The votes have been cast - now it is time for them to be counted.
Welcome back to the oral history of Kickstarter’s Union. On Feb 18th, 2020, union organizers got up early, bundled up for the chilly morning, walked to our subway stops, and made our way to the local National Labor Relations Board office in downtown Brooklyn. This Tuesday was the day of the vote count. In just a few hours, after agents of the NLRB verify the election results, we would finally know if our union would be recognized. Over a year of organizing, late nights, and after many hard conversations, it all came down to this day. I stepped into a subway car and saw another organizer, Corey, at the other end. We shuffled through the car, meeting in the middle and rode the next few stops in nervous excitement. We both had this look on our faces... a look of anticipation and agonizing uncertainty. To many organizers it felt as if just 83 votes would determine whether or not tech was ready for unions… or... if this was all for nothing.
🎶
NLRB Office
One by one, Kickstarter workers arrive and we all gather outside the big glass doors of the local National Labor Relations Board office - the NLRB. It’s the same building where Taylor and I gave our affidavits and filed our complaints against Kickstarter. It’s in a complex where Google Maps gets confused, making it a tad hard to navigate, especially when you’re full of nerves.
I didn't really know how to get there. And it was a weird address that. I know that downtown Brooklyn is kind of confusing. The Google Maps directions didn't quite work and like we were both kind of frazzled. And by then, it was you know I had like six minutes to get there. And I thought, well, it's only a block in but it wasn't just a block and then I was farther and like the building addresses don't really coordinate with the street numbers and they don't go in the order you expect them to. I think there might even be odds of evens on the same side. And I was sort of like Kind of running in circles in this weird plaza full of like college students and like people in suits and like folks trying to get to like court. - Oriana
As more people make their way through the morning crowds to the front doors of the NLRB, we start to cheer every time we see another organizer arrive. Workers like Sarah who were forced out of the union drive bound up to the group. We’re a jumble of hugs, and smiles but all of us have that same look on our faces. That look of uncertainty…
🎶(tense drum)
None of us had experienced this process before. Our organizers at OPEIU had told us that the NLRB agents would count each and every vote out loud in front of the audience and we would be there to witness the final call of the election. At 10 am, Kate, our OPEIU organizer, directs us inside, shuffling organizers through the lobby to the front desk. We each sign in and peel off in groups to make our way up to the room where the votes will be counted.
And then, yeah, we rode up together and it was like just the most anonymous government building possible with like blank walls and like weird floors and flickering lights. It was very surreal. It also very much felt like a movie. - Oriana
We walk down this hallway. And we see this little piece of paper that says Kickstarter union vote and it's taped like slightly crooked it on the wall, you know. And we walk in and we're sitting in these pews that almost look like old church pews like really old room. There's no windows whatsoever. And we're all sitting there and waiting. And in the front of the room. All we see is this large brown box. - Sarah
And the box is sealed and there’s signatures on it and it's way less official looking that I thought it would look. It looked like a ballot box that a first grade class would make. It had like paper on in and marker or pen scribbles on it, it was a little absurd. - Robert
As organizers walk into the room, the ballot box is sitting at the front, behind a low wooden partition. Almost like a witness sitting quietly at the front of a courtroom, waiting to speak. Toy, a member of the union’s organizing committee is sitting behind the partition with another worker from Kickstarter. They were acting as observers again, like they had for the election at Kickstarter HQ a few weeks earlier, ready to verify that the ballot box seals with their signatures on them were unbroken. The first two small pews on the left were filled with Kickstarter’s legal team, a couple members of senior management, and PR team.
I just remember being like super awkward walking past them and being like yeah… - Janel
A couple rows back, was a stranger, someone that looked familiar but we couldn’t place. Later we realized it was Lauren Gurley from Vice, reporting on the day.
She was sitting next to me and she was documenting everything that was happening as it was happening. She seemed kinda excited for us too. - Corey
In the first row on the right, we see another surprising face. Sitting alone, was one of the most vocal anti union workers at Kickstarter. A worker who had once been considered the leader of the No Committee but who, in the last few months leading up to the vote, had been increasingly collaborative and open to the union. At this point, union organizers weren’t sure why she was there, to cheer on the union, or its demise.
There were only about two dozen people in this little courtroom but it was at capacity. After the pews filled up, workers pulled up spare office chairs.
