplace poison your employees, Like I'm sorry, like that part yeah, yeah, yeah, that also make them pay for the medical care to treat medical problems that they're having because you'd poison them with mold. Like what that's yeah what Jesus christn it's so evil.
Well, And we had a couple of pauses in our first draft of the Collective Bardaining Agreement that included demands regarding mold remediation at fifty seventh Street, and I do believe th clauses have been struck in subsequent round.
Yeah, I mean, I guess that's the thing that you could ask people to do, which is go ask people to complain about the fucking mold like it seems like a thing you could do.
Yeah, it's my another direct action. I also noticed, like people in the store, like they cough when they enter. Yeah, you know, and like, oh god, this is where the like the snake eats its own tail. The wheel turns inside the fucking wheel, right, because like maybe, like if I'm giving them good faith benefit of the doubt, management would have if they weren't overloaded with so many tasks that they have to take on, you know, sort of
more supervisory management. If y'all didn't have to do all these tasks, maybe you would have time to If there are more people hired in the bargaining unit, perhaps you could yourself have more time to improve the conditions for the store, not just for your workers, but also for the people who enter the stores.
But because you.
Will hire new workers until there's a contract, you are just so overworked and you can't And it's just like this, this turns until the boss decides that it doesn't, and it's like this, this is their responsibility to to bargain in good faith and to treat their workers correctly, Like this is an active decision that they could make that they are not making.
So yeah, I gotta say that that might be the single wildest thing I've ever heard, like an hour into an interview, is Oh, yeah, they're poisoning guys.
The mold, just the mold.
It's just also prove that this is the craziest place to work, because like that doesn't even land on our radar anymore because we've been just like banging our head against walls for a year.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, I keep going back to the abusive relationship metaphor, but like that is one of the big things about the best of relationships is that because of the information control and because of the way that your world gets condensed down into a really really tiny, narrow set of experiences where you're isolated and you're only interacting with like one person who was controlling everything about your life, it becomes really difficult to see things that
are very, very obviously wrong the moment you step out of it. Yeah, and you know, I don't know, maybe it turns out having apps hierarchical relationship control is an extremely bad way to run literally anything, especially the thing that your livelihood depends on that you do most of your time.
Just the thought wow, well, and it also just like means that you are too busy to actually interface in any meaningful way with your workers. Like, yeah, if I tell you that it took me two thirds of the day to schedule a fifteen minute conversation with any of four managers who were on site to quit, I would not be lying.
Jesus Christ.
They can't even.
Take your resig, bitch.
They at one point tried to reschedule that conversation which I was attempting to have on Friday to Monday, and I was like, I think you want to know this.
Yeah, it's like managers, you too are getting you too are getting strewed over by by understaffing.
Oh my god, I do think that's starting to take a toll too on management, which is a little encouraging.
They're losing it. Yeah, they are not feeling well and because like for me, I don't know, I'm not going to trust a boss, like I just stated, for three months in the nineteen ninety seven UAW strike like that's oh, bosses are canceled. Yeah, you know I know how that ended.
But I remember one of the supervisors who who I've had one point in her like her previous career had been on a picket line for a very long time had been on strike, and she like immediately took one of our little sabocat reed pins put it on her backpack, and is otherwise like, as far as I can tell, generally supportive of the union, but also, man, lady, I wish you would make a stink.
Because here's the thing. I think she only talks to us. I feel like the other managers do not speak to her. I yeah, am I crazy?
Yeah?
I could just talk about that for a very long time, and I don't think we have the time.
So yeah, before we get into what can people do to help? Is there anything else that you want to make sure that you get to.
I think the big thing that we should emphasize too is as much as we are complaining and frustrated about the process, we know that this is not impass and that we are so sure that like there is still negotiating to be done, there is still conversation to be had, and that like we have been emphasizing that at every opportunity to management as we have to. But like, just because we are tired and frustrated means nothing in terms of us giving up, because this is a fight that is going to continue.
