At the moment, there is no single union that is organizing at Borders, or a single union that is dedicated to organizing booksellers in general. Previously, the IWW, the UFCW and the Teamsters have all been approached by employees. Five stores have succeeded in negotiating union contracts, all represented by various local unions affiliated with the United Food and Commercial Workers. Two stores are currently under contract.
Traditionally, workers who organize go through an NLRB (National Labor Relations Board) election campaign to determine whether they want a union to represent them. However, even if employees of a store approve the union, it is very difficult to negotiate a contract that makes significant gains, especially if only one store is involved.
A solution might involve the creation of a single union for booksellers, a union whose membership was open to everybody who wanted to join, regardless of whether the majority of employees in their store had voted for a union. A "minority union" of this type would be a great way to build national support and work towards industry-wide union representation.
Even if only 25% or less of the employees of a store favor unionization, that 25% still have a basic legal right under the National Labor Relations Act to engage in concerted activities for mutual aid and protection. This pretty much covers any activity that workers do together in order to maintain or improve their working conditions. It may even include an action by one single employee, if the purpose of that employee's action was to inspire the rest of the group to act, or even just to represent their common interest.
For example, if management fires a popular employee, that 25% could walk off the job to demand that employee's reinstatement and (theoretically) shouldn't be fired for their actions.
So What Do I Do?
Generally, if you go the NLRB election route, a union election won't take place unless 70% or more employees have signed union cards expressing interest (the law only requires 30%, but most unions want more). That has happened thirteen times at Borders, and six stores have voted the union in. Of those, five negotiated a contract. At this time two stores are under contract.
The course you should take is up to you and your fellow workers. If you feel that you have strong support in the store and that you should approach a traditional union for an election campaign, that is your decision to make. Even if you don't have majority support, you may want to approach local labor organizations for advice and legal support.
However, there is another path. Some people involved in the ongoing union campaign at Borders are proponents of minority unionism and forming a national organization specifically for booksellers.
A minority union would centralize contact information. A national coordinator could track the interest in unionizing store-by-store across the country. Information about the industry and legalities could be centrally gathered.
One responsibility of the minority union would be to put together a strike fund and the goal should be to make every striking bookstore employee 'whole'. That is, workers on strike should ideally see strike pay match their weekly wages. That's a lofty goal if we're talking about a hundred-store strike, but it's an important one.
The minority union would also offer alternative health plans, education benefits, insurance, banking, and legal resources.
Most importantly, the Minority Union would be a resource to store organizers. Single stores would, of course, have the right to go it alone. In some sense, the minority union would have the relationship to store organizers that bookstore employees have to their customers. Ideally, it would be there to serve the members as a resource, although there will be times when the minority union will have to make choices about allocating resources, and in time, if the national movement was stong enough, to become a majority union and undertake the negotiation of contracts that will result in significant gains. What do you think of this strategy?