Borders Skirmishes: Booksellers Make Lousy Money-and Book Chains Want to Keep it That Way

At the Uptown Borders bookstore, employee relations suddenly count for a lot. The day after workers there announced they were seeking union representation, a box of candy and three cases of pop materialized in the break room. Within a week, the company's regional manager appeared in Minneapolis to chat up employees about their jobs and offer assistance with any workplace problems. Holly Krig, a two-year employee of the store and union supporter, wonders what will be next. "Maybe a pony?" she speculates. "Steaks?"

On October 18, Krig and 19 other employees will vote on whether to join the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 789. If the labor drive is successful, the Uptown store will become the only unionized Borders in the country. Local 789 hopes to spread the union drive to other local branches of the bookstore as well. Last week a union organizer met with Borders employees at the Richfield and Minnetonka locations.

Despite its current union-free state, the book behemoth is no stranger to labor disputes. Since 1996, 11 Borders stores have held union elections, and in four instances workers have voted for outside representation. All four of those unions expired, however, after employee interest faded and the unions voluntarily withdrew. The company has developed a reputation for being fiercely antagonistic toward organized labor, relying on the counsel of Jackson Lewis, one of the premier union-busting law firms in the country. "I think [Borders is] extremely hostile," says Bernie Hesse, an organizer with Local 789. "They resorted to firings and discipline in other stores."

The most notorious example occurred in 1996. Miriam Fried, a Borders employee who had helped lead a union drive in Philadelphia, was terminated shortly after the failed election. Protests were held across the country on Fried's behalf, and her cause was trumpeted in the Nation. Fried filed a grievance with the National Labor Relations Board seeking to get her job back, but it was ultimately rejected.

The Uptown workers say they expect a vigorous propaganda campaign by Borders over the next month to convince them that union representation is not in their best interest. "We intend to be relentless," says Krig. "We realize that Borders doesn't have a history of being friendly with unions. We're prepared for that reality."

Anne Roman, corporate affairs counsel for the Ann Arbor, Michigan-based book chain, maintains that the company will simply present employees with information and let them make up their own minds. "We believe our employees are intelligent individuals," Roman says. "Obviously they have a right to explore whether they think a union is in their best interest. By that same token we have a right to express that we don't think a union is the best path to meeting employee needs."

If the Borders employees are successful in forcing union representation, it would be a rare triumph for organized retail workers. For more than a year, Local 789 has been seeking to organize such employees through its "You Are Worth More" campaign. Yet despite radio advertisements, a Web site, and numerous literature drops at retail outlets, the Uptown Borders store is the first to seek representation.

Jason Evans, another Borders employee who supports the union, believes that the Uptown campaign, if successful, could have broader ramifications for retail workers. He hopes to spread the union drive to other Borders stores in the Twin Cities and beyond. "We're not looking for 30 cents an hour and we'll be pleased," he maintains. "This is something much grander. I guess we're ideologues."

As in most labor disputes, one source of the employees' discontent is wages. According to workers, salaries range roughly from $7 to $9.50 an hour. Because there is a surfeit of young people with liberal-arts degrees willing to sacrifice income for the opportunity to work around books, Borders has no shortage of applicants. "People are clamoring for our jobs," says Simone Menier, another Uptown employee. "We hand out several applications a day." Workers bitterly note that meanwhile, Borders chief executive officer Gregory Josefowicz received a salary of more than $1.1 million last year, and an additional $1 million in stock options.

The Uptown employees also worry about job security. They point to a company-wide restructuring at Borders in February 2001 that eliminated the position of assistant manager and made many of those employees into supervisors at lower salaries. That restructuring is the object of a class-action lawsuit against Borders in California. "At any time something like that could happen again, and we have no way to prevent it," argues Krig. "There's just no recourse at all."

Other recent decisions by the corporation have also fueled workers' discontent. They point to Borders' embrace of "category management," in which publishing houses pay a premium for the right to dictate where, and how prominently, their titles are featured in each store. Which means that those end-cap displays and new-release tables are more and more a matter of bought-and-paid-for publicity, and less and less a reflection of the community or the personality of the store's staff. Small wonder Borders' Uptown employees fear they're becoming mere cogs in a bookselling empire.

Borders is facing a similar union drive in Gurnee, Illinois. Unlike in Minneapolis, however, the store's management became aware of the campaign early on and has actively sought to squelch it. According to Eugene Kulin, a store employee who is leading the drive, the company's regional manager has been brought in to dissuade workers from supporting the union, and pro-union employees have been punished for their stance. Kulin claims that one union supporter was fired for petty rule violations. "There's no doubt in my mind that it was because he was definitely with us," he says.

No election date has been set in Gurnee, but Kulin believes success at the Minneapolis store would help jump-start his efforts. "Now people are seeing, 'Hey, it's not just my pet project,'" he says. "They're seeing that it's a real thing. Interest is picking up again."

Fractures have already started to surface at the Uptown store. After the union election was announced, Evans posted a couple of pro-labor cartoons in the break room. Within a couple of days they had disappeared. Evans responded by posting a piece of paper on the bulletin board with just one word: "blank." "I figured that's what they wanted us to say and think: nothing," he says. Shortly afterward the cartoons resurfaced, accompanied by a poem dealing with betrayal.

