Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

celebratedrecluse wrote

Reply to comment by !deleted1759 in Friday Free Talk by ThreadBot

That's true, but it sounds like you have already thought of a way to turn half of the workers against your bosses, even if you didn't realize it.

To clarify: perhaps you can seed the impression among some of the workers that the bosses are failing their "workplace mission" through incompetency. Once there is substantial conflict between middle management & the lower-ranked workers over this, it may be possible to generalize this resentment beyond the initial issue.

Of course, if you work in a high-turnover environment, this is exponentially more difficult. As an "evolutionary" mechanism, I find often that your sort of workplace (high worker loyalty to the mission of the company) is usually correlated with astronomical rates of turnover); although, there are exceptions to every generalization, and I do not know your particular situation.

Alternatively, another tack you can take is to discuss non-work related stuff with your co-workers, and build bonds of mutual solidarity on those bases. For example, find out what their hobbies are, their favorite hangouts, the media they like, the neighborhoods they live in. Get them to open up to you. When they do, they will also likely disclose problems of structural oppression they face: their landlord's rent, their abusive partner, maybe even the private concerns they hold about the workplace. But it's all about building trust, ultimately. If you can form a connection outside work, then you've won arguably the hardest battle of the entire unionization process.

2