I’m a member of a union that includes both office and field workers. It works well for all the big, common negotiations. We all want better wages, healthcare, retirement, hours, etc. But when it comes to working conditions, we have clear differences. The most recent example of “return to work” shines a light on this.
The field workers, understandably, don’t give a shit about “return to work”. Some even resent the office workers for having the ability to work from home. Meanwhile, some office workers will likely quit without the ability to work from home. My company has recently decided to completely remove the ability to work from home. In response, the union is completely split on how to react.
How should I approach the internal discussions? I’m hesitant to advocate for pushback because not everyone will benefit. On the other hand, no resistance at all feels like a concession of worker’s rights.
TLDR: Work from home taken away. Should a union pushback?
I think everyone understands why people want to work from home. And stressing all the benefits of WFH to field workers only seemed to further the resentment.
Office and field workers did sit down last month to discuss this. Tensions were high very quickly.
I’ve been thinking a better strategy is to explain we will lose workers because of this change. And if office staff is lost, the field will have less support. This makes everyone’s job harder. Solidarity is easier if we have a common interest.
Why do the field workers care? Sounds like some people are kicking up shit that only benefits the bosses. Could be some wreckers about, intentional or not. Be careful.
Your common interest is improved working conditions and better wages. Nobody joins a union so that everyone has to work as if they’re all the most exploited worker. It’s not about stripping everyone of their benefits so that everyone’s got the same. It’s about fighting for everyone to get benefits so that everyone is the same.
If the white collar workers accept the logic that they won’t fight for what they need because the tech staff can’t get the same benefit, they should also accept that everyone should be on the lowest salary because not everyone will benefit from higher salaries.
It sounds like people in the union are doing that thing that people outside of unions do, where they look at e.g. traindrivers on good wages and say, ‘how dare they strike for better pay and conditions when I’m not going to get a pay rise’. The obvious solution there is to join a fucking union and stop being a wet mop. But it’s easier to be outraged because the right wing press told you to. It’s annoying, but not entirely unexpected, when this happens inside a union.
Sounds like there’s a real opportunity to explore what solidarity means within your union. This may require the white collar workers taking a stance in solidarity for something that benefits the blue collar workers but not them.
What are the wage differences like? If the tech staff start on lower wages, can you all demand the abolition of the lowest spine points on the pay scale at the same time as demanding WFH? The higher paid blue collar workers might not like this.
Your union is going to have to work through people’s assumptions about why workers should have to earn decent conditions as opposed to just being entitled to them. Your union will have to face the contradiction within the gap between bourgeois and revolutionary consciousness.
If it’s the other way round and the tech staff get paid more, then the problem is related to that segment of the workers not understanding solidarity. Maybe they see the white collar workers as unnecessary or already getting paid too much for doing a cushy job.
I think I assumed at first that the blue collar workers were getting in the way of the white collar workers but this seems problematic. Do the blue collar workers think the white collar workers are getting in they way of what they want? This contradiction needs to be resolved.
It’ll take time to build but it sounds like your union/branch needs to build it’s internal solidarity and work out why anyone is resentful of others for getting the benefits associated with doing different work.
Part of this (a rather slimy solution, I think) is to outline the personal benefits that everyone gets when others get a benefit. For example, if those who can WFH do so, parking will be easier and there may be an argument for lowering the cost of parking because there will be less demand. Or you could also campaign for travel subsidies or free food/drink for those who have to go in—this will be more affordable if it’s only for half the workforce.
I think the first thing to do is a fact finding exercise. Find out what they each want. Rank these things to make a priority list. Work out which ones can be achieved at the same time. Find out why people are resentful (on both sides). Institute solidarity sessions where you find common ground and have an education program to help people see that the enemy is not other workers but the bosses.
The bosses claimed “field workers have been calling people who WFH and have not been getting responses”. I believe this is blown out of proportion but its the biggest wedge we are dealing with.
I think part of the misunderstanding here is what kind of person a rural labor union attracts. The field workers fit the stereotype of a truck driving, Trump voting, thin blue flag bumper sticker, bootstraps believing kind of guy. They don’t join a union because they believe in workers solidarity, mostly. They join a union because they are hard workers who want to earn more. They believe the should earn more because of their hard work. So when someone can WFH, it goes against what they believe, at a core level.
Sporadic. Office is made up of people who make less and more. Field is more standard pay in the middle but with more OT opportunities. The compromise here is a mix of wage negotiations being percentage based and flat increase based.
I think the blue collar guys are hard workers who want to work with other hard workers. They respect the office workers who you can see putting the effort in, but not when you cannot see it. They do NOT want to support someone lazy getting something they don’t deserve. The assumption is WFH = lazy.
HOLY SHIT this actually brings up a very good compromise. The office has a cafeteria that served lunches for everyone but stopped when covid started. When WFH was removed, they never reintroduced the lunches. I think we can request the lunches get brought back. Its actually fucking dumb this wasn’t offered immediately as an incentive from management.
The more I try to explain the situation the less likely I think I can convince others that WFH is a good thing. So let’s reintroduce some of the benefits of being in the office.
I was brought up with the blue collar attitude that you describe. It’s hard to shake. Pointing out two contradictions might help (you are facing an uphill struggle, but unions don’t build themselves and are regularly unbuilt by our enemies, so we’ve got to try something).
First, if the blue collar teams don’t like it when they can’t get hold of the white collar teams, it suggests the white collar teams are doing important work without which the blue collar teams can’t do their job. If that’s the case, work on shifting the narrative away from hard work to effective work. Get the white collar workers to instigate a conversation with the blue collar workers: ‘How can we make your job easier, with fewer hiccups?’
In relation to this, don’t let the bosses tell one segment of workers that the others are lazy. As Assata Shakur says, we can’t let our enemies tell us who our enemies are. (Note that I’m attributing this to Shakur because it’s a line in her autobiography but I listened to it in another language so there’s a chance that she was saying that someone else was telling her not to do this.)
Second, I’m assuming you’re on the white collar side, idk why, but if that’s true you or the others can’t come off as condescending. One thing we hated was being told by people (assumed to be ‘educated’) who ‘knew how everything worked in theory but couldn’t figure things out on site’. This will take humility from both sides, but there’s no reason why the white collar side can start that off. The task, subtly, softly, subtly, is to explain that if the blue collar workers ‘who do all the hard work’ want a pay rise through collective bargaining, they need as many workers in hand as possible.
It does sound like you have some wreckers trying to undermine the union. Depending on the industry, there’s a chance that they will have received training in how to undermine collective action. One way to start combating this is to start a discussion whereby people are asking, ‘How do we make this work?’ If they arrive at the only correct answer themselves, you’ll be halfway there.
Good luck with the demand for food!
PS another thing to point out if you want to secure WFH, is that the company is paying for heating, lighting, office space, etc, and that could be used towards a pay rise or subsidised food. (Later on you can argue that if you’re working from home, the company should be paying your home office bills but that’s an up hill struggle in torrential rain.)
Thank you for the insight! It’s helpful thinking through my own logic and seeing some responses to it.
Btw you’re assumptions are correct. I used to be an iron worker but I’ve gotten my degree and work as an engineer now.
That could be a strong argument. You could also mention how long it takes for new workers to get used to their job, which further makes it harder for the others to do theirs.