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Coffee, Awakening, and Control

Coffee as a symbol represents friendship, community, and intellectual awakening. Coffee is something that is shared. "Let's go get a cup of coffee." "Oh we met up for coffee." "Did you just fill up the pot?" coffee is a drink that is enjoyed in community and is a useful way to link us together.

Most importantly though, coffee is symbolically about waking up. In the play it is vital to our characters both to physically wake up and do their grueling work, and also to spiritually wake up and 'get woke' in the original sense of the phrase. This association with enlightenment and even revolution has a long history. As coffee spread to the Arab and European worlds coffeehouses became hotbeds of intellectual and political discussion outside the traditional control of the church or mosque and posed threats to existing social orders. Some historians even attribute the Enlightenment and the revolutions in France and Belgium to the increased shift from drinking alcohol to coffee and tea.

In our play these symbols play out across the pages, the heroes use coffee as a way to bond together and express their friendship, and Home Base steadily restricts access to it as that friendship and solidarity become more expensive to their bottom line.

Wanda embodies the communal aspects of coffee as a symbol. She is one of the few characters who says that they like their co-workers "I like working here. I like the people." (pg. 23), and is also the character who makes coffee every morning for the team, "I didn't make it just for you, I made it for everybody." (pg. 12). She keeps bringing up the communal nature in Act 4.1, saying to Donna "If I go fast enough, we can get the first cup before the rest of those greedy..." Even when she is talking to Donna she is trying to create a connection, "we can get the first cup." and later in the same scene, "It's not for personal use, it's for all of us."

On the other hand, as the Stock Team becomes more and more aware of their position within the company, waking up to it so to speak, Home Base is increasingly harsh about its coffee policy. First its no new cups, then you can't reuse the cups you have you have to bring in one from home. See how even this is a way to de-connect the coffee from its social aspect? If you have to plan ahead and bring your clean travel mug, you may as well just make the coffee at home or pick some up on the way, no more getting to work a few minutes early to have a cup with Wanda at the start of the shift. Finally they just ban using HB coffee altogether, right after Jose and Carlos speak up to Donna, right as the union starts to look like it could be real, just as they take their solidarity and connections with each other off site, HomeBase takes away their coffee. It is like they are saying "You can get your community with us, or not at all". It is one final injustice, and it is the thing that finally pushes Wanda over the edge in the final moment of the play.

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How To Organize A Union

This is a quick explanation of the steps to organize and recognize a new union. This guide is for getting a union recognized by the NLRB and usually connected to a larger national or industry union.

Figure Out Your Allies. Talk to your co-workers and find out who would be interested in a union, who would be interested in helping you organize, and what their needs are.

Contact A Union Organizer. Once you have a solid base of co-workers you trust and are ready to work, you can contact a union organizer with a relevant larger union to help you in your campaign.

Sign Those Cards! A union card shows your interest in joining a union and authorizes a union to represent you in bargaining. It is legally binding for counting purposes, but you can revoke your signature and even vote against the union if it gets to that level.

Hard Numbers. If you can get 30% of your co-workers to sign a union card, you can petition the NLRB to hold a secret ballot election for union representation. If you can get 50%+1 of your coworkers you may even be able to skip the election!

The Boss' Turn. Once you have at least 30% of your coworkers signed up, it is time to talk to your boss who can voluntarily recognize a union at this time, or try to fight it. If they do not voluntarily recognize you should contact the NLRB for an election.

The Boss' Revenge. The time between you start openly organizing and the date of the election is where your boss has the most chances to interfere with you. See down below for some examples of tactics they can use, but once you petition for an election expect to spend a lot of time in captive audience meetings and increased scrutiny. Remember: the penalties for breaking the law are very weak so bosses don't have a huge incentive to follow them.

Election Day! If you get to your union election you need 50%+1 votes of your entire coworker body in order to recognize the union. Once you get the results certified you have won and can start bargaining with your bosses for a fairer contract!

Sources and Resources: https://www.dol.gov/general/workcenter/unions-101, https://www.nlrb.gov/sites/default/files/attachments/pages/node-184/steps-to-forming-a-union-final-412.pdf, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tok00IDVTz4&t=7s

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Here is the long version of the leaked 2018 Amazon anti-union training video!

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TIPS-D and FLOP: What Employers Can Say During Union Organizing

These two acronyms, TIPS and FOE, are helpful in remembering employers' rights during union organizing efforts.

Here is a good write up from management's point of view during a union drive. Projections Inc. is a consulting firm that specializes in anti-union 'solutions'.

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Modern Union Busting Techniques

Someone at rehearsal asked about what companies can do to stop unionizing and I wanted to give some better answers and sources.

First: What Can They Legally Do?

