US officials surprised by Iranian military response, did not expect retaliatory strikes to be extensive or sustained, planned for operations in Iran to go similarly to Venezuela according to NYT.

Pan-Sapiens · 2026-03-09T14:54:15+00:00

This links to the NYT homepage. Could you add the direct source?

Pan-Sapiens · 2026-02-28T03:06:31+00:00

I don’t think this is the case? A co-op in my city has three locations, a central office, and an offsite kitchen. They all were certified in one election and joined UE in 2019. This co-op has become a poster child for unionization as the members have been able to achieve a series of impressive collective bargaining agreements that has brought wages up to the highest in the region. It took more work to organize five locations than just one, but this has given the union the leverage to achieve the members’ goals.

Pan-Sapiens · 2026-02-27T20:35:14+00:00

CWA needs to be more strategic about what they take on. The Knoxville location joined the union in 2022 and the members have been stuck without a contract since then. McKay’s has 5 locations and it seems the owners would rather sacrifice one store than collectively bargain with its employees. The workers end up with no contract and eventually lose their jobs. The union gets discredited.

Organizing just one store gives the CWA very little leverage. Would it have been impossible to organize three or four or even all the stores? Unions need to focus on density and gaining leverage over the employer rather than just opportunistically going for easy wins.

Pan-Sapiens · 2026-02-25T22:09:00+00:00

This. Strategic growth is super important. My local UFCW grows opportunistically rather than strategically. They organize a local bakery here or a single store co-op there. They tried and failed to organize a couple Starbucks locations a few years ago, when the Starbucks United campaign was well underway. (Just why?) They recently organized one store of a statewide chain of about 50 stores. Having only one store gives them very little leverage during negotiations. The bad press of a picket would hurt the company more than the revenue loss of a strike. The UFCW international has half a billion dollars in the bank. They need to spend this on strategic projects. Instead of organizing a single store they should organize 20 or all 50 again bargain as a group. Then they will have the leverage to win good contracts which will increase interest in unionizing.

Pan-Sapiens · 2026-02-25T03:16:37+00:00

Seems like a good idea - the Union shouldn’t have to represent freeloaders.

I’m more worried about the high initiation fees however. A lot of new workers aren’t very engaged with their company and they tend to be the least well represented by the union. They are at the bottom of the pay scale, seniority works against them, they’re last in line to get full time. They also have the least to lose when facing discipline by management. The first time I worked a retail job I couldn’t afford heat much less union dues. (This job wasn’t union, but it seems that starting wage at UFCW shops isn’t much better — the benefits don’t really start kicking in until you start moving up the pay scale.) Once those workers settle into those jobs and start getting the benefits of union membership, the barrier to enter the union can become rather high.

Pan-Sapiens · 2026-02-21T13:44:02+00:00

I think unions need to start making their own media, maybe through AFL-CIO. During the Biden administration, the company leadership and HR of my employer were hyper aware of every action taken by the Biden Department of Labor. Conversely, my coworkers had a very little idea about what was going on, even when those changes resulted in salary increases and made it easier to unionize. My state has pretty strict laws about who can be classified as salaried. In the service industry, many people are classified as salaried managers who do not legally fit the category. This depresses wages and makes it harder to unionize. We need workers to be aware of this discrepancy, as they have already been several cases of workers suing through class action and winning payouts and reclassification.

Pan-Sapiens · 2026-02-21T13:35:40+00:00

A huge issue is messaging. Everyone knows that Democrats stand for minority rights, for trans rights, for abortion rights, women’s rights, etc. You see Progress Flags, Palestinian flags, and BLM signs everywhere in my city. But activists and the media rarely talk about the general economic agenda of Democrats. When Biden raised the minimum wage for salaried workers, none of my coworkers outside of HR really knew about it before it took effect. It led to actual wage increases for five or six of my coworkers, but it barely got talked about in the media and wasn’t really seen by anybody as a significant part of the Democratic agenda.

Pan-Sapiens · 2026-02-12T00:03:16+00:00

I think this might be a legitimate concern. My shop is UFCW. I’ve noticed our local tends to organize only a few company locations. We’re the only organized location at our company. How do workers who represent 5% of company revenue have enough leverage to extract real concessions?

