People are the cornerstone of the Borders Union movement. People who want Borders to live up to its mission statement goals of being the world leader in selection, service, innovation, ambiance, and community involvement. People who will not accept the gradual decay of the Borders Culture, who want professional respect at work, who don't want to live in fear of the next restructuring, and most of all, who want a fair wage for an honest day's work.

Borders stores are not mere bookstores: the stores also operate to some degree as community centers, entertainment venues, research libraries, and coffeehouses. Borders stores are as busy as supermarkets, but supermarkets where the customers and the company expect superior and informed service from educated and literate clerks. Borders owes its success to the expertise and reputation of its hourly-wage book and music sellers. A college degree is not a prerequisite for employment at Borders, but it is common.

Some people believe there is something about retail which dooms its employees to a substandard level of compensation. What are the most common low wage jobs? Waiting on customers, cleaning up after people, cooking food, and looking after small children. What do all these jobs have in common? Traditionally, they have been women's work.

No one at Borders would knowingly devalue traditionally female occupations.  But unless someone can explain why these jobs should carry a stigma, it's reasonable to assume that a sexist outlook of the past is coloring our perceptions today. People talked about teaching the same way, but the simultaneous infusion of male teachers and unionization have resulted in better wages and higher status. When labor organizes, the market for labor changes. Old perceptions die off and new middle class jobs emerge.

Why is it right for anyone to work full-time at less than a living wage? Some industries will always be able to afford better wages than others, but in Germany, Australia, Great Britain, and most other western democratic countries, booksellers earn much more there than here.  Why? Trade unions.

It is possible you might stay longer at Borders than you think. Does anyone plan to work on an assembly line their entire life? Or at a grocery store?  Of course not; we would all rather be artists. Wouldn't it be nice if those of us who do stay at Borders could make a decent living? Then if we wanted to buy homes and raise families, we could afford to. That was the choice that autoworkers took decades ago and several raised children whom later became the same executives who say we do not need a union.

In a recent article in Ann Arbor Magazine, Tami Heim, President of Borders, stated that as a sixteen-year-old in 1974 she earned $2.10 per hour for her labor as a retail worker in a department store. Today that $2.10 an hour translates into $8.18 of spending power. How much did you make when you started at Borders? How long before you reach over $8.00 per hour? Borders will tell you that they operate in a highly competitive retail environment and can�t afford to pay their workers more. How does profit-sharing, nine paid personal days per year, eighty hours unused personal time rolled-over to the next year, merchandise credits for employees after only one month of service, and paid-down unused vacation time sound? Borders used to offer this and more to its employees, and they can again

There are other troubling issues, apart from the compensation: understaffing, invasive anti-theft procedures, increasingly complex and redundant sales floor operating procedures, the lack of an effective grievance procedure for store employees; an expensive health benefits plan, questionable, divisive anti-union tactics; the effect of category management on the title base; and, in general, a promulgation of new policies and procedures that seem divorced from the day-to-day reality of running a bookstore. Some stores experience a few of the above, some experience all and more. To the corporation, most of preceding are economic issues, but to the employees they are issues of trust and of the quality of our working lives.

The most effective way to approach these issues of pay, benefits, and working conditions is to form a union. Even a progressive company like Borders can't help but to see its employees, sometimes, as mere bottom-line expenses. That's why you can't always trust an employer, even an enlightened employer, to do the right thing. There's no guarantee that a union will get you a raise, more benefits, greater respect, and more control over your work life, but that's exactly what a union is meant to do -- that's its reason for being.