Indianapolis’s Indy Star has a pretty great story about food service workers unionizing in secret. Profiling a handful of food service workers under food service industry giants like Aramark, the article explores the motivations and need for unions as our country's workforce becomes more and more dominated by the service industry. Whether it's a cashier’s desire to receive access to employer-based health insurance or a custodian who wants to feel more respected as she works long hours providing much-needed work that others can easily take for granted, unions are growing in the one industry that continues to truly grow in our country—services.
The Unite Here union, established in 2004 and affiliated with the AFL-CIO, represents more than 270,000 hospitality, food service, gaming and airline catering workers in the United States and Canada.
While Unite Here Local 23 didn't sign on its first member in Indianapolis until 2010, it now has union members under Aramark contracts for Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis, Marion University, Butler University and Warren and Pike Township schools.
The battle being fought in states like Indiana are less about forming unions and more about being able to defend organizations from “right to work” laws. Indiana became a RTW state back in 2012 and things have gone so well there since that people like vice president and sketchiest-dude-to-to-have-dinner-with Mike Pence and Donald Trump have been able to garner votes because of desperation on the part of the labor force. As a result, the new unionizing efforts are more secretive, like Victor Laszlo avoiding street lamps on the streets of Casablanca to meet with the French Resistance.
The political environment has made organizing drives far more secretive than they used to be, experts say.
"There is a lot of fear in the workplace whether justified or not justified," Mora said, as most service workers are low-income women who are vulnerable to poor treatment at work. "The place to have that honest conversation with folks about what they want out of their job is in a place where they feel safe and comfortable."
Right to work states take away workers’ chances of a reasonable life now and destroy the chance of a worker’s security later. Here’s a 2011 Donald Trump saying he’s all for “right to work” laws, while somehow saying unions haven’t hurt his business, even though all of his business involves unions. I put it here because this is the argument for “right to work laws” coming out of the dumbest face in politics.