{"id":7485,"date":"2022-09-01T00:10:17","date_gmt":"2022-09-01T04:10:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tempestmag.org\/v01_2020\/staging\/?p=7485"},"modified":"2022-09-09T14:25:33","modified_gmt":"2022-09-09T18:25:33","slug":"introducing-trader-joes-united","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/2022\/09\/introducing-trader-joes-united\/","title":{"rendered":"Introducing Trader Joe\u2019s United"},"content":{"rendered":"

W<\/span>e need to begin by acknowledging the land we\u2019re on, which belongs first, last and always to the Dakota, Anishinaabe and other indiginous peoples who lived and continue to live here since time immemorial.<\/p>\n

We are here today to introduce our brand new union, Trader Joe\u2019s United to all of you. We\u2019ve decided to take this enormous step together as employees because we deserve better pay, benefits, and working conditions. We believe a union will help us achieve all those things, and we also know our voices matter. We know because we\u2019re really good at talking. All day long at our store, which is just a block away on Washington Ave., we talk to each other, and the customers who shop there. We learn from each other and offer small kindnesses, and ultimately, we build community. We all know that our coworker Iman, who is currently in the air on her way to Somaliland to visit her family, will give us a hug every time she sees us. We know that our coworker Michelle\u2019s daughter is really into Animal Crossing right now, and that in addition to being in the middle of getting his PhD in Public Health, our coworker Ronnie is also a really dutiful grandson. We also know which residents of the apartments upstairs will wander down in pajamas and Crocs to tell us about what\u2019s going on in their lives.<\/p>\n

\"Graphic
Graphic<\/a> for Trader Joe\u2019s United.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Since we started organizing, early this spring, we\u2019ve had a million and one conversations with each other and you, our community, about what we need to do in order to improve our workplace. We\u2019ve talked to Jonny from the National Association of Letter Carriers and Jess from the United Food and Commercial Workers, Dan from the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers, and Kathy from the Minnesota Nurses Association, among countless others. We\u2019ve had conversations in coffee shops, backyards, and living rooms, outside of the store on nights after a long shift, and on walks by the Mississippi river. We\u2019ve asked really basic questions, like, what is a union? And harder questions, like what, in granular and concrete terms, is our five-year vision for Trader Joe\u2019s workers?<\/p>\n

But this story and the circumstances that brought us here together in the rain today are so much larger than any of us. Before the land we\u2019re standing on was stolen, the waterfall that was where the Stone Arch Bridge is now was as big as Niagara falls. There were so many grazing buffalo that you couldn\u2019t see the ground. It\u2019s humbling to imagine the way the landscape looked pre-manifest destiny, and a lesson in contrast to think about Downtown East during the height of the mill industry boom in the mid 1800\u2019s. In 1903, flour workers at the Washburn Crosby Mill right over there, went on strike. They asked for eight hour work days and gender equitable pay. Ultimately, they didn\u2019t get what they deserved, but their efforts remain an important part of Minneapolis labor history. A few decades later, workers sacrificed their lives during the Teamsters Strike of 1934, a sacrifice we just commemorated last month. The Teamsters stood on the shoulders of the pro-labor millworkers who came before them, just as all of us here stand indebted to their legacy.<\/p>\n

The play in production at the Guthrie (Theater in Minneapolis) right now is called Sweat, written by the two-time Pulitzer Prize winning playwright, Lynn Nottage. It takes place in the early 2000\u2019s, and it\u2019s about a group of factory workers who struggle against the invisible and crushing economic forces that guide their lives.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember the fire in your voice and how it made me feel.\u201d Chris, one of the characters, says to his father, Brucie, as he remembers watching a strike at the plant as a child. \u201cAfter school, me and my friends rode our bikes to the mill and watched you guys picketing. You looked like warriors, arms linked, standing together.\u201d<\/p>\n