Thank you all so much for being here for this very exciting announcement of the formation of the Book Workers Union, which is a union formed of the booksellers at the Elliott Bay Book Company.
As of last night, we also have a pretty exciting breaking news.
The management and our owner, Peter Aaron, has formally recognized our union.
And we are a union shop.
Yes.
I just want to acknowledge that we stand on the land of the Coast Salish people, particularly the Duwamish.
And just to mention about the recognition of our union, we're very encouraged by this move.
We work very closely with managers at Elliott Bay and we all take on many of the tasks at the store.
And we're very excited that they recognize what a thoughtful and talented staff they have who keep every corner and aspect of the store running.
Our goal with this union is to achieve a contract that allows us to survive in Seattle, a city where workers are continuing to be squeezed more and more.
We're looking for an increase in pay.
We're looking for better health care.
And we're looking for more democratic decision making within the business.
We also want this to allow us to demonstrate our full creative potential at this store to better serve the community at large beyond our staff, beyond even our customers.
We want the city to thrive and we want access to information to be as widespread as possible.
We feel like we are a very big part of that at the store.
We're also up against a lot.
Not all businesses are so quick to recognize their workers.
There are constant stories in this city of small businesses and large of firings, no benefits, and a lack of power.
We've seen where it goes when folks try and act alone.
More and more people are on the streets, especially from marginalized communities.
And on the opposite end, you have companies like Amazon, who are reaping billions in profits and paying nothing in taxes.
People often forget that Jeff Bezos started off selling books, but he took the path of extremist individualism, whereas the book workers are choosing a path of radical solidarity, as does, as of last night, Elliott Bay.
So just a few thank yous.
We want to thank with our whole hearts the Seattle DSA, especially the Workplace Organizing Collective, as well as the Art Workers Union, who have been so supportive of us.
And please support the Frey Art Museum, especially during this very challenging time with the coronavirus.
We want to thank all of our former bookseller comrades, especially Riley, Sean, Justin, and Blair, and all of you for supporting workers and keeping the good ship Abco afloat.
A note to all workers in Seattle, organize your workplace.
Talk to one friend.
Keep talking to them.
Don't stop.
That is how you organize your workplace and that is how you gain power.
And after this press conference, please stop in, buy a copy of Real Change out here before you go in.
Help out the people standing outside more than you normally would.
This is a challenging time for them too.
Buy a book.
Buy a book online if you're in self-quarantine.
We'll be pushing online sales as much as we can.
and please just support our beloved bookstore.
All of the booksellers here love this place so much and we want to keep it running for absolutely as long as possible into the future.
The Book Workers Union is digging in our heels here and Elliott Bay is here to stay.
Thank you so much.
I'm now going to pass the microphone to Lara Kamenov.
Hello, so excited.
All right, so I'd like to share a statement from Matilda Bernstein Sycamore.
She's a celebrated Seattle author and longtime friend of the bookstore.
She couldn't be here today, sadly, but she did want us to share a few of her words.
As the author of numerous books, I've traveled the country many times on tour, and I can honestly say that Elliott Bay Book Company is one of the best bookstores in the country.
As a writer, reader, customer, and neighbor, there's no question that Elliott Bay is also a crucial resource to me.
So I'm thrilled to hear that their staff is taking the bold step to unionize in order to further support a dynamic culture of readers and writers, authors and customers for years to come.
Nothing could be more important for the long-term viability of a venerable bookstore like Elliott Bay than a creative, well-read, and resourceful staff, and there is no better way to ensure job security, fair wages, and worker satisfaction than a union.
I really look forward to visiting Elliott Bay Book Company soon to celebrate this important step for the bookstore I know and love so deeply.
We would also, as all of us here behind me, would like to thank Matilda, Alex Gallo-Brown, and the many authors, patrons, and community leaders who shared their enthusiasm and support.
We also owe a very special thank you to Julian, Matt, and Alex of the DSA for being such tireless resource during our organizing efforts, Shama Sawant and her team, especially Jonathan Rosenblum for meeting with us, speaking here today, and amplifying the struggles of workers all over the city.
Warm thanks are owed to Chuck and Althea of AFT 1789 and the Brave Art Workers Union for their inspiration and guidance.
Also a huge thank you to Peter Aaron and the management for taking the bold step of recognizing our union in a political climate that is hostile to the rights of working people.
Finally, endless gratitude to all of the book workers of Elliott Bay for staying in the fight through the late nights, the early mornings, the endless discussions.
You all give me hope.
All right, who do we have next?
Next is a bookseller at Elliott Bay, Callie Winter.
