Ask a Union Organizer: How do we cope with feelings from our boss about unionizing?
How can we deal with emotional reactions from our boss when trying to unionize in a small workplace? We are in the early stages of unionizing and anticipate that there will be Feelings. What resources or trainings can we share to help them understand that unionizing might benefit the organization? -- Not Management’s Therapist
Dear Not Management’s Therapist,
Congrats on starting the process of unionization! You’re very smart to anticipate Big Feelings from your boss about your organizing campaign.
It’s important to keep a calm center under pressure, embarrassment, and emotional conflict. Don’t get distracted by all this conflict because your employer will be looking for ANY opportunity to bring down the hammer on workers trying to organize.
Remember, it’s not about you. Once the unionizing process has started, don’t take anything that happens personally. It is in an employer's best interest to show how “lazy and entitled” you are. Don’t give them fodder. Show up on time. Try not to call off unnecessarily. As hard as it might be, now is the time to put your best work on display. own unintentional failings in order to be good advocates and changemakers each day. Most of us wake up each day willing to unpack our own biases and privileges when we show up to do reproductive justice work. Most of us are grateful for these opportunities to grow, even if they’re uncomfortable as we find new ways to live our lives day-to-day. Pushing your leadership to do the same will be hard, but giving the finger to capitalism, patriarchy, and white supremacy never promised to be easy.
Interpersonal conflict can be especially hard to handle in our line of work. On busy clinic days, in those months we’re fighting to keep our doors open; we spend a lot of time together, even if it’s mostly virtual now. We spend a lot of time learning to love one another. And it is always hard to set a boundary with a loved one. It is even harder to see your supervisor or mentor react poorly to your new personal boundaries.
Feelings of fragility are hard to witness. It should not become your job to hold space for your boss, but it is our opportunity to educate them on their blind spots and hold them accountable. Because this is their opportunity to grow.
Unions are a critical component to achieving reproductive justice, but even Ross & Solinger omits workers’ organizations as a vehicle to achieving our right to parent, our right to not have children, and our right to raise our children in a safe and healthy environment.
To be honest with you, we don’t really know how this will go. What you’re doing is new to unions, who usually ignore issues of sex and gender; and fringe theory in reproductive justice, of which our movements have a dismal number of unionized workers.
In other health care settings, we see lots of evidence on how breaking down hierarchies helps patients access higher quality care. Nonprofit Employees Union is writing a fresh script to organize for better conditions at non-profits.
We don’t know yet how much more TRAP and abortion-access legislation we can control once we harness the massive power, influence, and resources of the AFL-CIO to achieve our goals for reproductive justice-- but my guess is: a lot more.
Your bargaining unit is going to be part of a brand-new book; a new theory that will really discover ways to break down the power differentials between “us” and “them” in a workplace where these hierarchies are antithetical to our missions.
Your organizing committee is authoring a new way of showing up at work -- one that encourages critical analysis, a high quality of patient care, and creative problem-solving through an environment of psychological safety.
As you begin this historic journey, do a lot of investigating into who the actual decision makers are at your organization. Follow the money. It might not be who you expect. Remind the leaders at small organizations that unions handle things like management of health insurance policies and retirement funds, which can take a huge chunk of work off of their desk.
Discover external stakeholders (like donors and foundations) and figure out what's important to them.
If your union hasn’t offered researchers who can do some of this heavy lifting for you, then you should demand it. You deserve that support. This is what dues are for. This is the movement.
If you can, explore ways your executive director is getting screwed over by the corporate structure, their boss above them, or as a struggling affiliate -- it honestly shouldn’t be very hard to win over your direct supervisors and immediate leadership if you’re one arm of a larger organization.
It’s technically a risky alliance, but if there’s a small staff it’s likely there is already a strong sense of comradery between the workers and the boss. Don’t let it spoil. Your executive director can be a great spokesperson for your union cause because at the end of the day, you’re not really fighting your executive director for a few extra pennies in your paycheck.
By unionizing, you’re fighting the system of capitalism that devalues your labor due to the nature of your work, which includes your ED. You’re telling capitalism that here, we do things differently because we are creating the future we want to see. Here, it is safe for us to take back our power.
Check out these resources:
“Inequality for All” is a documentary now available on Netflix featuring President Clinton’s labor secretary, Robert Reich
This steelworkers training video has a lot of good messaging in it! (also good for a laugh)