The room was packed, which was so heartwarming. - Oriana
At 10:30am, two NLRB agents walk into the room and join the observers at the front. The room went silent. They tell all of us to turn off our phones. There was some nervous shifting but other than that there was just this pregnant silence as the NLRB officers started the process.
Theatrical Process
The two NLRB agents at the front of the room center the ballot box on the table in front of them. Janel, an organizer who had been active in the union drive from the beginning, is watching from one of the middle pews as Corey, one of her closest friends in the union got ready for the count to begin.
I was sitting next to Corey, and he had this little notebook out and he was ready to tally the votes. - Janel
One NLRB agent picks up a pair of scissors and slices through the tape sealing the ballot box. Cutting through the signatures of the two Kickstarter observers to reveal 83 ballots.
And they very dramatically like cut open the box, they dump out all the ballots, they show us the empty box. Like they hold it up. I'm like, you're on some fucking like TV show. And they're like, look, the box is empty. Um, uh, like there aren't any ballots stuck in the box. They don't say that. But like, that's what their body language is. - RV
It was the most agonizing display, they took out the box and slowly removed the tape and began to take the ballots out one by one. - Oriana
And they show the ballots to all of us and they hold like, hold up each individual ballot. And they like dramatically like show it to everyone in the room. - RV
And she would pull one out and unfold it and look at it and say, one for yes and then hold it up. Sort of presented to the room and then put it in a pile. - Oriana
And then someone marks a tally for that yes or no. And so they're just reading every ballot for that yes, or no. - Patrick
The way that they count it, it was like maximal tension. - Jannel
And so they’re just reading every ballot like yes, no. - Patrick
Yes . - Grace
Yes. - Patrick
No, Yes, No. - Grace
No. - Patrick
Yes. - Sarah
It's a, yes, it's a no, it's a yes. And they're like picking up these ballots one by one and just unfurling them. And it was so dramatic. - RV
And it would go back and forth. And Corey was squeezing my hand. And at a certain point… - Janel
String of Nos
At a certain point the yes votes completely stop. And all we hear is no, no, no, no, no.
Like five ballots in a row that they read were no and We were down like so the tally was like we're down by five. - Patrick
Then… the nos start to overtake the yes’s…. by a lot. We continue to hear no after no after no.
Every, every one of those felt like a blow to the head like a someone's like, oh no, like, it's, it was not a good feeling because… you're like immediately get imagine like all your coworkers faces like as as a no vote comes in, like, Oh, who's that. Who's that. Who's that… - Corey
I just started crying while it was happening. I felt it slip away and I was like, we’re on a razor’s edge. And my whole heart and body sank in that moment because I just felt like the rest of the calls were going to be no. - Kilian
I mean, it's so demoralizing you're like, oh man, like what it Was it was like, What have I done like what did we do. What could we have done better or what was. Was this the right decision that was definitely the biggest one was like, maybe we should have done. Because, like, right, the decision to to go for the vote is such a it's such a it's such a scary moment because obviously management's gonna fight this tooth and nail, right. You can't prepare anymore and so It was such a there's definitely moments of, like, maybe this Maybe we shouldn't have done the vote now. Maybe we should have done it a week later, or a week earlier or anything. - Tom
How can we come back from this. It's so scary. And they just keep reading more no votes and then you look at the numbers, and it's like 1020 or something and you're down by 10 and it's like, Oh my God, we might actually lose this. - Patrick
We were down by more than 10 because I was like, oh, I have to like keep track off my fingers. Good. I was counting on my fingers. So I was just like, Oh, shit. Me and Sarah like I like like squeezing her leg. I really hope we have because it would be like really just so hard if we didn't. - Amy
I remember like white knuckling someone's hand and I think it was either Sarah Amy Yeah, just like cutting off circulation to someone's hand. - Patrick
Win
Then… yes’s start to make a comeback.
It was just this movie moment of the swell of the strings in the back as the first Yes to come through in this string of Nos started to come in and… - Kilian
Towards the end result of a wave of like yeses and it was like it was, I can't words cannot describe all of those yeses coming in. - Corey
Organizers around the room start to lose track of the vote count.
