Chapter 9
Nine
“I propose a toast!” Lola proclaims, lifting her Topo Chico like it’s the finest champagne in the land.
After a celebratory bowling game, our gang of four relocated to Punch Bowl’s dining area, overlooking the recessed lanes.
It’s usually occupied by harried parents while their kids go wild. At this hour, the clientele favors nine-to-fivers taking
advantage of the cheapest happy hour in town.
And even for us, the underaged and exploited, happy hour means cheap snacks. I’d prefer free, as in Lou’s, but Efraín whipped
out a shiny credit card before Lola ordered for the table.
“What are we toasting?” Naomi raises her ginger beer.
“You!” Lola says. “We got the dress code changed because of you, Naomi.”
Naomi ducks her head. “It was Efraín’s idea.”
“It wasn’t the idea that won.” Efraín’s fingers curl tightly around his Coke bottle. “We acted together. That’s how we won.”
“Then here’s to all of us!” Lola wiggles her bottle. “Ride or die, babes!”
I clink my generic red plastic tumbler of complimentary tap water, but I don’t echo the words like Naomi and Efraín do. I
don’t belong here.
They’re all smiles and good cheer and fizzy drinks. Who am I to revise history now?
Except, I should’ve known Efraín doesn’t care much for history he can’t read in Howard Zinn or an @workingclasshistory Instagram
post. Efraín only ever has an eye to the future, one foot in the hydroponic grass landscaping his solarpunk utopia.
So I really shouldn’t be surprised by the smirk stretching across his face.
“Congratulations, comrades,” Efraín says. “We’re a union now.”
That word sets off air raid sirens inside my skull. Not comrades—Efraín’s been known to make comrade jokes when he’s feeling punchy—but union.
“What do you mean?” I ask, careful not to give away a flicker of my fear. “I mean, I know what a union is.”
We did a partner presentation on the Bread and Roses Strike last semester, and when we had free rein to pick our topics for
papers on social movements in California in the ’60s, I marked up his passionate essay about the Delano grape strike while
he proofread mine on the Compton’s Cafeteria riot.
So, yes, I know what a union is; I know that unionizing can be dangerous. Union busting has gotten whole Starbucks shops shut down and workers laid off; historically, people have died for labor rights.
“I just don’t understand what unions have to do with us, here and now.”
Efraín’s lazy smile reminds me of Sputnik sprawling in the sun. “We became a union as soon as we decided to defy the dress
code. That’s all a union is, legally. Two or more workers working together to—”
“Wait.” His words are coming too fast, and I can’t keep up. This doesn’t make sense. “That can’t be right. Unions are . . .
official, regulated. Big. Bureaucratic. Byzantine. Did I say official? Industry-wide, like agricultural workers, rail workers
or . . .”
“Auto workers,” Lola adds.
“Teachers,” Naomi says.
“Nurses.”
“Teamsters.”
“Service employees.”
“Firefighters and cops.”
“And prison guards.”
“Really?” Naomi scrunches up her nose.
“Yes,” Efraín cuts in with a grimace. “The California Correctional Peace Officers Association is one of the strongest unions in the state. Unfortunately. But to restore your faith in humanity, strippers and sex workers have had a branch of the Communications Workers of America since the seventies. And don’t forget trades like steelworkers, carpenters, and electricians.
” Then he flicks his eyes at me and adds, “The Writers Guild of America, the Screen Actors Guild, and whatever the ‘AFTRA’ stands for.”
He’s making an emotional appeal. Basic persuasive rhetoric. I like TV; I like knowing things about TV. That includes knowing about unions composed of people I respect. He knows I have every artifact in NSX memorized,
but has he seen the photo of Victor and Judy, who went into script doctoring after NS was canceled, at the front picket lines of the WGA strike in the summer of 1988—one of Kane’s last public appearances?
“I still don’t understand what this has to do with us,” I object. “Those are adults working full-time jobs, and they don’t
run their unions out of bowling alley bars.”
