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Workers at Urban Ore, Berkeley’s last salvage store, announce union drive
By Iris Kwok - Berkeleyside, February 2, 2023
Workers at Urban Ore announced Wednesday that they intend to unionize.
The workers at Berkeley’s last architectural salvage store are hoping to join the Industrial Workers of the World Union 670 and have filed a petition for a union election with the National Labor Relations Board.
Organizers said they’re hoping to address understaffing, high turnover rates, and change the business’ wage structure through unionization. The store’s current wage structure, which fluctuates based on store profit and hours worked, exacerbates understaffing because it pads paychecks, said Urban Ore employee and organizing committee member Sarah Mossler.
“It’s dangerous, quite frankly, the work that we do when we don’t have sufficient staffing,” Mossler said. “We’re lifting huge things. I’ve definitely been in situations before where I’m helping a customer lift a stove out of the truck, and we’ve been understaffed, and there’s no one who can help me.”
Business unexpectedly boomed at Urban Ore during the pandemic amid a spike in demand for secondhand clothes. Revenue has climbed 35% since 2019, according to the business’ organizing workers.
Union organizers are confident that they have support from the majority of workers, and intend to proceed with an official vote within the next four to six weeks, depending on whether the NLRB approves their petition. (As organizers felt the union would not be received well by the store’s owners, they opted not to seek voluntary recognition and instead file directly for recognition from the National Labor Relations Board.)
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