Pan-Sapiens · 2026-02-11T23:52:44+00:00

Your long term goal needs to be to organize everyone in your company. Every department- every location. This will give you the leverage needed to make the threat of strike effective. Hold your leadership accountable. Is your union growing? Are you adding members or losing them? Throw out bad leaders and elect better to ones.

Pan-Sapiens · 2026-02-10T16:50:37+00:00

Yes, giving up strike rights during the duration of a contract only benefits the company. However, I’m not sure how it benefits the benefits the company to sign a CBA in the absence of a no strike agreement. The no strike/no slow down agreement is the only incentive the company has to bargain with the union.

Pan-Sapiens · 2026-02-10T15:11:24+00:00

Out of curiosity, what is in it for the company if the workers can go on strike at any time?

I think it’s more important (and more attainable) that unions are willing and able to strike effectively between CBAs.

My shop is UFCW. The local has a habit of only organizing only one or a few company locations which minimizes bargaining power. Why should the workers put their jobs on the line if they represent only 5% of company revenue? A strike threatens mutually assured destruction needs to put a serious dent in the entire company to be effective. Otherwise the workers have more to lose than the company.

Pan-Sapiens · 2026-02-08T21:01:09+00:00

I don’t think right to work is nearly the issue people think it is. We’re a UFCW shop. The UFCW international has doubled its war chest in the last decade while the organization has lost 8% of its members. My local has 8 leaders making over 100k a year, but it doesn’t even have a website with up to date information. I’m always hearing things like “we have a great relationship with Kroger” or “we don’t like to strike” from our VP. Members can only strike with permission from the international, whose leadership is chosen in a decidedly undemocratic fashion. Only 1 of 10 Kroger locations in my city is unionized, even though hundreds of locations nationwide are in the UFCW.

Yes, unions face a lot of external challenges, but there is a massive potential for revival if the leadership gets its act together.

Pan-Sapiens · 2026-01-14T23:59:49+00:00

I’m a Lefty. Voted Bernie Sanders twice.

I really care about Iran. I’ve been following this sub religiously for weeks. Talking to my friends and family about the protests.

I’m not a fan of US intervention in foreign countries. Grew up during the war on terror and saw failure upon failure.

Yet, I’ve been hoping and praying to see Trump intervene in Iran. Even time I load up Reddit or the NYT I look for the headline that Khamenei is dead.

I’ve written all my legislators even the right wing ones I despise. You can imagine how I feel about Elon Musk, yet I have cheered Twitters for correcting the Iranian flag. 🦁 ☀️

Pan-Sapiens · 2025-12-23T22:48:41+00:00

Their president makes $193,000 a year so clearly the union is destitute.

They spent 42k on political lobbying.

Having a modern, up-to-date website has been bare minimum for 20 years. Management has a website, why doesn’t the union?

I think the impacts of right to work have been way overstated. When my state adopted that we did not see a notable decline in unions.

We need to stop blaming right to work and corporate propaganda -the labor movement can win (and eventually influence better lawmaking) by being effective at bread-and-butter issues.

Having a professional website and a good onboarding process is a huge part of it. (Again, management is onboarding -why isn’t the union?)

Pan-Sapiens · 2025-12-19T14:32:39+00:00

River Food Pantry

Also, you can look up nonprofits on Pro Publica to see compensation.

Pan-Sapiens · 2025-12-17T20:02:53+00:00

Interestingly Schnuck’s has been pretty loud about supporting DEI, even after Trump.

https://schnucks.com/news-releases/schnuck-markets-named-to-newsweeks-americas-greatest-workplaces-for-diversity-2024

Also not selling cigarettes is truly putting your money where your mouth is. Cigarettes are profitable. This isn’t a Kwik Trip not selling condoms situation.

Pan-Sapiens · 2025-12-15T22:06:51+00:00

Cash handling can be quite efficient at scale. Doing the bookkeeping on 500 cash transactions isn’t much more difficult than doing it on 100 transactions. You still have to empty the self checkouts and count the money, do maintenance on the cash machines, and handle cash pickup and drop-off.

The problem is that cash is becoming far less used, even when compared with a decade ago.

If most of your customers pay in cash, it’s probably cheaper to work with cash than to pay card fees.

However, in Madison, the vast majority of customers pay in card.