Yeah, yeah, and like to that point, then we're doing this because we love the stores. Like the stores were a really important place for me, just putting down roots in the neighborhood. And I think when you love something a lot like you got to be brave enough to wrestle with it. And that our unionizing is the right thing. It is a thing that will like hopefully create anvironment where the people who make that bookstore run, who sell the books. In the long run, it will make the
institution healthier, I really do believe. And just that we've been talking about like this metaphor as the boss of like as an abusive partner. I think for so many folks when they are whether it's something like domestic violence, or it's in a union campaign, or you're speaking out against you know, your neighbors being abducted and shot and killed in the street, there is such an expectation that I have to sit by and be quiet while this happens.
And part of that, I think, what does prevent and at least in my experience as someone who survived you know, particular kinds of violence that yeah, I wasn't sure I was doing the right thing, but us unionizing is absolutely the right thing. It is the right thing for the stores. It is the right thing for the community and for
the workers. And I just as much as I'm frustrated, like I know myself and my fellow booksellers are doing this out of love, Like it is absolutely love for the stores in the community we serve.
So yeah, we're never going to feel bad for continuing to fight for what is the right.
Thing to do. Yeah, I'm too broke to feel bad.
Yeah.
Don't be poisoned by bold every time you go to the BOOKSTERO support the union.
Yeah, wear your mask at seminary co op.
Yeah, take a stab a cap pin.
Yeah.
Ask to talk to a manager, make it a long talk.
Yeah, honestly, see if you can get one on the floor, we'll help you.
Yeah.
So how can people help support y'all? And do you have places where people can find more information about the campaign and follow updates?
We have a change dot org petition that I think if you can link it somewhere in the description.
Yep, Yeah, we will link in description.
Yeah.
So that that does ask folks to sign off and support the termination of Jenny Goltz, their union busting lawyer, as well as releasing like the full state of financial information too, so there's a change dot work. But you can also follow us on Instagram. At some Booksellers union, we've got the little icon, but the sabocat signed the petition.
There are also some action items on some of the posts, such as emailing the board and management about the release of financial information and also the termination of Jenny Goltz's employment. You can also emailed those emails on that post about the mold too, if you want me to breathe at work.
Yeah, I'm so glad about this. This is I am going to lead the description with you. They are poisoning you because like, I'm so angry about this.
Thank you, I'm too tired to be angry about it.
I'm so glad at this woman's French perspective has remembered that the mold is totally bogus, because I had forgotten.
It's crazy. Yeah, it's so bogus. It's also like it's in.
Such plain sight, like if you're in fifty seven Street Books and you look to the right of the air conditioning unit and room one you see that shit growing on the walls, and it's like, but I also feel like if I talk to management, which I tried about this.
It just is about a priority. My breathing not a priority. Yeah, it is wild. Thank you for reminding me.
That someone one day, when you win, someone's going to write a paper by necropolitics in this or something like good lord.
Jeez, yeah some shit. Yeah, sign the petition, follow us on Instagram, help us make our ruckus.
And come talk to us and our managers at the bookstore because we love to talk to people while.
We saw them books. Yeah. Yeah, it'll take any good will we can get so very much.
So hell yeah, well, thank you to both so much for coming on and just for doing this and I don't know, like a place that was really special to me when I was Yeah, when I was there for a long time.
Thanks for your health. Thank you for following up with us.
Of course, it's really nice to have this platform every so often.
Yeah for sure.
Oh yeah, well hopefully we will have you back on when you fucking win.
And yes, very round.
I'm buying I'm personally buying the cool Zone media team around at Jimmy's. When we win our contract.
I will come back to park just for the celebration.
Change everyone's oil while you're down.
To yeah, yeah, yeah, No, don't take that long.
I won't be ready for a second.
Yeah, this has been It could happen here, and you too can resist both your abuser and your boss even wouldn't have the same person and you should.
Hey man, get them.
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