Also media, welcome to take it up. And here a podcast that is I don't know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna. I'm gonna speak for the rest of my hosts who aren't here so they can't stop me and say that this is a podcast normally opposed to brunch. I'm your host, Miya Wong, And today we are talking about something that we kind of haven't been covered, we haven't covered as much as I think we should have, which is unionization in small businesses. We've talked a lot about unization and
sort of larger things. We've talked about sort of mid mid sized chains. But today we're talking about the unionization of a place called Friday Egg I'm in Love in Portland's which it's it's if if if you sort of imagine the platonic ideal of what do you think a place called Friday Egg I'm in Love is going to be like it is in fact that And with me to talk about this is Soul and Janey from the Friday Egg Workers Union. Yeah, both of you, welcome to the show.
Thank you so much.
Yeah, thanks for having us.
Yeah, I'm excited to talk about this partially, you know, I mean as you've sort of discussed a little bit because I want to get into a bit later the specific dynamics of sort of small business union stuff. But first things first, I wanted to sort of talk about what, actually, you know, how did you all decide to unionize, because I think this is a bit different story than the kind of thing we usually get on this show.
Absolutely well, I've been at this particular restaurant since twenty nineteen and it's been something that's come up every now and then. I think we're just a very queer workplace. We're a very leftist workplace, and we tend to have a lot of common ideals. And I feel like what makes our unionization effort unique or maybe not unique, but just different than a lot of like we need to start a union right now all kind of efforts is
there wasn't a thing that caused it. We were all like me and five other people were just sitting around a table and decided, Hey, we should just start a union, and so we kind of looked into what that looks like and the snowball started rolling downhill.
Yeah, and this is something I think is really interesting because you know, I mean, one of one of the things you get really commonly in sort of like anti union propaganda. You see this, like I so a lot of my family were engineers, right, and engineers do this all the time where they're like, oh, we don't need a union. We're like happy, we're well paid, everything's great.
And then you know, you look at you, you look at what happens to them, and it's like, oh, well now you have boeing Right, It's like, well, you you will, you will, you all never organized, you no longer have any power in your planes are like falling from the sky.
So yeah, this this is a I'm gonna I'm taking this, taking my soapbox moment to be like you two out there, even if your job is good, at some point it's going to not be and you should unionize first before they i don't know, like be google and decide that I don't be evil. Actually constrains them from making money and decide to be evil, So get get out ahead of them before.
I couldn't agree.
More absolutely, this has felt very, very proactive. I haven't been there nearly nearly as long as some of my comrades, but the general like consensus is that like things are pretty good. So instead of letting things go bad. Let's let's make you know, major steps to protect what we have, especially as like you kind of notice how this small business is slowly, slowly starting to operate like not a small business mm hm.
And we had a one of our food carts was upgraded to a brick and mortar at the beginning of this year, and pretty much that in that moment that that started operating as a real restaurant, it things really clearly I think started setting in that like that this is a bigger operation than it used to be, and they very like the owner very much still has the intention of making it as good of a place to
work as he can, which is to be appreciated. But it's also understandable that as things start to grow, it's a lot better if it's a collaborative process in terms of making it the best place to work that it can be. And I think getting a seat at the table is something that we have to make for ourselves, but it doesn't necessarily have to be a threat or a retaliation.
This is something I think is kind of important with unionizing, especially places that are kind of you know, like or you know, we're even where the sort of the boss is legitimately trying to like do the right thing, which like it's kind of true of like my work, right, like you know, like the people above my bosses are kind of a fiasco, but like my immediate like bosses are like you know, it's Robert and Sophie, right, Like
they're pretty chill. But you know, like like one of the dynamics that sets in is like, you know, it's not what the actual conditions are, isn't necessarily always going to be under their control, even if you know, like even if they want to do the right thing, and the demands of things like scale and you know, the demands of sort of market competition have this sort of disciplining effect on what, you know, like what what your working conditions can be if you're going to sort of
compete with like I don't know, you're you're like doughnut shop that like torches is union workers, right.
You know for example, Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Pure purely abstract, purely abstract. Yeah, absolutely, you know, seeing a shop of you know, twelve become you know, two shops, a food car and a commissary kitchen of thirty five, that definitely, you know, it's just pushing the business in a direction very naturally. It feels very much like a part of how systems work, even if our even if your owner has really good intentions, just the nature of like how capitalism works is uh starts to change things as Yeah at scale for sure.
Yeah, And that that gets into something else that I'm.
Sort of interested in.
