Editorial note: The following interview is with a Socialist Alternative member and worker at a grocery chain in Pennsylvania, who led a successful sickout on May Day. Because of retaliation from management, the store name is being kept anonymous and the worker is using a pseudonym.

Socialist Alternative: How did you and your coworkers get the idea to take action on May Day?

Rowan: Earlier this year, around a dozen of my coworkers and I started talking about unionizing our store, so in March we called a meeting to discuss initial steps for organizing. During this meeting, we talked about how workers in Minneapolis participated in a general strike on January 23, which forced an end to “Operation Metro Surge.”

I talked about how following January 23, a nationwide day of “No Work, No School, No Shopping” on May 1 had been called by labor leaders. While most of my coworkers hadn’t heard of this, many saw May Day as an opportunity to utilize our power as workers to take collective action against ICE in our own city.

SAlt: What steps did you take to get more workers involved in organizing? How was action planned? 

R: In order to take action, we needed regular organizing meetings outside the workplace with a dedicated and trusted core of coworkers. These were crucial in strategizing how to motivate more coworkers to get involved in the organizing effort.

Our third organizing meeting doubled in number of attendees from our first, and in April we voted to sick out on May Day. We decided to coalesce our anti-ICE and workplace goals into a single list of concrete demands. It was important for us to keep in mind what we were fighting for and why we were sicking out!

These demands were voted for with 100% agreement amongst our coworkers: 

• Abolish ICE—ICE out of our city—no more kidnapping our neighbors!
• End workplace discrimination against our queer and trans workers!
• No to our workplace cutting hours and benefits!

SAlt: What were some of the challenges you faced, and how did you address them? 

R: The company where we work presents a faux-progressive facade while being notorious for union busting. One of our main challenges was retaliation from management, with my being pulled into multiple intimidation meetings, having my scheduled hours shortened, and having my benefits cut. The management knew I was a lead organizer and understood that if they could isolate or break me, they could discourage my coworkers as well. Leading by example and not letting them break me was incredibly important, as the management’s actions were hypervisible to the rest of the store.

In many ways, the retaliation backfired on the bosses, as it made more coworkers curious about the organizing and ultimately brought more people to join our meetings. While retaliation also created understandable concern amongst my coworkers, we addressed it directly during our meetings. We read through all relevant store policies and made concrete plans for how to handle intimidation tactics, including how to endure disciplinary meetings and how we would collectively respond to management’s questions. This included denying questions about organizing, refusing to share who our “friends” are at work, and remaining calm if disciplinary actions were threatened.

SAlt: How did the action on May Day go? What were your main takeaways?

On May Day, 17 workers participated in the sick-out, none of whom had ever taken workplace action before! The bosses scrambled to respond, with nine managers working to cover shifts that day. While the store did not shut down, workflow was impeded, and the store lost tens of thousands in projected revenue as they could not keep the shelves fully stocked. Because of our organizing efforts, this was by far the biggest blow to profits our store has ever seen at the hands of action! 

Even though the store stayed open during regular hours, this was an important step in building our confidence to fight and giving us direct experience with organizing collective action. It is experience we can continue to build upon in the future.

SAlt: Now that you and your coworkers took this action, what comes next? 

R: Our immediate next step is to hold another organizing meeting to review May Day, discuss what went well, and identify what could have been stronger. All of us who participated in the sick-out were pulled into one-on-one intimidation meetings with management following the action, but we were prepared for how to handle their questioning. 

Despite this (unsurprising) response from management, we plan to continue meeting and to use this as an opportunity to begin broader organizing towards unionization. Actions like our sick-out on May Day can set an important example for other non-union workplaces, and build momentum towards bigger organizing efforts. We urgently need to organize the unorganized and build a fighting labor movement to lead the struggle against Trump’s attacks on working people!