Oh my god and the counting on my fingers, I was like did I did I lose count? And I started to look around me… - Kilian
Only a small number of us had brought pen and paper into this phone free zone. As the count continued, it was still neck and neck. Patrick, Sarah, and Amy were holding eachothers hands tight as each vote was said allowed. Oriana, sitting at the very back of the room, tried to keep up.
And I lost count. And I couldn't tell what was, what, and I was trying desperately from the back of the room. To count how many piles. There were in remember what was in each pile and I realized I was not going to be able to know and I was just going to have to wait because I could see everybody else in the room and I knew that other people were counting. And somebody was going to make it clear and then all of a sudden, somebody did. - Oriana
Corey turned to Janel and the organizers around him.
He did a tally and I saw him think for a second and then look up a little bit bright eyed. - Robert
His head snapped up and he started nodding and several other people around the room began to sniffle and all of a sudden I knew that we had won. - Oriana
The most beautiful moment my entire life is is Grace, who is sitting up and two rows ahead of me turned around to some of those like we did. And I was like, Why Am I so the votes keep happening but now there's this This, this, like this. The silent electricity that spreads throughout the whole room. - Tom
I remember looking over at Taylor, who is sitting in the very back row and I've sort of mouthed I was like, I think we have this and I just like wanted. I just like everyone like I just like cried. It was just like, oh my god. - Amy
I feel like so many people started crying and I was just like I cannot believe that we did this thing, at all. - Jannel
A year and a half of so much work, so much psychological drama, so much uncertainty, so much risk taking, so much camaraderie that I had never felt before. Really trusting these people with so much, all of that was distilled into this moment of winning in that room and the emotions were overwhelming. I just balled, I was just crying. - Robert
There was like this humbling sobering moment that just like fell over all of us where we all started to weep and rejoice, like we knew that we had it. - Sarah
It was just pure unadulterated joy and pure celebration of hard work and also validation. - AnonC
To have one beautiful thing go right… in a way that can’t be denied, in a way that can’t be argued away. It’s not subjecting, there’s an objectively real win for the good guys. That feels good. It feels like, well you, know, you see something like that happen and you think, ok, in some ways tomorrow can be better than today. I just kept thinking of like… it was almost like a vision projected that beyond this room of people, were thousands and thousands of other people sitting in similar rooms being told that they just won a union election… because of what was going on in that little windowless room in downtown Brooklyn where we were. I really felt that I was brushing up against something, much bigger than myself. - Taylor
🎶
Reactions
The final tally was 46 yes to 37 no. Kate, our organizer from OPEIU, turns around and shows us her notebook where she had written a projection of the vote count she made the day of the election a few weeks earlier. She was off by one. All of the energy management had put into having a secret ballot election governed by the NLRB, all the rhetoric promoting the idea that workers were being pressured into signing union cards and that, given privacy, they would vote no - all of that came crashing down. We knew our coworkers, and we knew they wanted a union.
We did not file for an election with the NLRB until we knew that we had the votes to win. - RV
The fact that there was so much good energy and the fact that people felt about it meant that we were going to win. - Grace
The vote was over, it was official, Kickstarter had a recognized union. All the organizers lept from our seats.
And when it finished we all jumped up and started hugging each other sort of willy nilly without even noticing who we were hugging. Until they had to kick us out of the room. And they sort of ushered us down the hallway in this ball of emotion. It was one of the most intense hours of my entire life. - Oriana
And that one surprising face? The worker who had started out as one of the most vocal anti union organizers at Kickstarter but, in the last few months had been increasingly collaborative and helped organizer approach management with the Neutrality Agreement? She was right there with everyone else. She had voted yes for the union.
Organizers flow out into the hallway and fill the elevators. As one car fills up and the elevator doors close, a chorus of Solidarity Forever starts to burst from the elevator as the little car slowly makes it down to the first floor.
