USW's Mariana Padias on Big River Sawmill Win and First Contracts

An organizer showed up for a first meeting at a sawmill in rural Mississippi and was handed 40 signed union authorization cards before taking a seat. Workers at Big River Sawmill in Gloster, Miss., had already organized themselves. The Van Devender family's ownership fired four workers, held captive-audience meetings, and turned the mayor against them. On June 25 and 26, the workers won anyway. On today's episode of America's Work Force Union Podcast, United Steelworkers Assistant Director of Organizing Mariana Padias tells the full story of the Big River campaign, including the unusual role of Blue Wolf Capital Partners, a pro-union minority equity investor that publicly backed the workers when the owner refused to stay neutral. She also explains why the national average time to a first contract is 480 days, how companies use that window to erode worker support, and what the bipartisan Faster Labor Contracts Act, now before the Senate, would do to change it. Visit usw.org for more.