Another Industrial Workers of the World victory occurred last week in Petaluma, California, when they successfully unionized a local book retailer in the city, Copperfield's Books. Petaluma—a city of about 60,000 just south of Santa Rosa—isn't what I'd call an intuitive area of strength for the IWW, so this is a good indication of their growing capacity and power in the region.
Norcal Public Radio reports that the union effort here began when Robert Glover, an employee at the store, reached out to San Francisco Bay Area IWW last year. Cost of living in Petaluma was squeezing out some of his fellow employees and pay was not keeping up with inflation at the store, and Glover wanted to do something about that. With the IWW's help, Glover and his fellow employees managed to get a majority of the store's workers to sign union cards—but Copperfield's refused to recognize the union voluntarily. The subsequent union election was held on April 28, and the union won 13-2.
Glover provides a good summary of what the newly-formed Copperfield's Union is looking for:
The main things that we are pushing for is higher wages; we want to bargain for better health care; we also want to raise limits on our sick time and vacation time because right now they're at what is minimally required for the state of California," Glover said. "Then also, the other thing is more training...if someone comes in and projects or expresses some microaggressions or even macro aggressions towards someone, we're really not fully equipped for what we're supposed to do in those situations.
A fellow employee, Ellen Skagerberg, adds that "People who had been there for six years were making minimum wage," and that she had watched many of the store's employees struggle with healthcare costs and a lack of benefits such as sick leave. She's hopeful however that the union will lead to much better overall working conditions in these areas.
