Cassie was forty-one years old, older than most any other partner she knew in the company. She was thankful to have a job with such good benefits. Sure, the pay hadn’t kept up with inflation, but she had the health insurance. There wasn’t a day went by she didn’t thank Mr. Rolands Sr., God rest his soul.
They had made a deal years ago, and he had kept his word. He was aces in her book. Aces. She wasn’t but sixteen when he called her into his office.
“Cassie McGonegal,” he said, offering her a chair. “I’ve been watching you, and I think you’re the kind of gal I’m looking for to help me out around here. See this email I got here in the mail from corporate,” he swiveled the screen to face her, its bright like causing her to squint.
Cassie sensed he was testing to see if she had been keeping up with the news. She seen the news articles on her feed, but many had been behind paywalls or subscriptions. It was $40 a year, but that $40 was the difference in making rent or eviction. She felt scared to death as she leaned closer to the screen, wondering if she could remember what the comments had said.
The top of the article said, “Starbucks’ New York Location becomes the 9th Store to Unionize.” Below that was a list of cities and states, and beside each one a date. She smiled. She knew about this from the articles- she had even seen this headline before.
“All of these locations have begun to form unions on account of one thing and one thing only. Agitators and socialists got in there and formed petitions to the National Labor Review Board. See, there, at the bottom? Several workers at the Memphis location were fired. They violated policy, but, well, we both know why.”
Cassie’s smile fell a bit. She wondered why he was telling her all this. “Would you like a chocolate?” he asked nicely, offering her a pick from the finest assortment she had ever seen.
She thanked him and helped herself, wishing she had time to wash the syrup and ground coffee from her hands.
“These unions are more or less like a branch of the democrats in the federal government, and I know how the good people of South Carolina feel about democrats, and I’m an independent. Right now- yes, have another chocolate- right now I can keep giving partners like you more hours. When we have higher transactions, I get more hours. When transactions are down, everyone’s hours get cut. It’s a formula we call “transactions per labour hour.” You seem like a bright girl to me. I bet you understand what I’m trying to explain, don’t you?”
Cassie understood just fine.
“But these unions would have the federal government telling me that I would have to raise minimum wage, no matter how many transactions we have. If that were to happen, well, labor becomes more expensive. Hours get cut. People can’t work enough hours to keep their insurance benefits. I can’t have as many people on the floor, everyone becomes stressed, and our transactions go down, cutting more hours. Would you like to make yourself a drink? You won’t need to mark it out.”
He was very cordial.
“No, thank you,” she answered. She didn’t want to make eye contact with the other baristas who were probably in the weeds right now because of this meeting. She didn’t want to make her drink in between them and just leave them without hands, on the floor, alone.
He turned to the computer and typed in a few words. Pulling up the Partner Portal. The inventory sheet was long. The order was going to be huge. “Our inventory is only this good because we have a lot of transactions,” he said, “and if we can keep up our store’s budget, we won’t run out of product between shipments and make all of our customer’s favorite drinks.” He got comfortable in his chair, sipping at the hazelnut latte. Hazelnut had run out again.
I know your family depends on the money we pay you. You’re not the only person here keeping helping her family make ends meet by putting in a few hours after school. My people had to work for a living, that’s right. I didn’t have a trust fund to fall back on. I pulled myself up by my bootstraps. Can you imagine what would happen, not just to your own family but the families of all the partners working here if hours got cut? If benefits were cut? Wouldn’t you like at least a coffee or something?
“No thank you, sir,” she repeated.
“There’s something else I need to tell you, and it’s not a subject we like to discuss, but I need to be honest with you,” he said, placing the drink back on the table and leaning forward. “If one of them unions were to get into this store, then all of the stores in the area would become unionized. We will have to close down some of our stores and have our partners transferred to different stores.” He sat back hard against his chair. “You wouldn’t want to break up our store’s family, would you?”
“No, sir,” she answered with alarms, “I-I wouldn’t.” She could only make it to work by walking. If this store closed, she would need to walk an extra half mile to the nearest store.
“I’ve been watching you. You’re not like the others. You’re very smart, I can see that. You keep to yourself but you work hard. I need your help, Cassie. Will you promise to come and tell me the name of any partner you hear talking about stopping work or walking out? If you tell me what’s wrong, and our partners are upset, I bet I can fix it. And if you ever- ever- hear talk of anyone creating or joining a union group chat, will you promise to come straight to me?”
Knowing so many families depended on her, and that the lease was going to be renewed next month and the rent increased, Cassie agreed without hesitation.
“You’re going to be a very important person to me. I’ll look out for you, too, I promise. Any time you give me the name of someone wanting to cause trouble by talking to start up a union or trying to get the partners stirred up, I’ll have given you a little more hours come time the new schedule comes out. I’m going to look out for you, and remember, we’re family here, alright?”
Cassie nodded her head. Family looked after family, right?
***
I chose to rewrite selection above because it was one that really hit home for me and is incredibly relevant to our modern era. Unions were 1794 in the United States, and ever since then, they have given bargaining power to the average worker to command their workspace. Without unions, we wouldn’t have our hour maximum, or weekends, or the pay raises many of us need to keep up with inflation today. Yet they’ve fallen out of vogue, due to mass propaganda, paywalls on articles that could better educate the populace, and a general stigma against them. We, as the rising generation, should better educate ourselves on what benefits a union could provide us and how we can, as a collective, use our power as laborers to influence our work environments. We should always be striving for better, not satisfied with what we have.