Winning greater democracy in the workplace

Over four weeks, workers from Harry’s Mother and Streetlight/Porchlight held a picket to protest their managers’ decision to remove the 10-year-standing peer-review process for hiring and firing workers.

Managers from the nonprofit youth shelters worked alongside lawyers to devise new contracts that would remove the peer-review process in favor of mandatory arbitration.

There were a few different things that this meant. In the past, if a worker was up for being fired, a panel of three workers and two managers democratically decided by majority rule if the worker would stay. Effectively, workers could out-vote their bosses. Now, a panel of managers and lawyers would be the ones to handle the situation.

It also meant that mandatory arbitration would cost the workers and union a serious increase in money when such disputes arose. The peer review panel is quoted as having cost Janus, the nonprofit that oversees Harry’s Mother and Streetlight/Porchlight, a measly $57 to $100. Mandatory arbitration, however, would cost anywhere from $700 to $1,400, mostly on lawyers, each day of deliberation.

The spirited picket began in early February and was held outside Janus Administrative Offices on the corner of 707 NE Couch St.

The protest recalled labor movements of yore, including not only Janus workers, but also general members of the Portland branch of the

Industrial Workers of the World Union (IWW), under which Janus workers are organized. It was not uncommon during these weeks to drive by and hear the emotion-filled union sing-alongs, “Dump the Bosses Off Your Back” and “There is Power in the Union.”

The picket ended with a victory on March 10, when after a series of negotiations and threats to continue the picket, Janus managers and lawyers held a caucus and agreed to the terms set forth by Janus workers to keep their peer review panel. They also agreed to stipulations around wage re-opening. 

Class interest is not a topic commonly discussed at most tables. In fact, one could argue that since the mid-‘30s it has been considered uncouth to even discuss class interest in the United States.

Yet this is exactly the kind of conversation that needs to happen more often in our workplaces. Our bosses have interests, mostly those that relate to their bottom line and productivity, and they have a slew of players in their defense, such as lawyers, to protect their bourgeoisie class.

But in a true democracy, it isn’t just those who create their own power who deserve a voice and the power of choice. Workers have interests, too, and we also must look to different players, such as industrial unions, to help defend those rights.

Michelle Stonebraker is a worker for Janus, as well as an IWW member and English major at Portland State University’s Graduate School.  “I love working with the kids,” Stonebraker said, “but with challenges to capacity and low wages, we workers need to be treated fairly.”

Janus workers have shown us this valuable lesson. A traditional management style in the workplace is based upon hierarchy and is inherently non-democratic. Bosses have taken our voice and in its place have told us we are not fit to govern ourselves or decide who we work with.

Having a peer review panel lets the people who actually work alongside a worker defend that worker if they are being threatened –with termination. It gives a voice to people who, in a traditional workplace, would have to accept the hand that they were dealt, or deal with expensive and time-consuming legal routes that often are not empowering to anyone.

As our economy has its fluxes, it is often workers who bear the burden of cutbacks and layoffs, but it doesn’t have to be that way.

Janus workers gained their right to a peer-review panel by fighting for it and by being organized. It is up to each of us to rise to the same fight if we desire to live in a truly democratic world, and be treated fairly as workers. ?