So as I mentioned in my other post about the election, the lawyer representing the company was an interesting character. The main reason I spun this off into a different post is to get all the details I'd have to jump around chronologically and that made the post both bigger and harder to read, which isn't fun for anybody. But maybe if we go over it together we can figure out what exactly is going on here.
So the day before the election we had the "pre-election conference", which I was really only there to be as a witness, only lawyers and the NLRB rep had stuff to say here. Basically it was a Zoom call where they just outlined the physical dimensions of the location and hashed out where observers would sit, where votes would be cast, stuff like that. Their lawyer mentioned that our District Manager would be present but sequestered in the back of house area and our lawyer objected, as is his job, and their lawyer immediately dropped the professional demeanor to be snide about how this is how they do it at every election and seemed ready to keep going until the NLRB rep stepped in and said that they could discuss that when they weren't wasting her time. The NLRB rep rules, I can't state that enough.
On the day itself I got to see their lawyer in person, although she didn't see fit to introduce herself or anything, covering all our windows (and our lobby is roughly 80% window by surface area) with large sheets of paper, in addition to lowering the black blinds, making it fairly impossible for anyone to see in or out of the store and also making anyone walking by think that a crime had been committed in our store. This is, I believe, part of the reason that the company doesn't ever want to have the votes held outside of venues they fully control - Not only does it allow them to staff management types in the building during elections for keyholding reasons, they're also able to make the store look shut down rather than just closed for a day, it's almost a week later and we're still getting calls asking us if we're open because they drove by and couldn't look inside the windows one time so that means we're closed forever. Nasty business, but it didn't help them this time.
The other aspect it gives them control over is not allowing anyone but the designated observers and representatives into the venue to watch the count. However, since counts are supposed to be public, there was still a publicly-available Zoom broadcast of the count that the gathered crowd outside huddled around phones to spectate through. This was the first major friction point - We had folks who had gathered at 6PM eager to watch the count, and as soon as the company's lawyer showed up she instead replaced the paper over our door that the NLRB rep had taken down to help visibility. Our lawyer arrived second, and requested that the gathered baristas outside be allowed inside to watch the count, and their lawyer flatly refused, and while he turned to start explaining what was going on to the crowd, she slammed the door behind him, locked it again, and stormed over to their table, slamming her phone on the ground while muttering "that guy is such a fucking asshole" and began angrily taking notes.
This was a fascinating reaction to me, and I'm still a bit mystified for it. The other observer, a coworker of mine, was shocked at the lawyer's behavior and kind of gave me an "omg did you see that?" look and I just coldly responded "yeah some people aren't really cut out for this job" in a voice I made sure was loud enough for her to hear, which I know is a mean bastard thing to do, but you have to understand I've spent most of my life being a mean bastard and so it comes very naturally to me, especially in times of stress. I didn't get a further reaction, but I hope twisting the knife a bit still stung. After she settled down and our lawyer got everyone set up outside with the Zoom link, he was let back in and we proceeded to lay down an 18-1 summer slamfest of a unionization vote, thank you very much.
But this isn't that story! I already told you that one! This one keeps going! Because afterwards, there was a little bit of formality and then I had to grab my stuff to get ready to go, and the other observer had the wherewithal to ask the District Manager and lawyer if they needed help taking all the paper off the windows and stuff. The lawyer simply pointed at her and said "You stay." and then at me, "You go. You're done here." and even went so far as to do a shoo-ing motion with her hands, which she would've saw me holding back laughter from had I not been wearing my mask. And the rest of this is secondhand so you'll have to bear with the lack of detail, but according to the other observer while we were outside celebrating, inside their lawyer was fuming, swearing up a storm about how much she hated our lawyer, how much she hated one of the union reps that had come down to support us, just having a full-on temper tantrum.
It's been a few days now, and I still can't really wrap my head around that whole reaction. In fiction we always talk about how to write a believable villain you have to write someone that doesn't believe that they're a villain, but this is a real-life person that is basically paid to do evil (Lest you think I'm being uncharitable to lawyering as a profession here, she works for a law firm that is expressly known as a union-busting firm, that is her job, to fight unions) basically getting so emotionally invested in this case that she's willing to curse a guy's name in front of god and the government and anyone within earshot. I don't understand it! You don't even work for our company! If we were to suddenly win tomorrow and get contracts everywhere, you would just go on to the next client! Near as I can tell the only thing that changes on her end from this loss is that it's another bargaining table that she may potentially have to sit and refuse to bargain at, but as far as I'm concerned that just means we secured her another swath of billable hours! I just don't understand it, but I'm sort of fixated on it because I feel like if I could understand what motivates that kind of petulant reaction, maybe we could get an actual dialogue going there. "If only you could talk to the monsters..."
