Organizing Updates

Union organizing isn’t about signing cards — it’s about empowering people and changing lives.

The challenge of organizing new workers into unions is not that the workers themselves are not interested in gaining union representation. Over the past six months, more than 100 Starbucks stores have voted to unionize. The first Amazon warehouse voted “union, yes!”. Area Director for Organizing Jesse Juarez reports that he hears from techs at car dealerships on a weekly basis who want to be in a union.

No, the challenge is that employers do everything they can to delay votes,muck up who should be in the bargaining unit, intimidate workers from voting for the union, and appeal rulings of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Most importantly, once the workers have stood up to all of that and voted for the union, employers refuse to honor the wishes of their employees to bargain in good faith.

Employees resist bad management

Lock-N-Stitch, a Turlock-based machine shop that repairs cracked and damaged cast iron parts and products, has some unhappy employees who are looking for union representation. In early September, Business Reps Paul Abarca and Jeremy Celaya presented management with a demand letter informing the company that if they did not voluntarily recognize the union, the union would file for an election. When the boss responded by getting confrontational and threatening to call the cops, Abarca and Celaya knew that recognition would not be voluntary. They filed for an NLRB election, which is slated to by held on October 20. Abarca says that the shop is under new management. The previous owner, who invented the technology, retired and sold the company to Wartsila, a Finnish group, who kept on the former owner’s son and daughter to manage it. It’s currently a nine-person shop, but several employees have recently been fired or pushed to quit.

“What these employees want most is representation by a third party so that they will be treated fairly,” Abarca said. “The employees really like what they do, but are very unhappy with the management, which is why a strong majority signed union authorization cards.” Stay tuned.

Some bad news

After organizing Kearny Mesa Acura in 2021, the union moved quickly ahead to get a first contract, but the employer stalled, delayed, and undercut the process. In August, after most of the original union supporters left their positions, a new group of employees who weren’t part of the original organizing drive voted to decertify the union. “One of the newbies was affiliated with the National Right to Work Foundation,” says Juarez, who’s still debating whether to contest the election.

Union files charges in organizing drive

The IAM has filed an unfair labor practices charge against South Bay Volkswagen in San Diego. Eleven of the 17 mechanics at the dealership served the company with a demand letter seeking union recognition. Then they held a half-day strike over health and safety issues, but the company wouldn’t let them back in when they wanted to return to work. Once they did get back to work, the company started interrogating them to find the union supporters. If the labor board upholds the charges, under the recent “Cemex” ruling, they could order the company to go directly into bargaining.