“We’re working full-time for the next three months, and business unions aren’t the only way to unionize,” Efraín answers without
explaining anything.
“Business unions?” asks Naomi.
“Isn’t Big Business what unions are working against? Or did I miss an episode of Succession?” asks Lola. “Just kidding. I missed every episode of Succession.”
“Business unions aren’t Big Business. They’re the big, official organizations Elisha mentioned—monster conglomerates in their
own right who make unionizing their business model. They’re nonprofit, sure, but still concerned about their organizational bottom line, not negotiating the best contract for their members. It’s not always workers taking control of their own workplaces.”
“In other words,” I say, harsher than I actually feel, “those unions aren’t a precursor to seizing the means of production.”
“Neither are solidarity unions,” Efraín snaps, and there. That obsidian-sharp edge limning his tone, barely a blip on the Mohs hardness scale, but even this flicker of flinty irritation
is so much more familiar than the Efraín of the past twelve hours.
“What’s a solidarity union?” Naomi asks, with the same innocence she’d ask it in a social studies classroom.
Efraín explains, “Solidarity unions operate on the principle that workers can improve the workplace as a collective, without
the middlemen. They challenge bosses without red tape. There doesn’t have to be an official bargaining unit because the end
goal isn’t always a contract.”
“Then what is the end goal?”
“Little hits. Small, tactical collective actions add up to major improvements in working conditions.”
I mutter, “I’ve never heard you advocate for incremental change before.”
“Think of it as a covert hostile takeover. Solidarity unions can operate underground.”
A “covert hostile takeover” still sounds businesslike. Workplace-appropriate skirmishes at the outskirts of corporate warfare,
but this? Efraín’s describing unionizing as guerrilla warfare.
“And you want us to organize a solidarity union at the Nuclear Seasons Experience,” I summarize.
Efraín nods as he polishes off his Coke.
“But why? Today was our third day of work. We saved Naomi’s job and got the dress code changed for everyone. It’s over. We won.”
“You said it—incremental change isn’t winning.”
“That’s definitely not what I—”
“Haven’t you been paying attention to all the little shit? They didn’t give us our second legally mandated break on Wednesday.
I overheard Gwen getting into a debate with Dan about whether her polka-dot Mary Janes qualify as black shoes under the dress
code. Anya misgendered you in front of everyone, and Dagny . . .”
Now Efraín tries to meet my eyes, but I look away.
“I bet if we poked around,” he says, “we’d hear we aren’t the only workers with grievances.”
Part of me is grateful that he’s not proposing we unionize without consulting employees who’ve been there long enough to earn
Employee of the Month, but the rest of me is still in shock.
“Unionizing on the DL?” Lola laughs. “Love that for us.”
Naomi asks, “But wouldn’t official recognition be a prerequisite for legal protection?”
“Nope. This is legal,” Efraín replies with a snort.
“For all the ways that corporations, Congress, and the courts have found to screw workers over, concerted activity is protected. That means two or more workers acting together—recognized by management or not—have rights. Specifically, the right not to be fired for concerted activity.”
“Like all of us dyeing or bedazzling our hair,” Lola says.
Naomi frowns. “When you said they couldn’t fire all of us—”
“It would’ve been illegal.” My mouth is dry, but my hand’s shaking too much to lift my cup. I stare at Efraín. “That’s what
you’re saying, right? You knew.”
“Companies don’t follow the law. They count on workers not knowing their rights, not feeling empowered—”
“Why didn’t you just say—”
Would I have done anything differently if Efraín had told me from the beginning that the hair dye rebellion wasn’t the riot
I was imagining so much as the equivalent of a constitutionally protected peaceful assembly? Does that distinction change
anything now?
I blink back to the table, where Lola’s piling nacho fixings, Naomi’s rearranging condiment bottles, and Efraín’s wearing
the smuggest smirk I’ve ever seen.
So, I ask the question we’ve all been tap-dancing around. “You called us a union. What is it you’re proposing we do, exactly?”
“I thought you’d never ask.”