How the sort of unionizing process went. This is a very I mean, I guess going from twelve to thirty five is a big increase in the number of people, but that's still a very small shop. So can you talk a bit about what it's been like kind of organizing in you know, I mean organizing a number of people that you can very easily fit into a room.
It's been interesting and it's been exciting in that way because we are able to cram into a room and the energy is very palpable and so like inspiring momentum to get shit done in each other has been really really wonderful in that way. But I think also it's it makes it easy for us to be very tactical with how we are handling this process, where we're making sure that at all four locations there's a majority, if not unanimous, approval and support and membership in the union.
And the more that the more that I'm meeting union organizers and union reps and people from IWW, the more that I'm realizing we're in a situation where we can establish some really lovely precedent for similar workplaces who want to start a union, who are about the same size as us, or even like neighbors in our like on the on the streets that are locations are at where we can do things like there's not enough precedent in the IWW for a service industry in general, but particularly
it's it's very common to be in the negotiating process and one of the things that will be offered to the employer in exchange for whatever you're negotiating on is like a no strike clause, like okay, we'll just we'll give this to you of like we're just not gonna be able just to strike for the duration of our contract, and so exchange we can get some other stuff that
we're asking for. But because we have such a strong majority, and in all four locations we have a strong majority, I think we're currently planning on keeping the right to strike. Hell yeah, and you know we're not planning on it I hope that we don't ever have to do that, but just having that as precedent I think will help our community and other similar unions.
Yeah, absolutely, I think. You know, this is something that going back to if you look at the sort of heyday of American unionism, if you look at like the fifty sixty seventies, like those contracts didn't have no strike clauses in them. Some of them did, so sometimes it
was like a federal thing. But the thing about no strike clauses is that it makes you know, we've talked about this a bit before on the show, but one of the sort of issues when you have a union is like, okay, so even if you get a contract right, and that usually takes that takes a long time, takes a lot of fighting, the company is immediately going to start trying to violate the contract. And so you know, your your contract is only as strong as your ability
to enforce it. And you know, one of a really really good way to enforce it is by being able to go on strike. But normally, like yeah, people aren't organized enough to actually like fight their employers on it, and so it just ends up being a kind of standard part of contracts, and yeah, it's really exciting that y'all are committing to fight for that from the beginning, because it's it's it's hard, it's it's not an easy thing to do.
Now, the more I learn about how unions operate, the more I'm realizing that, you know, it doesn't necessarily stop people from getting fired, it doesn't necessarily stop people from having, you know, injustice happened upon them. But it just gives you the ability to fight in the first place. And I think a lot of employers who are facing a workplace who are wanting to unionize, like recognizing that it's
it's it's not like a threat. It's not like, Okay, we're uh, we're going to have this union and everyone's going to go on strike the next day and our business is going to tank. But it's they're just asking for the right to to have a better negotiating seat.
Yeah, this is something I actually think it's really interesting about this campaign where there's this really kind of I don't know, I think if you're able to build a precedent of being able to negotiate a contract that doesn't have no strike clause that allows you to go on strike, whatever, you know, whenever you want is something that is like characteristic of liking of you know, of a of an
incredibly militant shop. But I think if you can, if you can actually get the precedent of you know, having companies treat this as normal, because it's something that should be normal, right like this, this is how a lot of the US used to work, right it used to be you were on like an auto line assembly line, there'd be there be a guy in a back with a whistle and if and if you know, if a contract violation happened, or like you know, if if the company is asking you to do something that you aren't
you know that you're not like contractually obligated to do the person would you know, the union person would blow the whistle, immediate strike, the entire assembly line goes down, and you know, it turns out you actually can run a completely functional like economy like this. But the kind of the mentality of the people who own who own businesses right now is that you should never at any point, like you know, you should never at any point let
your workers do anything at all. You should immediately fight them at the moment they try to unionize. And I think you know, having a president of like you know, of of being able to get this kind of stuff without immediately having to launch, like you know, like immediate immediately kick off a series of strikes with your employer. Is is a good one? Is a good one to.
Set that we have so many people that are super interested in like being a part of this organizing effort because because we all like being there, like I think is huge in comparison to like lots of stories that we hear about and yeah, really wanting to like bring that to the restaurant industry because yeah, that's unions are you know, criminally under recognized within service work. Yeah, and arguably an industry that needs it the most.
