A Letter from a Former Borders Manager

June 30, 1997

To My Old Colleagues at the Borders in Evanston

I miss you all, and hope you are doing well. I have spoken to some of you and enjoyed that greatly. Unfortunately, unlike Laura, I am too far away to stop in during my lunch hour. While there are a lot of things I would like to tell you about, I am writing this letter today concerning only one topic; that of unions. I know many of you have been thinking about it, and it certainly continues to be a part of the ongoing Borders experience. As a manager I was in an awkward position, and tried to stay out of conversations when the topic came up (I didn't always succeed). If anyone wonders what I really think, I can now tell you. I will start off by saying that while the Borders' corporate attitude towards unions was not the only factor in my decision to leave, it was honestly one of the straws that pushed me over the edge (just wanted you to know I hadn't forgotten how to mix metaphors - perhaps the only thing I learned from a certain Borders GM). Philosophically I have never understood any employee's anti-union stance. It is like saying 'yes, the company is right, I don't deserve more money, I don't need to think, for they obviously know what is best for me.' Given that no contract will be ratified unless it benefits the workers, I cannot see why it should not be pursued. The company will say it cannot afford it. Two points. One: that's what the auto makers in Detroit said before their employees unionized. That's what the owners of the coal companies said before the coal miners unionized (many dying in the effort - I don't believe it will come to that in this union cycle). But those industries did not die, they continued and thrived. Cars did not disappear, even if it is possible to argue that the country would be a better place if they had. Borders, and the retail book world in general, will no more disappear or go bankrupt than those other industries did. They will simply have a more satisfied workforce. Two: Look at the statistics; the average Borders hourly pay is considerably lower than the retail average nationwide, and this from a company priding itself on its retail workers being better educated and knowledgeable than any other. Take one more hard fact, pointed out by a Borders' employee at the Des Moines store (I think). Borders opens roughly forty stores a year at a cost of about 12 million or so a store. If they opened just three fewer stores, they would save enough money to give every bookseller, musicseller, and cafe worker a dollar an hour more. And it is easy to say that three out of that annual forty perform below expectations. If sites were picked more carefully, and just a few less, both the company and you would both be more profitable. Now on to a couple of philosophical points. In a letter to the staff of the World Trade Center store, posted shortly before the union vote, Mr. Flanagan, your president, stated, "the notion of a living wage is a pleasant, romantic notion, but it simply isn't feasible in today's world." How easy to say for someone who just exercised several million dollars in stock options. With your $500 stock promise three years down the line, do you really feel like an owner of the company? Frankly, I'm incensed by it, and I don't even work there anymore. I find that attitude disgusting. Why should he earn a living wage and not you? Only because you let him. People say retail jobs have never been unionized and that unions can't work and shouldn't be tried in retail environments. I believe the opposite; they are necessary and inevitable. Our parents' and grandparents' generations worked relatively unskilled blue collar jobs that, because they were unionized, allowed them to buy houses, raise families, live in their society. Many of those jobs have disappeared due to automation. The jobs that are available now are in the service sector; largely in retail. If society is to continue in any recognizable form, the people with those jobs must earn enough to buy houses, raise families, live in society. Otherwise, there will soon be no one with enough money to buy the things sold in retail stores. Don't laugh or belittle the idea; great movements start small, and you are there at the beginning. What you do has consequences far beyond your own jobs and the Evanston store. If the company tells you that unions are corrupt and shouldn't be trusted, consider this. No less a conservative and anti-union organization as the Reagan administration, before he left office, had a study done on the topic. It concluded that corporations were ten times as corrupt as unions. Mr. Reagan obviously had no political motive to widely publicize such findings, and they were left to be forgotten, but there they are. I claim no right to tell any of you to vote for a union. I only ask you to think for yourself, and do what you believe is right. Just as I have no right to tell you to vote for a union, the company has no right to tell you not to. Michael Moore, the banned from Borders Michael Moore, told the Borders brass that he would do all the free advertising for them that they wanted, if they would simply not fight union discussion or actively try to quell the movement. They laughed him out of the office. It is your job, and your life. I can only humbly ask that you look at everything, think for yourself, think clearly, don't make a knee jerk decision that you cannot explain even to yourself, and then do what you believe.

John Pearson
former assistant manager
Borders #144, Evanston, IL

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