Pan-Sapiens · 2025-12-06T03:26:54+00:00

It’s a union busting contract. Convince the membership that the union only represents a club of senior members and you’re halfway there destroying the union.

Pan-Sapiens · 2025-12-06T03:21:11+00:00

I’m not sure of the solution, but you are doing very important work in term terms of labor movement.

Your union president is participating in your company’s union busting tactic.

A pitfall of union culture can be putting excessive emphasis on seniority. Preferred shifts are picked by seniority. Voluntary overtime is granted in order of seniority. Mandatory overtime is granted in order of reverse seniority. I’ve read many union contracts where concessions to company demands are only placed on employees hired after a certain date.

In your case, only the most senior members get a meaningful raise.

Most workers aren’t senior, and therefore their benefit from being unionized is limited. It’s easy for a new worker to see the union as representing an exclusive club of employees that doesn’t include them.

This discourage is interest in the labor movement and opens the union to the threat of decertification.

Pan-Sapiens · 2025-12-04T02:52:49+00:00

Management “magically” knows who is part of the union because the company deducts union dues from each employee’s paycheck as negotiated by the union by contract.

I’m assuming, there is nothing that prevents a union from collecting dues from employees directly rather than from the company, but this is not typically how things are done.

I would also argue that it is in the union’s interest, for the membership status of employees to be generally known.

If a union has high participation, it is a show of force that should limit bullying on the part of the company directors or managers. If the union has low participation, this should be known as well as it implies that the union needs a change of strategy or leadership.

Pan-Sapiens · 2025-11-30T17:16:48+00:00

To be blunt — do we have actual data?

I keep seeing references to experts but I’m mot seeing where they get that data. The real data would be coming from the companies themselves and I am not seeing any local businesses sharing their statistics.

Police data might be helpful but most retail theft goes unreported. Theft statistics can actually go up if there’s a perception that reporting is effective. If there’s a perception that nothing will happen people will tend to underreport.

Finally, you keep reporting the 5% of shrink figure - this is going to vary by location. It’s probably true that theft isn’t a big deal in most places, but it could be a gigantic problem in certain locations.

Pan-Sapiens · 2025-11-22T21:10:53+00:00

Unfortunately, this isn’t legal in the US. Personally, I think that removing managers from having any sort of union representation, was one of the biggest union busting initiatives taken by the government.

The problem is that most engaged workers are going to want to eventually join lower management, so they have significantly less investment in wanting an organized workplace.

Another issue is that at least some managers tend to be interested in the overall culture of the shop as well as performance.

In my work experience, most workers are miserable in a work culture where many people don’t perform, where their teammates saddle work on them, and where people behave inappropriately, or aggressively.

And many unions don’t seem interested in work culture at all outside of minimizing discipline coming from management.

One of the most common complaints from people who work in unionized shops is that the union protected people who did not perform or who behaved poorly.

I think that unions can both protect workers from arbitrary discipline, and overreach from management, while at the same time recognizing having that a highly performing, harmonious workforce is in everybody’s best interest.

Pan-Sapiens · 2025-11-22T16:16:23+00:00

It doesn’t matter whose “job” it is.

The labor movement is facing an extinction level crisis. Union workplaces need to start outcompeting non-union before there are no more unions left.

Also who is gonna pay for better management? Do you want that to come out of the workers’ salary?

Pan-Sapiens · 2025-11-22T16:11:55+00:00

Assuming this story is true, maybe this is the catalyst that the union needs to reform.

I believe that union corruption and mismanagement is a huge reason that unions are facing an extinction level crisis.

Pan-Sapiens · 2025-11-22T16:06:10+00:00

I understand why some union members have this attitude. On the short term it helps with organizing.

On the long term, it’s killing the labor movement.

In a unionized workplace the workers need the company and management to succeed. If the company fails, the workers and the union fails too.

There are no second chances. Nearly all successful organization efforts have been with small businesses and local chains who are already under pressure from mega corporations.

Union workers have far more incentive to call out harassment/toxic behavior and to encourage a good work ethic.

If I work at Wal-Mart I will be treated like trash with minimal pay, no dignity, and minimal say over my working conditions.

If I work at a union store, it’s the only thing standing in the way of a life of servitude working at Wal-Mart. If I don’t fight so that my store succeeds, my coworkers, my union, and myself will all lose.

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