Yep, yep. Well, and that's the other exciting thing about this shop is that you know, you're talking about sort of like they're not being enough service organizing with it
with the IWW. And that's true of like basically all unions because and especially shops at your scale, because you know, a lot of these unions are using like a very kind of crude cross cost benefit analysis and their their assessment is like, well, why should we bother to organize like this shop that has thirty five people at it because you know, this is it like we're like the amount of dews money we're going to get out of it is like not you know, is not is not
worth the effort. But on the other hand, you know, like do you know how many workers there are, like how many of these like how many of these tiny shops across the there are across the entire country that if you know, and if everyone just refuses to organize them, then you're leaving like tens of millions of workers just sort of like screwed.
Yeah. I can't speak for all IWW, but I know, like talking with like the Portland branch definitely mirrors our shop and at like how queer and leftist it is. And is that surprising that they're working with the IWW or with the Coalition of Independent Unions which is a
Pacific Northwest like union for unions kind of thing. It's not surprising that like our values are aligned and it's like making making for something like really fun and like you know, setting a new kind of industry standard for service industry.
Yeah. Unfortunately, speaking of industry standards, I have to go to an ad break. It's in my contract somewhere probably, although I don't think my employers have read my contract in a long time. But you know, such are the dictates of a podcast that that your senior bosses don't listen to. Yeah, we will return in however long the
ads are and we are back, So okay. Another thing that I kind of wanted to talk about is what has it sort of been like in terms of, like, you know, so like, how how has you know, in a shop that's like this small? How has the sort of like organizing conversations gone right, Like is everyone just sort of close enough that you know, you were able to kind of do this organically, or was there still sort of a like mapping process for all of the shops or.
Well, luckily it has gone pretty smoothly. But we were advised early on to create an interest map where we go through the list of every coworker that we have and talk about like how well do we know them? Do we think they would be down? Like, well, this person would obviously be down. This person, I guess we'll just have to talk to them and see and apart from a few cases, it has been very successful and easy so far. It's really lucky that almost all of our coworkers our comrades.
Yeah, I think like our first like conversation was I think about ten people at like a bar close to like the main Hawthorn shop, and like once we had like that get together. Yeah, it really became about, like, you know, how do we get our satellite locations, you know, on this on the same page, you know, with like a super majority at one shop, you know, then just moving on to you know our little you know, the Pioneer food cart and then our Commissary kitchen and then
the Mississippi location. That was just you know, hiring a whole new staff for and you know, getting them in you know, collecting them into the fold. And yeah, I ww was very helpful and like how to like kind of create those processes to like ensure that you know, we were approaching people in the right way. And yeah, it getting a proper headcount.
Yeah that can be a disaster. Yeah, oh god, Like my union, we're still trying to hash out whether some people are in the union or not, and like people will leave the company. Then this happens all the time, right, Like one of the things you discovered really quickly when you need a union organizing is that your like management doesn't actually know how anything works, or like even who's
working for them and what they do. They have absolutely no idea, and so you have to do their job and figure out what everyone does.
What management would be so mad at you for saying, you.
Know, look if they if they did, if they didn't want me to talk negatively about they should pay me more. They simply do not any of us enough. That's not
universal from time to time. Yeah, yeah, but I think that you know, what's what's interesting about the shop too, is it really seems like y'all just sort of speed ran doing a good campaign, Like you're doing all of the things that that you you you get a good organizers, but then you know, every once in a while you just get a shop where it just kind of everything just clicks and goes.
It has been five months start to finish, which I feel like is significantly faster than most.
Yeah, most of.
That is just down to that there aren't very many of us, and so talking to everyone hasn't been that crazy of an endeavor.
Yeah, but.
I think probably in the first meeting or two, we just crunch the numbers and realized, Okay, we're not going to have any trouble having a majority, but we have to, and so the focus of our work went into making sure we do it right and learning to inoculate people and talk to people we haven't talked to yet and people for whom it would be a little more sensitive or more in depth conversation, and educating ourselves on what
starting a union actually looks like. And IWW has been very helpful providing these little trainings that I've been able to go to. It's funny that they're on Sunday afternoons and so I'm pretty sure I'm the only person at our brunch restaurant who doesn't work Sunday afternoons, so I've been going to those.
But yeah, this has something been like I don't know, I feel like it should be a thing that so I was at this will I guess we'll have come
out after the Labor Nights episode that I'm doing. But something that I feel like I don't hear much discussion of in union organizing that I feel like there should be is like fighting management on scheduling and like trying to fight for you know, people actually A having consistent schedules and B not just having like I don't know, like I know a lot of people who find out their schedule on Facebook, like four hours before they have to go in, right, Like, that's insane, that is that
is that is not a way for industrial process to function. Right.
No, thankfully that has not been one of our issues at least at least not systemically at Fredick.
