Union formed
Good Morning fellow D.U.ers
This is my first post so I feel I should quickly introduce myself and thank the administrators for the work they are doing.
My name is Doug and I have lived and worked as a baker and a musician in south east Wisconsin for all of my 54 years. The last seven years as the cake mixer for Troubadour Bakery which is owned and operated by Colectivo Coffee roaster.
Over the last two years, we have been trying to form a union. The company was not happy and spent big bucks on union avoidance advisors as well as captive audience meetings. We earned the right to vote, voted for unionization in the spring of 21. On March 25th, 2022 the company exhausted their last appeal to the NLRB. We will begin negotiations on our first contract in the coming months.
The last union bakery closed in the mid 90s. I have spent my life as a baker and have prayed to work for a union shop. Today Colectivo is the largest unionized coffee roaster in the United States.
I can not state this more clearly, it is possible to form a union. We just did it, you can too. Persevere.
IBEW Local 494 member Doug offers peace to all.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Thanks for your hard work & determination and congratulations on your success!
You are in a very honorable profession! Best of luck with your negotiations and please keep us posted.
KY.............
Good for you! As you say, perseverance pays off. 
I am now in exile in Florida, a right to work state in which the state constitution denies state employees the right to strike. Right now, FL union workers are 6.4% of the salaried workforce and slowly increasing.
OTOH, DeSantis' Tallahassee boyz chip away at unions in their latest of many anti-union bills (HB1197). This one would force public workers' unions -- teachers and govt workers -- to pay dues directly to their union themselves and not have dues deducted from paychecks; in this bill, at least half of the employees that are eligible for representation must be dues-paying members – or the union could be decertified. We'll see if it passes.
"Employees deserve the right to confirm who's empowered to bargain for them," said Philip Suderman, one of the few speakers supporting the bill. He’s policy director for Americans For Prosperity, a right-leaning political advocacy group. "Employees deserve the right to end association with groups they feel no longer represent their best interests, and employees deserve the right to confirm when money is taken from their paychecks, and that it is indeed voluntary.”
“I'm not a teacher. I'm not a public sector laborer. But you don't have to be one of those to be offended by this legislation,” said Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith, D-Orlando. He cited onerous paperwork, threats of union decertification, and lost union revenues making it difficult to recruit members. "Folks, if it looks like a union busting bill, if it sounds like a union busting bill, if it acts like a union busting bill, and if it union busts like a union busting bill, it's a union busting bill,” Smith said.
that any business with over X number of employees had to have a union.
Maybe after the midterms? 
And great advice.
Welcome to DU!
Unions ROCK!
has done the same.
Best to all of you from my heart. 
I mentioned forming a union when I was working at Macy's in the early 90s and was called into the office of management and told not to do this, even though it was on my break time. I vowed to get a job that had a union after Macy's went into Chapter 11 and I happily changed careers. I became a teacher and was the union rep at my site. I was harassed by every single principal during my career but the union supported me in every way possible. I was coughing up blood due to the black mold in the ceiling of my classroom and the union got real inspectors out and the whole building had to be demolished. The school district had previously told me to keep the door closed and use Lysol (for black mold). The union saved me.
I was born and raised in Flint, MI (I escaped before they poisoned the water) and I grew up hearing stories about the UAW sitdown strike of 1936-37. Hearing about another union shop makes me happy and proud.
If you're not singing the chorus along with the video, you're just not doing it right.
*I lived in Wisconsin twice and loved it
