Oz Sighting #4: The Union That Stopped Listening

I joined the union when I started working at Safeway. I believe in unions. I still do. The history matters. The protections matter. The idea of collective power matters. But belief isn’t the same as silent support. And what I’ve experienced doesn’t feel like collective power. It feels like Oz.

When I first started, we were negotiating a new contract. Suddenly, the union was everywhere. Reps showed up. Communication was constant. We were told how important it was to vote, to participate, to stand together, and we did. The contract passed. And then they disappeared. I saw my rep less and less. At some point, we apparently got a new one. I’ve never met him. Never heard from him. Couldn’t pick him out of a lineup.

I went to a “first member” meeting. I was the only person there. One person. In a mostly empty building, with staff I didn’t recognize, doing work I couldn’t quite place, for members who weren’t in the room. That’s not a movement. That’s a shell. And on the ground, the system doesn’t always work the way it’s supposed to. At Safeway, there are multiple unions covering different roles; grocery, bakery, meat, delivery drivers. Each siloed. Each separate.

I’ve watched coworkers hesitate to take better opportunities — better pay, better hours, more future — because switching roles means switching unions. Which means starting over. Losing seniority. Losing ground. Losing the very protections the system is supposed to provide. A structure designed to protect workers is, in practice, limiting their mobility. That’s not solidarity. That’s fragmentation.

I’ve also seen the other side. As a cannabis business owner, I dealt with union representatives who behaved in ways that were openly unprofessional and, at times, retaliatory. And they were protected. Not held accountable. Not corrected. Protected. Which made it harder for the people actually trying to do good work — on both sides.

That’s the part no one wants to talk about: When protection turns into insulation, and insulation turns into impunity. And then there’s the political machine.

The same union that struggles to show up consistently for its own members spent over $300,000 on a failed recall campaign, and nearly $2.9 million to pass a cannabis labor measure.

Millions of dollars. Member money. On political efforts that were poorly aligned with the realities of the industry — and are now likely headed toward legal challenges that could undo the entire thing.

I keep thinking about what $3 million could have built. Worker training programs. Emergency support funds. Real career pathways. Systems that actually improve people’s lives. Instead, it went to more political theater.

And when leadership is asked about it?

“We haven’t heard any regrets… Members see us fighting for them.”

Fighting for who?

Because from where I’m standing — on the floor, talking to actual workers — I don’t know anyone who feels meaningfully connected to the union right now. It’s a poster on the wall, not a presence in their lives.

This is the Oz moment.

Not because unions are inherently broken, but because this is what happens to systems over time when they stop listening. They harden. They professionalize. They learn how to speak the language of power — press releases, ballot measures, political strategy — and slowly lose the ability to hear the people they’re supposed to represent.

What starts as collective action becomes institutional behavior. What starts as solidarity becomes structure. And eventually, the structure starts serving itself. I don’t think this is unique to unions. We see it in political parties. In government agencies. In corporations.

Any system, left long enough without meaningful accountability and feedback, will drift toward performance over substance.

Toward signaling instead of impact.

Toward Oz.

And that’s what this feels like from the inside. A system that still talks about fighting for workers, while becoming increasingly disconnected from the reality of their lives. A system that can spend millions of dollars on political campaigns, but struggles to maintain a meaningful relationship with the people paying into it. A system that confuses motion for progress.

Fighting for workers shouldn’t mean ignoring them.

I believe in what unions made possible. But belief can’t mean ignoring what they’ve become in practice. Because if we can’t be honest about where systems stop working — we can’t build anything better.