DadadadadaaaaaDa - Toy
To have one beautiful thing go right, in a way that can’t be denied, in a way that can’t be argued away, it’s not subjective. There’s an objectively real win for the good guys. That feels good. You know it feels like, alright well you know you see something like that happen and you think ok, in some ways tomorrow could be better than today. I just kept think of just like, it was almost like a vision projected, that beyond this room of people were thousands and thousands of other people sitting in similar rooms being told that they’d just won a union election because of what was going on in that little windowless room in downtown Brooklyn where we were. And I really felt like I was brushing up against something much bigger than myself. Taylor
Yeah, we brought my first car that went down. I was crammed in it with like Taylor and I think grace was in there and I just started singing solidarity forever. And we were all singing it is the elevator went down. If it's like One of those are really sweet moments felt really good. - Patrick
Once organizers get down to the lobby and can access phones again, Corey slacks everyone else in the union to announce the win. Past organizers start to hear the news:
It was amazing. It's absolutely amazing. I cried. I like I cried. Uncontrollably for like a long time. When I found out, and I just felt so much pride and joy or the people that had seen it through. - Brian
Grace and Kate from OPEIU gather up organizers in the lobby for a group photo and then we all spill out onto the street.
Everybody who are normally not smokers asked me for a cigarette and we all They're smoking together and It just sort of like disbelief. That it has finally happened. - Oriana
I think that was part of what I was there's I never up until that point. I've never understood the like mimetic thing that goes around where people smoke a cigarette after sex like That's like, that's one of the things where I was just like, I don't get it. I just don't. I've never understood that. And after seeing that yesterday and feeling the relief of that, yes, but I was like… do I want a cigarette? - Dannel
It was really fun! It was really fun. I remember directly afterwards everyone was outside. People were yelling, people were having a cigarette, people were like dancing outside of the courthouse. And it just felt really good to be all together and everyone kept saying funny things about like how they work in a union shop and they were like, oh I’m a union man now. It was really cool. - Anon C quote
Press
As organizers stand outside the NLRB still hugging and celebrating, Lauren Gurley from Vice starts asking organizers how they feel, what this means, what’s next. Organizers are tweeting and texting and fielding calls from family and friends who’d been cheering them on.
All my friends were like texting me because they'd seen like people were texting me before I could text them because it seemed like stuff on Twitter. - Toy
There was a huge avalanche of press coverage. I mean, we did something really historic we did that, we were part of that and, you know, kind of the world knew and that was incredibly, incredibly exciting. - Oriana
HQ
Some of the former organizers, me, Taylor, RV, go with our OPEIU organizers, Grace and Kate to a bar around the corner to celebrate. And… it was about 11am… We cheersed over shots and spent the next hour pouring over article after article about the union victory, fielding requests from journalists, and just soaking up the day. And the rest of the bargaining unit, a freshly minted, recognized union, bop down the street to the G train, hugging each other and calling loved ones with the good news.
Walking back to the office was just a fun time like we were singing, we all took the subway together. I think we did our best to like keep composed in the office but like you know we were happy. - AnonC quote
Back at HQ, management had planned a kind of pizza party for staff to gather and ask questions. And even after all of this, after telling staff that a union isn’t right for Kickstarter, after firing 30% of our organizing committee in a week, after running a disinformation campaign to discredit organizers, after all of this, management continued to imply they had been supportive all along.
They tried to say that because the company did not voluntary voluntarily recognized, but instead allowed a fair and democratic vote to happen that a union was formed, sure sure bud. We were unflappable like there was no way in which they could say you did not do this because we collectively did this thing. And they can try to take credit for it for as much as they did, which they very weakly tried to. There was nothing he could have said, I think that was part of it. Like there's nothing you could have said that would have changed the situation because we had fucking won our union. - Dannel
Organizers look around the room at one another elated. But the office still had the palpable divide of a narrow election. Slowly organizers start to reach out to their coworkers on the other side… to the people who had voted no and were far from celebrating the outcome of the vote count.
You have to work with the folks you disagree with and I found it quite difficult to get my head around finding balance with a person who I had a diametric opposing view with and where I thought their view was harming their coworkers. I remember walking over to someone sort of after Aziz has said his piece or whatever and was just like hey, how are you doing? There was this sort of - really it was the wrong side won. That was the feeling, that was the like it actually fuking happened. I hate this. You know that’s the, that’s the, maybe that’s not how he felt but I just got the impression that it was like I am so worried about what’s going to happen next. And I hate that this is the position I’m in at this place. Because this person had dependents. And, you know, I think he was worried about what was going to happen. And part of me was like, I think it’s only going to get better for you and the folks that rely on you, I really do. But there was that really primal fear in him and I was so I felt on the one hand so bad that this was a fear he was living with… someone going through elation because of a vote going one way there is the opposite feeling and it’s like a weird sense but I could understand this idea that like you could have a vote go a certain way and have a bunch of people being very excited about it but you are really not fucking happy and like this is a disaster, I see the end of times coming. I understood that that’s a way some people could feel. And at the same time, I was just looking at the facts in front of me saying, this is protection for what you have. It’s more rules, it’s more guarantees. It’s not less regulation, it’s not less of the protections that you can have. You know, these things can be taken away from you and we have seen how they can be taken away from you in our time working here. And I just couldn’t see it from the other perspective. I couldn’t see how it could be damaging. - Kilian
Threes Party
Workers started filtering out of the kitchen after management’s pizza gathering and head back to their desks. Only a few more hours, and they would be walking around the corner together to a preplanned party at Threes, a brewery down the street.