Yeah, but but it does make it hard to do intro organizational training. Is because it's like everyone has weird scheduling stuff going on, so it's it's hard to like, I don't know, I feel like it's it's underrated. Barrier to getting a lot of people from different unions to work together, is that no one is ever off at the same time.
That's real.
Yeah, absolutely, I know it's been weird. I think they're a huge aspect of our success I think is that we have been able to like I think the unique part about the breakfast place is that it's not open from you know, am to pm. It's not open from ten am to eleven pm, like like a restaurant could potentially be open. We are open for breakfast. We're done at two on the weekdays, and adding in a standing union meeting at four pm once a week was very
easy to add to everybody's schedule. I think. I think in the nature of the breakfast place lent to that working very very easily.
Yeah, and our coworkers that maybe need a little more persuasion that like, hey, no, don't worry this is this is really happening, and you can be a part of it, even if you know that their pro union. Kind of getting the ball rolling with people sometimes takes a meeting or two and being able to have the peer pressure of like, hey, we're going to a meeting right now.
I know you're not doing anything after this, and I'll give you a ride helps a lot because then they go to their meeting and they're like, wow, that was awesome. I never knew I could take control of my life in any way.
Yeah, that rules. There really is nothing like just being in a place with a bunch of people who all are trying to like actually do the thing, like you know. I mean, I think this is why. You know, like, as we're recording this, like a bunch of campus occupations are going right, and I mean, I don't know, God, hopefully by the time this comes out, they won't have all died horribly because this is getting recorded on what day, is it that April twenty eighth, so I and is
being released into like hell world. But yeah, you know, I mean, I think one of one of the aspects of of of those camps is that like you're just there with a bunch of people who you get to talk to and organize with. And it turns out that actually being there face to face with a bunch of people is just great. And that's that's the thing. That's
the thing. You can also like that you knows, as much as like union work can just can be work, right, it can be you sitting in front of a spreadsheet and going, oh my god, what does this person respond Like it's also I don't know, it's it's also like it could be really great and I don't know, you should, you dear listeners should experience it because it rules.
I couldn't recommend it more. Is the best feeling in the world, and Sol and I are addicted to it to feel like you're actually doing anything real Hell yeah, it's incredible.
That's yeah. Something we heard from i W or i w W friends is that like this, like, especially with how early in the process we are, like how exciting that is to like just get everybody, But everybody in a room and I feel like we're all working towards the same thing. Yeah, and that you do get addicted to it. And that's often where the union organizers came from, was like starting their own and they're like, oh, I need to keep doing this.
I think. I think that's a pretty good doe to end on, unless you do have anything else that you want to make sure we get you first.
Yeah, with like how early in the process we are after the comes out, like we will have like dropped our authorization cards and like actually started like the formal process. Like we're still pretty early on, but we already have a fundraiser setup with like a local beer bar. We're at Workers Sat. Hell yeah, and that's super exciting. And we're building our socials and uh probably have a go fundme for strike fundraiser. So yeah, early days, but very exciting, very purposeful days.
It's gonna be a big week.
Hell yeah. Yeah. Where can people go to find the union and go to support you all?
Well, our socials are not live yet, but all right, so yeah, this is this, this is has been recorded before things go live, we will we will have the links down there.
Yeah. Yeah, we I think we're settling on the tag the user name fried egg w U, which we are saying foo about because you know, you gotta you gotta, you gotta make you gotta make this fun. But yes, we will be. Yeah, we will be sharing that with you.
I'm glad you knew because I wasn't sure if if we had a handle agreed upon yet. Yeah, we find us on the socials Frida egg w.
U with it being early days and like us not even being public yet. I've built those accounts, but they're not like not ready to go. So there's that, like we're in this dead zone period where we're we've built the infrastructure for a proper you know, the proper election, even though we are very hopeful that our owner will recognize us with you know, the majority that we have, but yeah, we're our zero day is May Day, a couple of days from now, and we are very excited for that very much.
So oh yeah, hopefully it goes well. It will be in the past by time this comes out. But good luck to both of you, and thank you both so much for coming on.
Another pleasure belongs to us. We're both fans for having us on.
Yeah, and yeah, does this has been naked happen here. You too can go experience the joys of organizing your workplace. So go go do that or go to a student occupation, do both. I don't know. There's a lot going on. There are many places for you to experience the joy of organizing with other people, so go go do that. And yeah, you can find us in the usual places. I don't know. Sophie will probably be on it in about one second. This ad pivot not whatever. Listen. This
has got completely off the rails. I have not had enough sleepe no.
Sleep for organizing.
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