In February of this year, workers at Urban Ore began the process of unionizing with Industrial Workers of the World under Union 670 (the Municipal and Utility Service Workers section of the IWW). According to local publication Berkeleyside, the store had a wide array of problems which led to the unionization effort:
Organizers said they’re hoping to address understaffing, high turnover rates, and change the business’ wage structure through unionization. The store’s current wage structure, which fluctuates based on store profit and hours worked, exacerbates understaffing because it pads paychecks, said Urban Ore employee and organizing committee member Sarah Mossler.
Zach Haber, a local journalist, also interviewed workers and found similar complaints. Notably, workers are paid below Berkeley's $16.99/hr minimum wage as a base, and have their wages supplemented by "a portion of the store’s gross income"–originally 10%, but upped to 15% later. This means that paychecks from the store are inconsistent on a month-to-month basis due to fluctuations in the store's income–not a great thing to have in a city with such high cost of living.
The unionization effort was supported by East Bay Democratic Socialists of America, whose Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee section helped guide store workers through parts of the unionization process. Among other groups, Urban Ore also received support from Moe's Books (a fellow Berkeley IWW union), the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, and Berkeley City Council member Terry Taplin.
Yesterday (April 7), San Francisco IWW announced that the unionization effort had succeeded, and Urban Ore had voted to unionize.
According to the NLRB, the vote succeeded 14 to 7 with 5 challenged ballots and 1 void ballot. Urban Ore Worker's Union will, as noted, be under Industrial Workers of the World Union 670. Workers at the store hope to bargain for, among other things, more consistent paychecks, a worker-owned cooperative structure (which Urban Ore's owners have ostensibly been working toward), and time set aside to clean the store.