Now, wait just a minute! What the hell are you talking about when you say that "none of the options here is to organize"? There's plenty of information on this site about unionization. There have been several lengthy discussions on older threads about the benefits of organizing as well as realistic assessments of what people have had to deal with from BoINC in the process.

There are also threads that have discussed affiliating as an individual with IWW and other unions that are recruiting in situations such as yours.

So, there ARE some other options when you've determined that there's little possibility of organizing your own store. Are you interested in informing yourself about and pursuing those or primarily in castigating the rest of us for what you perceive to be our bad attitudes?

I apologize for not posting the response I started to your original post. I too noticed "organize" missing from Queerlove's response.

So let's start. This International rep you talked to sure said a mouthful of truth
"According to him, a lot of unions are VERY iffy about stepping in unless it's a guarantee that the entire employee base DEFINITELY wants the union, and will put their money where their mouths are when push comes to shove."
The entire proposition is VERY iffy if what you are looking for is some paternalisitic outside interest to "step in" and take over the process. There simply are no existing strong models for unionizing a publically held nationwide retail chain. And Borders knows exactly how to play the NLRB/Big Union game to their advantage. That's why its so very important to think outside the Big Union box when thinking about an organized workplace in your store.
This rep did you one huge favor...the LAST THING YOU NEED OR WANT is LESS empowerment...ANOTHER machine dictating your worklife..an outside entity with its own money grubbing interests "stepping in" to the process. (If some people here were willing to be candid on that score, we could lay this "call your nearest union local" horseshit to rest.)

Because what you are trying to do is painstaking and unprecedented (done right) of course it will be frustrating, and no one could blame you for bailing.

But before you do, do yourself and your co-workers the favor of contacting a union ORGANIZER not a union rep. The idea here is not to have the interested of another party "represented" to you...the idea here is to learn techniques of ORGANIZING your workplace into a Union of co-workers willing to stand together for what they consider fair, responsive and respectful treatment, from Borders AND from any union they may affiliate with!!! This does not require everyone be a part of that Union, but it does require a Union be built.

Building a Union is no different than any other endeavor where unlike persons join together to a cause..whether that be a political campaign, a high school play or a union drive. Someone has the idea and starts the ball rolling, they look for expert advice, a plan is set down, people are properly encouraged to support and contribute. It won't happen overnight or without sweat and time...and it won't organize itself or just by asking.

A big union could come in and "organize" you Big Union Style...but you, trust me, don't want that.

I too share your fear that this forum has become a place where people vent their frustrations instead of forging them into concrete action. It only makes Binc's job that much easier.

Move on if you are really ready to, but please not because of what one union rep said or what goes on here. If you need the name of an organizer to call you, email me.

To win a unionizing vote can be difficult, and I tend to think it is EXTREMELY difficult to do so without instore management's help(meaning they must be acting so badly and arrogently that it has hit the point of pride and justice with people) unless the economic climate has just become utterly dire. But what is not difficult at all, I have found, is to set up a readied climate and condition with a core of workers that if a store's management were to turn that blatantly abusive, and thus show more of Binc's true intentions and attitudes, the employees could act quite quickly to use that created anger, frustration and legit concern of the fencesitters and others previously more skeptical of the reality of the rights and benefits involved in unionizing to get the staff properly and protectively organized. Most likely Binc is going to give each and every store the opportunity and poor environment to aptly demonstrate the need and benefit of being organized. What you and others can be doing right now and on into the future is to keep up with honest, counter arguments and observations to Binc spin, economic awareness for all concerning the real present and future situations of both income earners and Corp/capital holding entities; and Especially making contacts, talking amongst yourselves about plans with organizing institutions and establishing bonds with organizers you could move on quickly when Binc acts to make the need so obvious in the store. (And don't be a stranger to the new hires and/or younger ones. It still partly surprises me, but because these folks have huge bills if they are in school and/or many, many other reasons for it, they tend to be EXTREMELY pro-unionizing.)

(A tip-of-the-hat to all the bought and paid for "realists" on the site. Predicting the future is EXACTLY that; prediction, speculation and guesswork whether educated or planted, and therefore not "reality." The difficulty is true enough. For that matter the difficulty of Binc keeping unions out is VERY REAL, too! And surely they do work better and harder at it, esp. given the lucrative resources and time WE help create for them to do so. Plus, I strongly suspect there is a great deal of shear management bravado and egoism that goes into it. ( I wouldn't think Corp. Elite, astute managers and motivators of people that they are, could be merely tricked into such anti-organizing efforts by some shrewed sales men and women. No, they know their treatment of the instore nonexempt staff is heavily exploitive in upper-managements' favor. Goodness, they budget and bank on it.) So I will conceed that timing and readiness, preparation and patience, and more aggressive outreach by staffs are very real necessities for progress in this Corporations' employee satisfaction and profit sharing.