Whether we won or lost we were gonna go there. We had rented out the back room. - AnonC
Just a few more hours and they could really celebrate. But then, slack starts lighting up. Organizers are DMing each other about a new issue that’s starting to spread through the company. Workers who had been vocally against the union during the drive were getting vocal again, but this time, it was about feeling excluded from the celebratory gathering happening in just a few hours.
Word got out that there was going to be a celebration and that “the no’s weren’t invited” or whatever. And we started dealing immediately with the entitlement to be included in a celebration about a thing that they had been fighting the whole time. And using it as an example of how we weren’t being inclusive and this was just foreshadowing about how all the rest of this was going to go. Kilian quote
Suddenly, there was a new fire for organizers to put out. It’s true, the celebration had only been shared on the union slack. Organizers saw it as another moment where overt celebration could potentially enflame resentment, so they chose not to send a note to the entire company announcing the victory party. As soon as this accusation of exclusion from the party started to spread, organizers got to work on damage control. Organizers send slacks, texts, emails, as quickly as possible, making it clear that the celebration later that night was open to all workers. It was important to start mending the divide as soon as possible and a new issue like this, as small as it was, felt like a pivotal moment in the work of repairing the rift management had created. The union’s OPEIU organizers had stated all through the drive, especially in times of high stress and tension between pro and anti union workers, they had stated that all of this tension would subside shortly after the union was recognized. In their experience, because the tension is largely fueled by pressure from management to vote no, once the union becomes recognized, working relationships usually go back to normal. And, with a little effort, organizers could accelerate this mending process and build a stronger union as they prepare to negotiate a contract. How organizers handled this upset would set the tone for the union’s next chapter.
I just reached out to someone and basically said, Hey, of course, anyone can come to this. This is a celebration for the whole company but we didn’t publicise it outwardly too much because we felt like it might be perceived as gloating. And we really didn’t want anyone to feel like we were rubbing it in that our preferred result had happened. - Kilian
It’s hard to say if the outreach from organizers did much to assuage the anger and resentment expressed from vocally anti union coworkers.
It just felt like they were looking for anybody to trip up and pounce on it. And I felt very frustrated that that was starting the day of but it ended up being indicative of how it ended up going for a while. - Kilian
Soon, the sun was setting in Greenpoint and it was time to head over to the celebratory gathering. As workers pack up for the night, organizers meet in small groups at the front door and walk together down the street to Threes, a local brewery.
And Threes, oh my god they were so sweet, they had the back room for us and they printed out special Kickstarter United menus for us. - Robert
They printed out special menus with Kickstarter United with our logo on it and a headline that said congratulations Kickstarter United and no one asked them to do that. We talked to them about it and they were like oh ya we’ve been following and we heard that you guys won and we had printed these already. And it was just so cool. I tried to keep one throughout the night. I think Toy might have it. Someone has it. We kept one of them somewhere. -AnonC
And everyone was just celebrating. RV brought everyone yellow roses. - Robert
RV walked around the small brick room in the back of Threes handing out yellow roses. Many organizers took these home and still have them today. The room was filled with Kickstarter workers holding drinks, hugging, and leaning across tables to show photos or videos they’d taken on the street outside the NLRB. Many of us would periodically sneak a look at twitter or skim through a new article that dropped later in the day. We talked about moments in the campaign when we thought this could never happen, that we’d never get to this moment. We talked about how our families and friends had reacted to the news. We congratulated each other and occasionally stepped out into the crisp night air for a smoke or a breather. After we’d had our fill of drinks at Threes, in a hazy fog of comradery, we made our way to a karaoke bar. Song after song was belted out by workers in a state of euphoria. All of the angst and thrill and elation of the campaign was flowing straight into mics.
