Hello all,
Over the past few months, we have seen a decent amount of workers come and leave the co-op, so we think it would be a good time to briefly set forth some intentions and to clarify our position with regard to our roles as stewards.
We are here to listen, not to lead. Our job as stewards is to represent and support you, and to be a conduit of information between bargaining unit members and union leadership. We are not here to carry out personal attacks or to persuade anyone how or when to engage in union-related activities and actions.
Moving forward, we intend on bringing people together and restoring, to our best ability, a sense of trust and solidarity. This means fully committing ourselves to incorporating anti- racism, feminism, and queer & trans rights as integral parts of our work. There can be no labor movement without taking all forms of oppression seriously in every word we speak and move we make. As stewards, we think it is vital that we are held fully accountable to these standards.
We want to re-establish and sustain a working environment in which our union members feel safe and encouraged to give us any and all feedback, including those that may include criticisms and disagreements. We will always listen and reflect in good faith. Again, we are here to serve you, not the other way around.
We realize that our stewardship has been very white, and both of us are willing to step down and cede our positions as stewards to any Black or POC staff member who may be interested in becoming a steward.
Additionally, as many of you already know, Mika has been planning to step down as steward for some time now, to focus on other areas of their life. They will likely do this formally in the near future. They are grateful for their time serving you all in this role and are committed to improving our co-op going forward in any ways they can help.
Going forward, we commit to respectful communications with both management and the board. In all likelihood, policy disagreements will still arise, disciplinary disputes will happen, and there will be conflicting feelings. Nonetheless, we have a contract in place that outlines how we will handle these things, and we feel it's important to try and work together whenever possible.
As a token of good faith, we want to give management credit where it is due for taking some of our policy recommendations into account, and restoring some of our working hours. There is still a lot of work to do, but we are encouraged by these developments as signs that things are improving.
We thank you all for reading, and we welcome any feedback or questions.
In solidarity,
Mika and Chris