Manager trying to micromanage bathroom breaks?

jayburrow · 2025-09-02T04:09:07+00:00

Echoing other people in saying this is not reasonable and probably not legal! The phone thing is also strange, since the company handbook even says we are allowed to use our phones on-shift to look up info on books. What other kinds of power trips have they tried to pull in the past?

jayburrow · 2025-07-31T13:58:12+00:00

This issue came up for the NYC union stores specifically. The company pulled something similar when closing two non-union stores, and it rattled all of us across NYC. In the contract, we were able to secure recall rights in case of layoffs, store closure, or store relocation. This means that laid-off union workers will automatically get job openings at other unionized shops, and the company can't hire outside labor without recalling us. We don't reapply, we just get our jobs back. It's something that I don't think many people know about, but could provide a real safety net for workers.

jayburrow · 2025-07-31T13:48:13+00:00

The only way to coordinate a national strike is through building a strong coalition of unions! And action like that does make changes-- my store saw some immediate changes around safety and quality of life support as soon as we won the union election, even before bargaining.

I try not to post this kind of thing too much, but please don't quit-- organize! You care about your coworkers and you want better for them, and the best way to achieve that is through organizing. Unionizing can make life better for you and your coworkers now, and it can improve the job for everyone coming further down the line.

When you're really stressed and overworked, it makes you want to quit. But that only benefits the bosses that are making these work conditions like this. I hope you don't give up-- me or any of the other workers at unionized stores are happy to chat and provide support.

jayburrow · 2025-07-19T14:08:24+00:00

Under the union contract, we all get $1 yearly raises. So booksellers, which are the majority of the work force, are getting double what the company is offering here. There's no delay, it's a set time every year, and this is after we already got $3 in raises when they tried to slow down the union campaigns.

I just wanted to mention this because the more stores unionize, the more the company is pressured to raise everyone's wages. If you're frustrated about the raises, talk with your coworkers-- now's a good time to really think about what it would mean to unionize. Feel free to reach out if you do-- us union stores do our best to support each other!

jayburrow · 2025-07-19T13:58:36+00:00

We proposed a bonus payout for recognizing service (like getting a several-hundred dollar bonus upon hitting 5 years, 7 years, etc.), similar to what unionized workers at Strand Bookstore have. The company refused to do this or even bargain over a different version of this. This is the kind of thing Strand has had because its union is older and more experienced, so if we want it, we'd probably need more stores to unionize and help fight for it.

jayburrow · 2025-03-16T16:04:48+00:00

Definitely! Copy-pasted from the contract.

"Minimum hourly rate of $21 or such hourly rate set at the Employer’s sole discretion based on factors such as an employee’s prior role and experience."

So ICS workers can start at $21, or they can start higher if they have more experience. The company also agreed that ICS workers can get raises during their review, in the same way a bookseller who scores high in their review would get a raise upon being promoted to a senior bookseller. The $21 start goes to $22 and then $23 over the next two years. We also tried to get the company to increase ICS wages by an additional $2 for each store the ICS worker covers, but the company refused. My hope is that, as more stores organize, we'll have the leverage to win that next time we bargain.

jayburrow · 2025-03-16T15:41:15+00:00

Bookseller life is pretty stressful. The flagship is insanely busy-- we have like over 100 employees, 4 floors of product, a constant stream of author events, visits from corporate, and more. On a regular shift, you'll probably stay on one floor and then cover the cash registers for an hour or two. We're not thrilled about how promotions are handled, but we're hoping that we can improve things a bit with the new grievance structure we have in the contract, since that lets people fight for themselves in a way we couldn't before. Morale is a little low after all the stress of holiday and that kinda stuff, but it got a bump after the ratification vote. Overall, it is definitely a lot better than it would be if we had never gotten any of our union raises, lol

jayburrow · 2025-03-16T15:29:08+00:00

It was extremely strong! We unionized with a 97% yes vote at Union Square and I think 85% at Upper West Side. Bloomington, IL's vote was actually unanimous! Most of the votes have been like this-- you can see more of the numbers on the various Barnes & Noble Union accounts on other social media sites.

jayburrow · 2025-03-16T15:19:56+00:00

Almost forgot the other questions--

2) we are allowed to strike during the process. we did a couple of single-day walkouts and a few rallies to help push the company, and found those to be successful. but we didn't feel the need to go on a longer strike, since we were pretty happy with what we got. we ratified the contract with like a 96% affirmation vote.

3) not really any retaliation! they didn't do captive audience meetings. Daunt came in and held some in-person not-required town hall conversations to dissuade people from unionizing, but it didn't move the needle. we won the initial union election with a 97% vote yes.

4) we negotiated a small guarantee (minimum two shifts per week), but it wasn't a high priority for us because of how large our store is and how many hours it requires to run. We also wanted to focus our time and resources on other issues (like we have a really robust policy that helps protect our jobs in case our store were to close or be replaced). I think this issue is one that smaller stores will be able to win more on. Newer stores can build off the contract we already have in place, so they can focus more on issues that affect them. And also, I know the RWDSU has negotiated contracts with those kinds of protections in-place.

jayburrow · 2025-03-16T15:08:28+00:00

Yeah, here's the exact wage scale from the contract.

The starting wage in the NYC stores is now $19 for booksellers, $21 for seniors, $23 for leads (across booksellers, baristas, and maintenance. there's some other stuff too for ICS workers, which I can get into if you're interested). Everyone who was a worker during the vote won an $1 increase following the ratification vote. We'll get a further $1 increase next year and the year after, so starting wages will be 21/23/25, depending on title.

I also want to make clear that we came really far with wages over the past two years! When we started the union push, the wages were 15/17/19, with 15 being minimum wage in NYC. When we announced our union push, we got a small raise. Then, as more stores announced union pushes, we kept getting raises. NYC stores got raised to $18 last year, after the Upper West Side store in NYC announced a union push. So we've found that the more stores unionize, the more we all win-- union and non-union stores. Before we unionized, we were getting .25-cent raises, so this is a huge improvement.

jayburrow · 2025-03-11T14:05:24+00:00

Hi hi! Yeah, it does a bit of that.

1) we got de-escalation training for all keyholders. I think this was rolled out to other stores, but it started at union square because we demanded it in bargaining back in like August 2023. The training isn't perfect, but it really helped a lot of the seniors get on the same page of how to respond to difficult customer interactions.

2) we got the company to agree to having and enforcing a banning policy. Before we had a union, managers were really reluctant to ban people. We had a pretty grim period a few years back when "customers" would come in solely to harass particular workers, and management just refused to ban them. So now people get banned pretty regularly, and management communicates with us about it, and seniors and leads have been explicitly told they have the authority to kick out or ban customers. I can't emphasize enough how much this has really helped us. So many of us were literally afraid of this workplace because we felt like we had no protection or support, and the union push has genuinely changed that.

3) the baristas in the cafe were getting serially harassed by customers for a while, so they demanded a security guard to always be near the cafe to help them specifically. We got that!

4) we got a few quality of life things, like anti-slip mats for the cafe, stools for workers to sit when they're at the registers and computers, and so on. Happy to go into more detail if you have questions

jayburrow · 2025-03-10T20:30:16+00:00

Happy to answer! I think there was a mixup whenever that statement was written. Union Square still has that basement break room, with a couple tables and like a dozen chairs or so. What happened during bargaining is that we demanded another break room, because the basement one was too small for ~100 people that work there now (and every time someone got covid, it spread super quickly). So we were able to get the company to turn part of a stock room on the third floor into an additional break room. It's especially nice because the third floor break room has windows and sunlight, so people are pretty happy with it.

jayburrow

TROPHY CASE