… Fuck you I wont do what you tell me… No time for losers cause we are the champions of the world...
The karaoke machine shut down. They just like cut it off because it was closing time. And we were about to sing I want it that way by Backstreet Boys. Or maybe the song had started a little bit and then it just cut off. But then we just continued acapella for like the whole song. No backing track, nothing we just kept going and we got all the way through. So many people were singing along. And that was a magical moment because, I don’t know, there were just a dozen of us belting out this song together like without any guardrails like there wasn’t anything to hide behind. We were just like, just our voices, out there, with each other… Sorry I’m getting poetic now like this was like a little representation of what it was like to unionize, right. It’s like wait there was no plan, there was no guidance, I mean there was a little bit of guidance I guess but ya.. It was just a nice sum- it was a nice sum up of the vulnerability it takes to do this. You know, sometimes I think about if the other thing happened… how devastating that would be. And it’s so amazing that we saw it through and got to celebrate together. And that is so so special. Yeah, I will cherish that forever. Yeah. - Robert
Chorus of Kickstarter workers singing Backstreet Boys I Want It That Way
This entire celebration melted into a warm glow of relief and joy as we all took in what we built together.
🎶
First Meeting
Because many of us were new to the game, organizers at Kickstarter never really recognized a core truth about the unionization effort. All through the union drive, we swallowed management’s positioning of the union as a distant possibility and the general sentiment that, if enough workers voted no, Kickstarter would not have a union. What many of us didn’t realize at the time, was that we were a union all along. Just because the union was not yet recognized by the NLRB or by management, did not erase the fact that there was a group of more than two Kickstarter workers organizing to make the workplace better and to have a seat at the table, otherwise known as a union. Kickstarter had a tight election. Almost 45% of workers didn’t want to participate in a union. Almost 45% of the power that Kickstarter workers had was not behind the union on the day it was recognized. In a way, the union was operating at 55% capacity and, at the time, it looked like that might not be enough support to challenge management at the bargaining table. It might not be enough to win a meaningful contract. So organizers needed to mend the divide and rebuild trust with anti union workers as quickly and carefully as possible.
The day after the union vote count, while organizers recovered from a night well spent, slack messages, DMs, and emails started to pepper the union’s communication channels. Workers who had previously been anti union were clamoring to understand how they could get involved.
We got the ball rolling pretty quickly because we thought that’s what people wanted. You know like we won the union and we kinda felt like there was this sense of restlessness of like, Ok, when are the original organizers going to call us all together? So we did it really quickly, we did it in a matter of 2-3 weeks. Like really really quickly. Which I know sounds like a long time but it’s not because Kickstarter was in the middle of getting the vote ratified and who from OPEIU was going to be there in the bargaining unit meetings. There was a lot of stuff happening at play. So we felt this sense of urgency like ok we just need to get people in a room and explain to them how we’ve been working. - AnonC
At the next union meeting, organizers got to work on a plan for the first big union meeting with the entire bargaining unit.
We wanted to get everyone together and say, like, how do ya’ll want to do this? What new working groups should we make? What cadence do you all want to meet at? I think there was this misconception that Kickstarter United was going to come in and be like, this is how things are gonna go, but that’s not how unions work. - AnonC quote
They go over the plan for introducing the structures and processes organizers had been using for the union drive and talked through ways of emphasizing that all of these processes were up for debate.
Because you have to like rethink all the rules. We’ve been operating in a certain way for so long and no nothing can be taken for granted, kind of. - Janel
The union needed a period to rebuild with the participation of new highly active members. And the agenda organizers created for this first meeting was focused on facilitating this process. First, organizers tried to find a space that would feel relatively neutral to anti union coworkers. Kickstarter’s library, the same place where workers challenged management in the collective action for Always Punch Nazis, seemed like a good fit.
To me it felt natural to have it start where like it start its second chapter where it all began right and That would have been in the library. It felt poetic even, to start the second chapter of this in the library. - Dannel
Anti union workers had expressed in the past, especially for the open forum that took place a few months earlier, that they were more comfortable meeting in the office. And, even though there were some obvious drawbacks to having union meetings on company property, this space would have been very accessible for workers so organizers reached out to management to try and secure the space as soon as possible.
