WE can rewrite the story || By Noah Lekas

​I will never forget the first time I heard real anti-union propaganda. As a teenager in the Midwest, a friend told me, “The problem with unions is that most people are terrible workers.” This from a teenager who, to my knowledge, had not gotten his first job and entered the workforce in any substantial way. In business unions—trade unions organized and run like a business, like the NRLCA, NALC, and the APWU— the most prevalent anti-union talking point is that the union is just another type of bureaucracy, another open-handed organization looking to weasel hard-earned dollars out of the workers’ pockets. All anti-union sentiment falls out of one of these two narratives. But which is it? Are rank-and-file workers or leaders to blame? Before we can change the conversation on the office floor, we have to understand the stories we are telling ourselves and each other. Anti-Worker Narrative: Blaming rankand-file workers is all but an American sport. You can spot these narratives by statements like, “Unions protect bad employees.” Maybe in your office this narrative is highlighted by a career employee with as many absences this past summer as years of service, or a carrier who has grieved their way out of multiple firings. This narrative focuses on the short-comings, faults, or errors of any worker who can be painted as exploiting the system. “I wish this person would just quit,” or “Person X called out again.” Any way you slice it, the story is that bad workers are why we cannot have nice things. Anti-Leadership Narrative: This story asserts that management is really on the side of rank-and-file workers, it is union leadership who is muddying up the waters. “Wouldn’t you rather just advocate for yourself,” or “Why can’t we just have a conversation,” are common sentiments; even if a conversation is the literal first step before filing a grievance. Sprinkle in a few bad experiences with stewards and leadership receiving raises. That one time a legitimate grievance failed and it is easy to see how this narrative propagates. This story always boils down to the idea that union leadership does more for themselves than for us. It is worth noting that both narratives are effective because we do not have to look far to find supporting evidence. However, both stories are reductive and useless in the struggle to improve benefits, pay, and conditions for Colorado rural carriers. There is no secret sauce or magic talking point that can fix waning solidarity, but these cliche tropes certainly exacerbate it. Inoculation on the office floor is a good tactic for undoing anti-union narratives. Inoculation in unionism is the act of exposing workers to anti-union talking points before they circulate so that they build immunity to them. It is not enough to just dispel faulty narratives, we must build better stories, and that takes communication, transparency and education. •Communication: Our shared story is a conversation that evolves every day. • Transparency: We must be honest and open with ourselves and each other to build trust. • Education: We do not know what we do not know. We must be willing to learn and teach. We can all facilitate better conversations on the office floor. Sometimes it is as simple as asking a co-worker how they are doing? Other times it requires us to speak up. These daily conversations write a story that we will believe. Which story will it be? The other day a rural carrier with 20+ years under their belt was telling me how good we all have it as RCAs now, how they did not have health insurance or annual leave. I replied, “I know, thank you, it is because of people like you who stuck to the union all these years that we have these things.” They smiled, thought for a second and said, “Yeah, you’re right.” At the end of the day, the contract is the contract, but the culture belongs to us, and with it we can write our own story. We are the union, and in the words of Joe Hill, “There is power in a union.” Noah Lekas is an RCA and Local Steward in Berthoud, CO. You can find him on IG @noahclekas or at thelunchbucketletters.substack.com.