Monitor Your Behavior: a leaked 2018 Amazon/Whole Foods training instructed managers to look out for anything "that can indicate associate disengagement, vulnerability to organizing, or early organizing activity,” like "Use of words like 'living wage' and 'steward'", "Associates raising concerns on behalf of their coworkers", "Workers who normally aren't connected to each other suddenly hanging out together", or "any other associate behavior that is out of character".

Hold Captive Audience Meetings: Employers often schedule hours long required meetings to show anti-union videos or host anti-union speakers. When an Amazon warehouse on Long Island was organizing, the company scheduled over 25 mandatory meetings a day.

Hire Outside Council: Management can hire lawyers to represent their interests to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) during union elections and these lawyers can cause serious delays, change rules about in-person or by-mail voting, etc. These efforts can thwart momentum, affect voter turnout, and quash enthusiasm.

Second: What Are They NOT Allowed To Do?

Fire You: You cannot be fired for organizing or participating in union efforts (As long as those efforts are lawful i.e. not picketing on private property etc.)

T.I.P.S.: Threats, Interrogation, Promises, and Spying. While management can monitor your behavior prior to a union drive, they cannot surveil or spy on lawful union or organizing activity. They cannot threaten you, promise you benefits for not supporting the union, or directly ask you your opinions or plans about the vote.

Third: What Are They Going To Do Anyway?

Employers will, and have, done anything they think they can get away with regardless of these laws or 'best practices'. The NLRB cannot enforce penalties for violating these laws, they can only demand 'Make-whole' payments like back-wages or legal fees. The stakes of violating the law are low and the process to remedy them lengthy so employers are fairly bold. The Economic Policy Institute reported that employers illegally fired someone in almost 20% of all union drives, and did other illegal activity in more than 40%. (Legalese here: they reported on Unfair Labor Practice complaints, which are charges not facts, but I would tend to believe that there are at least as many violations as complaints, if not many more.)

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Quick and Dirty Marxism: Alienation

A core concept of Karl Marx’s critique of capitalism is the idea of alienation, basically meaning a state of separation between two things that ought to be together.

Marx believed that effort and work were rewarding parts of human life, and something that makes us different from animals. We can create, we can make new things, and when it is something we want to make we don’t even mind how hard it is. For me, that’s theatre or crafts I like to do. They’re hard, even boring occasionally, but the joy I get from the end and the process makes any difficulty more than worth it.

As capitalism developed and spread, it separated these joyful expressions of work into discrete, sell-able, units of time and effort. Jobs separate us from the ‘process’ of our labor: we are hired to do a specific part of a process, like unloading a truck, but are separated from the rest of process of selling those products. We have no attachment to the things in the truck because we neither make them nor sell them, nor benefit from their existence. We are also alienated from the ‘means’ of our work: the trucks do not belong to us, the products within them do not belong to us. Wage labor alienates us yet again from the profits of our work; we get the same amount of money regardless of how well the business does or how hard we work. 

Finally capitalism has also alienated laborers not only from their labor, but from each other. It fosters a spirit of competition between workers and convinces us we have nothing in common. In the play Donna and the Stock Team share the same monetary relationship to Home Base, but different attitudes towards it. Donna’s realization that she has more in common with her stock team below her than Allen above her forms a major arc of her character. This kind of alienation benefits the owning class because it muddies the waters between laborers and encourages us to fight amongst ourselves rather than against them. They can pit Mexicans and Whites against each other for promotions rather than addressing the fact that they are paying both almost nothing. As we see with Jose, competition also benefits the owners by encouraging workers to work harder for no additional pay.

This alienation from each other, from the end goals of our own work, from the benefits of profit, is devastating. It is isolating, depressing, and makes work meaningless. “It’s not even a job, it’s just work,” says Wally. Places to socialize and regain some of our displaced humanity are either disappearing or becoming too expensive to access. Carlos talks about trying to find things to do with his family but can barely squeeze it in between his three jobs and the cost of going to the movies or other activities. Work and labor has alienated Carlos even from his own family.

Marx’s solution to these problems is to change the ‘mode of production’ we currently use to one that is less alienating and less inhumane. To produce the things that we need to live or enjoy our lives in a way that enriches those who make them, not just what will bring in the most cash to employers. To band together with our fellow humans and support each other so that we don’t have to run ourselves ragged just trying to subsist. And through this to bring back together ourselves, our work, and our communities.

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This is a real Target training video that is so close to the script it’s crazy. The video interludes in the play may seem exaggerated, but I promise you they are not. After this video leaked, the Young Turks covered it and got a statement from the actors which you can watch here: 

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A trend I never personally got into because it thought it was, *gasp*, annoying. But any character with kids definitely knows this sound (I would argue even Foley loves this channel).