We tried so hard. Because the library isn't us after hours. You know, like And so the library wasn't used after hours. And so we asked We asked the company like, hey, can we use the library for Union meeting. It's the easiest place for people to get to, there's good internet there's like we can get AV equipment in there and stuff and they refuse um So we needed to scramble to get the Union meeting to happen at the nearby Unitarian Church. - Dannel
There was a church not too far from Kickstarter that opened its space to the community for gatherings. Organizers realize just how bare bones the room at the church would be and start to plan out how they can scrape together the equipment needed to allow remote employees to join the session.
One of my teammates. Brought an amp and a full AV set up on the subway with him that morning. - Dannel
The night of the meeting, organizers nervously walk into the church and start to set up. They look along the walls for outlets, figure out the wifi, and start moving tables and chairs. Other organizers trickle in and swiftly offer to lend a hand setting up.
Yeah, we literally brought our own tv and our own amplifiers and our own microphones and we were trying to set it up in this church. And like we were using this pew as a place to mount our agenda, which like… I hope that’s ok, I don’t know. - AnonC
This was a big night for everyone. Another moment to set the tone of what being part of a union could feel like for the anti union workers attending. Before long, the room started to fill up. About 50 people filled the pews of the church and a tense hushed murmur filled the space.
It was a rough meeting. I actually remember that meeting making me feel very personally discouraged. - AnonC
Everything was brand new and like a lot of people were there sort of voicing how they didn’t want to be a part of it and now here they were sort of being forced to be a part of it. - Janel
Ya, I think that’s so interesting that people showed up who were like hey this is exactly what I didn’t want to happen, I didn’t want to be forced to come to these meetings and now I have to because I’m part of the union. I think that’s such a funny perspective because they don’t feel like they have to go to all of HR’s meetings. You know? You know, because they trust HR to make decisions for them and it’s strange that they would feel that they had to be there to control the meetings or whatever - or to have a voice in the meetings where they were ok not having a voice before. - Clarissa
Yeah, I mean in some ways it like doesn’t make any sense and in some ways it makes all the sense in the world. Like I don’t remember people coming to this meeting who were softly on the fence. People who came were staunch supporters or like really against it before so it’s like ya if you don’t trust the group you’re gonna show up and make sure. But like I remember as hard and as frustrating as those conversations were I was like... then and as time went on... I was like well it’s hard but I’m grateful for these people who at least want to engage and have a conversation verses like you know, there are a lot of people who don’t feel like they have the time to engage or they don’t have enough of an interest and I was like, give me those people who disagree any day, as long as they’re willing to take part, you know? - Janel
Something interesting happened in this very first meeting of the entire bargaining unit. Workers who had been notably anti union demonstrated an intense desire to participate in their newly democratized workplace. Now that there was a mechanism for worker input, these workers were expressing the need to participate and shape the direction of the union.
So there was a lot of like, people would speak up and say, I don’t like how this is done. And there was a lot of like trying to redirect that to be like, but guess what, you get to decide how it gets done now. Join this working group [hehe]. - Janel
It was very clear in this first meeting that the process of building worker power and union solidarity was not over. In many respects it had just begun. Now the entire bargaining unit needed to learn, for the first time, how to collaborate when almost every agenda item was met with skepticism and resistance by a significant percentage of the collective.
Ok, we’re going to have one thing here where we can try out fist of five to show people how we do consensus based decision making. It’s not going to be that contentious. And it turned out to be like we couldn’t even come to an agreement on it. It was like lots of disagreement. - Janel
Every process and decision was under intense review. At one point, union organizers brought up the topic of including international workers in these union meetings. International workers are not legally part of the bargaining unit according to the NLRA. But they had been invited by organizers to join this kickoff meeting anyway. When organizers facilitated a vote about whether or not to continue to invite international workers to these union meetings, the conversation got heated, again.