Evans believes such jousting will do little to deter workers from voting for the union. "They completely underestimate us," he says. "We're confident we're going to win."

What a crying shame this is not happening in Texas.

In case you don't know, Texas is a right to work state. There is a grocery store chain here that has a very specific rule regarding the distribution of union material on the property: If you are an employee, and you are seen doing this, whether on the clock or not, you will be fired on the spot. No questions asked.

I support that chain for just that reason.

Labor unions wore out their welcome years ago.

Sounds a lot like Food Lion: they're VERY anti-union. Nor do the employees want union: I worked at a Food Lion for a little over a year and every one of my co-workers was faithful to the company, because the company was faithful to the employees. Unions have no place to creep in at all. Which is the reason why ABC went after Food Lion like it did back in '92

I worked at a Food Lion for a little over a year and every one of my co-workers was faithful to the company, because the company was faithful to the employees.

Isn't Food Lion the chain that bilked some of their employees out of some of their overtime pay?

I always thought Tom E. Smith should have turned this into a commercial: "Last year, we stiffed our employees for over 2 million dollars worth of overtime pay. That's 2 million dollars YOU didn't have to pay for groceries. At Food Lion, when we save, you save."

Union organizer Hesse points out that Minnesota grocery store employees--the only segment of the retail industry that is heavily unionized--make an average wage of $13 an hour. "Why is it so radical for somebody to work in retail and earn a living wage?" he asks rhetorically. "I honestly am just puzzled by that."

Like most union supporter/socialist types, this man is clearly an economic illiterate. They seem to think corporations are just sitting on a huge, stagnant piles of money that they dole out as they see fit. Wages are a careful balance of what the company can afford to pay, and what people are willing to work for. All the other capital is reinvested in the company. I'll bet Borders simply cannot afford to pay the kinds of wages a supermarket chain can. I worked in a bookstore briefly; the pay sucked, so I found a higher paying job with better hours. No one, but yourself, owes you a living. If you don't like what bookstore is paying, you free to find another job and leave the clerking to the teenagers and college students.

Workers bitterly note that meanwhile, Borders chief executive officer Gregory Josefowicz received a salary of more than $1.1 million last year, and an additional $1 million in stock options.

What does that have to do with anything?

You'll find unions or sympathy toward them, where there is employee discontent. There are always some malcontents in the best run companies, but generally it is more prevalent where workers are badly treated.

If Borders stiffs its workers, you bet they'll have to contend with unions.

If Borders stiffs its workers, you bet they'll have to contend with unions.

I bet not. From the article:

Because there is a surfeit of young people with liberal-arts degrees willing to sacrifice income for the opportunity to work around books, Borders has no shortage of applicants. "People are clamoring for our jobs," says Simone Menier, another Uptown employee. "We hand out several applications a day."

Nobody makes sacrifices to work around canned peas.

Companies get the unions they deserve, generally.

You're absolutely right. Say what you will about unions when non-unionized employees decide to unionize it's a sign of serious mismanagement. Happy employees don't want to join unions. Poorly treated, poorly led and poorly paid employees do. I've personally witnessed this phenomenon at work.

Yes, a surfeit of labor is always the employer's friend.

Why waste time and resources attempting to raise the morale of your current employees, when there is a queue of willing applicants more than willing to bend over and grasp their ankles?

I worked at Altman Camera in Chicago several decades ago. The employes voted in a union and the next day the owner closed the store and sold the inventory and the building. Union or no union, the store has to be profitable. If it isn't there will be layoffs or store closings.

Like most union supporter/socialist types, this man is clearly an economic illiterate. They seem to think corporations are just sitting on a huge, stagnant piles of money that they dole out as they see fit. Wages are a careful balance of what the company can afford to pay, and what people are willing to work for. All the other capital is reinvested in the company. I'll bet Borders simply cannot afford to pay the kinds of wages a supermarket chain can. I worked in a bookstore briefly; the pay sucked, so I found a higher paying job with better hours. No one, but yourself, owes you a living. If you don't like what bookstore is paying, you free to find another job and leave the clerking to the teenagers and college students.

bttt....exactly my sentiments.

Workers bitterly note that meanwhile, Borders chief executive officer Gregory Josefowicz received a salary of more than $1.1 million last year, and an additional $1 million in stock options.

What does that have to do with anything?

It's called "class envy".

Whatever the market will bear. For those liberal arts grads who think they're underpaid, there's always the grocery store.

Does the consumer never enter into the equations? Personally, I want the biggest selection of books at the lowest price. That's my bottom line; how Borders and its employees arrive at that is up to them.

We have a Borders here in South Portland right across from the Maine Mall. What really cracks me up is that every day is casual Friday in there!!! I know it's nice to be able to wear jeans and such to work, but a lot of the people there are too casual, if you know what I mean. Nothing says "I care" quite like showing up for work wearing a backwards baseball cap, or jeans and a T-shirt (not even the kind with a pocket), assorted piercings, unshaven, or those goofy-looking pants/shorts that go just past your knees!!

Always a lot of people in there--it's nice to browse, they have a big selection of books. Lot of best-selling books are discounted 20-30%. An independent bookstore in the shopping plaza across the street did close due to their competition. I go there to browse, mostly, and I keep a list of books I'd like to get and compare prices there with those at Amazon.

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