As our own Phil Wilson has discussed at length, several recent campaigns have seen union activists, who act as paid covert internal organizers, often referred to as “salts.” These people infiltrate workplaces and convince their coworkers into signing a union card, often without revealing their motive for doing so. Once a union has been voted in, these paid activists cut and run, leaving workers to cope on their own. It’s been an issue in multiple industries:
- Food Service: The United Food And Commercial Workers have been ramping up recruiting by training new crops of salts through an “Essential Workers Organizing Academy.”
- Cross-sector: The Union of Southern Service Workers has been infiltrating several industries, no doubt with a hefty helping of salt.
- Jaz Brisack and Inside Organizer Collective: Brisack, a salt at Starbucks during the early campaign days in Buffalo, is the co-founder of the Insider Organizing Collective, which is responsible for training “salts” who have participated in several prominent campaigns, including Starbucks, Chipotle, Amazon, REI, and Ben & Jerry’s. Brisack received just under $69,000 from Workers United in 2021 and more than $67,000 in 2022.
- Retail: A Trader Joe’s worker unleashed a blistering editorial about working at the company’s first unionized store. The piece details bad-faith bargaining – from a supposedly “independent” union – via activists who were secretly affiliated with SEIU and Workers United.
In the case of coffee shop workers, the use of salts at Starbucks has been well-documented after SEIU-Workers United poured millions of dollars into a campaign that included paying activists to get hired, masquerading as trusted coworkers, and spreading union propaganda among frontline workers.
Also, Good Karma Café workers in Philadelphia recently enlisted the pro bono services of the National Right To Work Legal Defense Foundation, which helped baristas oust SEIU-Workers United. In that instance, workers had observed, “After the Workers United union was installed, there was a lot of employee turnover, and we soon found ourselves very short-staffed.” That cafe had indeed been salted, and with the help of the foundation, the workers were freed from SEIU and its forced dues.
Those particular baristas had a happy ending, but is there any way to prevent salting in the first place? After all, coffeehouse unions have turned out to be not universally popular with baristas. Decertification efforts have happened in several Starbucks cafes, including in Oklahoma City, Salt Lake City, NYC, Pittsburgh, and Buffalo, after workers sought pro bono representation from the National Right To Work Legal Defense Foundation.
Hope on the horizon: Previously, Nancy Jowske argued for required disclosure when Salts enter workplaces. And in late March, a GOP bill – the Start Applying Labor Transparency (SALT) Act – was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives. The bill aims to amend 1959’s Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (LMRDA), which currently requires disclosure from employers who use labor relations consultants to respond to organizing campaigns. The SALT Act would also require unions to report their use of salts, which helps workers identify all parties with vested interests in upcoming union elections.
The SALT Act has been lauded by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Americans for Tax Reform group. Employers would like to know if they are unknowingly inviting salts into the workplace, and workers should have the right to know who is attempting to influence them, no matter if the person is a consultant or a salt.
Whether or not the legislation passes, it will spread awareness of salting. Even the mainstream media has recently reported on union activists’ troubling tactics, suggesting the tide could be turning.