There was one one vote in particular about like should we include international employees in these meetings right and I thought pretty emphatically yes because they're their workers there are co workers, they're going to be affected by whatever contract renegotiate, right. And I think the problem is that Anti union people the pro union an anti union, people tend to tend to view workplace with a sort of different tax on it, but with different taxonomy so I think that the the distinction of worker and manager was not as meaningful to them. So the idea that for for you can, you know, if we don't let man just hear them. We also shouldn't let international players here seem to make sense. And I found that very frustrating. - John
There was a huge hubbub about the fact that people who weren’t actually in the bargaining unit were attending this thing. And we had just assumed that we want this to be inclusive because this stuff affects their jobs. But there was a lot of discomfort with that happening to the point where one of the people from Vancouver was just like ok fine, and they just hung up on the call. Because there was a discussion about them while they were on the call. And it was so uncomfortable, or at least that’s how I perceived it, and they were just like, I’m out it seems like a bunch of you don’t want me here so I’m go’n. And it just it sucked. - Kilian
I agree with you. I feel like they should have been included in in those conversations and I, to this day, I regret not following up with some threads of people who wanted to like have access to our meeting notes and stuff like that. And those are people who are not in the bargaining unit but not management, you know, like not confidential employees. So, there was no reason for them not to have it but It was decided by the by the formal group of the bargaining unit that they wouldn't be there. And so I was trying to respect that. - Dannel
This tension grew as organizers worked through the agenda. And organizers started to feel the weight of the reality that they would be working closely with these vocally anti union coworkers.
The types of conversations that we were having it was just like very clear that there was this deficit of trust that had to be built up. And I just remember spending so much time in Slack trying to be like this go between to be like ok, yeah, that’s totally valid feelings but maybe we give people the benefit of the doubt. - Jannel
It's like it's like it's like when people are like, why do you wash the dishes. It's like, why didn't wash the dishes, because they were left on the thing. It's like, it's not about dishes. You're not arguing about dishes, clearly. - Tom
As the tension mounted, the agenda landed on the topic of bargaining a contract. Bargaining a contract was the next phase of the union’s work since winning recognition from the NLRB. Now that the union was certified by the NLRB, management had a legal obligation to negotiate with the union in good faith and eventually agree to a contract that would enumerate and preserve worker rights. OPEIU organizers stepped up to share what a typical timeline would look like.
Basically OPEIU wanted us to go to management and set dates to sit down at the bargaining table. And they brought that up in our first meeting. And I think that that scared a lot of people. Um, they explained why they like to do this right away. And like typically, you know, in their experience as labor organizers management tends to push those like first meetings at the table down the line. So they like to give them dates as soon as possible. And then sort of backtrack, like give them dates first and then we'll elect the court bargaining committee and things like that. Um, but I think because we had like so many, no votes in the room that just made people maybe feel like they were being pushed a little bit too quickly. And I don't think I realized that at the time, you know, I think like the original organizers again, like we were really just trying to like information share as much as possible, but I think what we failed to do was create a space just for people to chat, to like, chat about how they were feeling and like chat about what they wanted from a union and like, things like that. I think, um, yeah, I think, I think it would have been good for us in that initial meeting to maybe find a way to give some of the people that were more neutral or who had maybe voted no, like some space to just like join this collective and like kind of maybe maybe shift their perspective and like shift their involvement. I think that would have been better, but like, we were just trying to do our best of like give people as much as much information as we could in that, in that first meeting. - AnonC
As hard as this meeting was, and as daunting as the road ahead looked for organizers, this work of building solidarity and charting a path forward together was still powerful and continued to resonate with organizers, propelling them forward.
Thank fucking goodness for this space like even even everything else aside if it just having the space of the Union was was Was so fucking essential to like me as a human being. During all these times, to be able to to to to talk with everyone and and have this organized voice that could at times. Do things was like Man, like the power of that space is is is is is is is so great. But of course, in this beginning time. We're still figuring out what what that means right like now won that finally the union is everyone there's not two sides to this. It's everyone like if you care and you you clearly have an opinion and you have a voice and your concern. Then then be here and and voice your concern because now it's you. It's us. It's all of us. - Tom
🎶
Next in the oral history of Kickstarter’s union… the final chapter. Just as organizers prepare to mend the divide and start to plan for negotiation with management for a contract, something they never expected happens.
That was mid February, that was literally three weeks before the whole world shut down. - Toy
🎶
The Kickstarter Union Oral History is brought to you by the Engelberg Center on Innovation Law and Policy at NYU Law. It is released under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 4.0 International License. And the music was composed by Michael Simonelli over at the podcast production company Charts and Leisure.