I just want to say that this effort is a culmination of a long, dedicated effort that we've been ongoing and couldn't have really predicted the current moment that we'd find ourselves in.
As a group, we've given a lot of thought and discussion to ongoing current events, the coronavirus outbreak.
We're all worried right now.
This is exactly why now is such a crucial time for us to announce the formation of our union.
We know we're strongest together.
We can most effectively support each other and support others when we're supported ourselves.
Building a union is the way to ensure that support.
Through solidarity and collective bargaining, we can build that support between each other and get that from our employer.
We organize because we care deeply.
I know that's why I do it.
That's why my co-workers do it.
We care so much about the bookstore, about each other, and about the larger community that we're a part of.
And I just think that's especially important in moments like this, moments of uncertainty or crisis, moments where we're most vulnerable.
It's really important to stand together.
That's why I'm really proud to be part of this, this movement, this event, part of this union, and stay with these great people.
I just want to say thank you so much to all of you.
It means a lot.
And we're in it for the long haul.
All right, speaking next, we have another bookseller from Elliott Bay.
This is Jacob Shear.
Thank you.
Thank you all so much for coming out today.
Thank you so much to the news media for showing up in this uncertain time.
Thank you so much to Councilmember Sawant's office, to Jonathan Rosenblum, to the DSA members, Julian Gann, Alex Bacon, Matthew Fennell, for their tireless support during this whole process.
Thank you so much to AFT for being here, the Art Workers Union, and so many others.
I want to begin just by saying that each one of us are so, as mentioned, so incredibly grateful to be able to work for Elliott Bay.
And we're so heartened and so encouraged by the response that we've received from management by voluntarily recognizing our union.
And we look forward to bargaining a contract that ensures the collective well-being of us as booksellers and as workers in the city, as well as the longevity and continued success of Elliott Bay well into the future.
So we talked about Amazon, and many of our customers treasure Elliott Bay because it represents an alternative to Amazon, a company that has posed an existential threat to our bookstore and independent bookstores all across the country.
But by voluntarily recognizing our union, Elliott Bay has set itself up to be a true alternative to Amazon.
by becoming a company that takes into account the challenges workers living in Seattle face every day, and treats workers as human beings first, first and foremost, and not commodities.
Elliott Bay can be a workplace that recognizes that employee creativity and passion should be encouraged and tangibly rewarded, where workers can have viable, secure, and long-term careers doing work they truly care about, and being a workplace that demonstrates its commitment to employee physical and mental health by offering quality health insurance, the need for which has never been more urgent.
We are deeply committed to the long term success of Elliott Bay for ourselves, our customers, and our community.
We ask that management demonstrate the same commitment to us and negotiating good faith towards a contract that will allow us to remain at Elliott Bay well into the future.
Thank you.
And I think next we're going to hear from Althea Lazario from Seattle Central College.
Hi, I'm Althea Lazaro.
I'm here today as a loyal customer to celebrate the unionization of Elliott Bay.
Before I became a librarian, I was a bookseller at two independent bookstores in Portland, Oregon.
I had to work both jobs to make ends meet because I didn't have benefits or job security at either shop.
I loved the work, but it was unstable, and I eventually left to become a librarian with state benefits.
Because of that experience, I know how important independent bookstores are.
And I was delighted to find Elliott Bay Books when I moved here because I immediately recognized the role it plays in building a strong, connected community in Seattle.
And because the workers here make it a place to take refuge from the rain and connect to good people and good books.
Because of you all, Elliott Bay is a pillar of our community.
To support this special place, Seattle Central College Library made the transition a few years ago to buying the majority of our books for our collection here at Elliott Bay.
Now I get to shop here for my job.
This part of my work has become a real joy because I get to come here amongst these wonderful, knowledgeable, kind workers to buy outstanding books for our students.
In my current job as a community college librarian, I am a member of our teacher's union, AFT 1789. And being unionized has made all the difference in my life.
My job is stable, my benefits are secure, and as a woman with a disability, my quality of life has been essentially guaranteed.
I could wish nothing better for this community of book and knowledge lovers at Elliott Bay than that same kind of security.
Friends and colleagues, I am so thrilled to be here today to celebrate the strengthening of your workplace through unionization.
I didn't think it was possible, but because of this news, I am even more excited to come here to Elliott Bay.
Congratulations, you all.
All right, I would like to introduce you now to our District 3 Council Member, Shama Sawant.
Good morning, everybody, and congratulations to the Elliott Bay Book Company workers on forming your union with overwhelming worker support.
Congratulations also to everybody who stood with you, the Democratic Socialists of America in Seattle, the Workplace Organizing Group, Julian Gant, and also Jonathan Rosenblum from my office, who himself is a member of the Writers Union, UAW Local 1981. I love Elliott Bay Bookstore.
I have bought so many gifts here, especially for my nieces and nephews, and it gives me so much pleasure to be part of this important event of unionizing at this bookstore.
You workers, by standing up for the principle that workers need to have a voice in dealing with management on wages, benefits, working conditions, and democracy on the job, are showing where the power can be created in a situation of deep power imbalance.
You recognized that your only power is to the extent that you are united.
That's why you formed your union.
And my council office and my organization, Socialist Alternative, congratulate you and are proud to stand alongside you.
We're, of course, in the midst of an unprecedented historic crisis with the coronavirus pandemic.
In Seattle right now, tens of thousands of workers, gig economy workers, service economy workers, small business workers, workers in entertainment industries, retail workers, office workers, the list is endless, are waking up worried about basic survival.
Not only are many experiencing reduced hours and reduced pay, some have been laid off.
Many are going to be laid off more as the weeks go on because the crisis is not going away anytime soon.
We do have to recognize this existential threat isn't just because of the virus itself.
It is layered on top of a capitalist system that is deeply hostile to the vast majority of us working people.
A system that treats healthcare as a source of endless profits for a few at a top, not as a human right, and that allows people like Amazon's Jeff Bezos to accumulate more than $100 billion in wealth, while tens of millions of people in this country struggle paycheck to paycheck, a system that wrecks the climate because of the fossil fuel CEOs.
and their greed for profit.
So what you have done by forming a union today in the midst of this crisis is exactly what workers should be doing now around the country.
Now more than ever, especially with the pandemic upon us, workers need to form unions and strengthen the broader social movement of ordinary people demanding systemic solutions.
That is what we need to do because that is the only thing that will work now.
and we are literally talking about saving lives.
I'm glad to hear that the bookstore's owner has agreed to sit down with you and begin negotiating with you.
Let's be clear though, you have won union recognition because of your power of organizing and because of the incredible community support you have.
And of course we can't stop there.
We can't stop organizing the workplace.
Workers need to organize across workplaces community-wide and indeed worldwide to demand that the political establishment and major corporations step up and provide the social benefits that millions of people are going to need right now, especially because of the fundamentally broken system that already has marginalized us.
That is why I sent a letter to Mayor Durkin, in fact I have sent repeated letters to no avail so far and that's why we need to keep building this movement and keep fighting for our rights.
I've sent letters demanding that she exercise her emergency powers which she got because of a unanimous city council vote more than a week ago to ban all coronavirus-related evictions and foreclosures in Seattle immediately, but not only that, that the emergency powers mandate landlords and mortgage holders to negotiate reasonable payment plans with tenants, homeowners, so that we're not going to accept a situation where after the crisis is abated, there's a whole slew of evictions and foreclosures because people were not able to pay their rent during the moratorium.
So we need a moratorium, and we need an extensive payment plan to make sure that workers are kept whole and are not made homeless.
We launched a petition just 24 hours ago and we now have nearly 5,500 signatures on this petition demanding the moratorium on foreclosures and evictions.
So I hope that those of you who haven't signed it already will please sign it immediately and share it with all your friends and co-workers and family members, because I know that this will have an impact.
Just yesterday I saw an incredible example, you know, obviously we are...
We're not allowed to have big gatherings.
So we can't organize protest rallies and marches against the way that government is dealing with the coronavirus.
So we're having to do a lot of this electronically.
We heard yesterday morning that King County Metro and Sound Transit, in a completely tone-deaf manner, were still doing fare enforcement in the middle of this crisis.
This is unconscionable and there was an immediate electronic fight back and within hours we heard from King County Metro and Sound Transit that they are immediately suspending fare enforcement.
This can be effective.
Organized fight back can be effective.
Union organizing is a very fundamental component of that fight back.
So I hope we will all keep organizing, and make sure that the burden of this crisis does not land on the shoulders of ordinary people.
And we're not exaggerating here.
We don't have public health care.
On top of that, we just heard the Trump administration say that they are going to give a $1.5 trillion bailout package for the big banks.
Does this remind us of something?
In 2008, this exactly happened.
And they're doing this in the middle of a pandemic.
This is grotesque.
We need all that money.
We need the $1.5 trillion to give basic income to all working people in the United States and to make sure that immediately testing is widespread, available nationwide.
Thank you all so much again for coming out.
I just want to make one final ask of you.
Please come into this store and buy a book today.
If you're self-quarantining, go home, buy a book online.
We will ship it to you.
We're about to open our doors.
Many of our booksellers are going to go in there to work.
Please come in and support us.
Thank you so much.