(Photo: Maura Murnanae)
Just six months after becoming the first sex shop to unionize, Babeland has been accused of unlawfully firing an employee and engaging in practices that violate the National Labor Relations Act.
The Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) filed an Unfair Labor Practice charge against the sex shop’s owners yesterday, November 14.
The complaint filed with the National Labor Relations Board charges that on October 24, Babeland fired Kamryn Wolf, who then worked at the Brooklyn store, for speaking about the union to a reporter on the phone. It accuses Babeland of “maintenance and enforcement of work rules that chill…the rights of employees” and of firing Wolf for “outspoken support of the RWDSU.”
Stephanie Basile, an organizer with the union, told us the incident happened when Kamryn, who planned to move, had put in notice with the store and was working their last couple of weeks. “A reporter happened to call the store who was writing a story on something else, had a very brief conversation where Kamryn mentioned, ‘Oh and by the way, we unionized,’ and then the next day they told this person, ‘You’re done.’”
Claire Cavanah, who co-owns Babeland with Rachel Venning, said that because of the large amount of media inquiries the store receives, each employee is trained on how to deal with them. Company policy, stated in the employment handbook, requires workers to refer the inquiries to Babeland’s PR manager. Cavanah said she understood that mistakes happen, but in this instance Wolf had a “personal agenda.”
“No one has ever grabbed a reporter and said, ‘This is what you should write about,'” Cavanah told us. “The owners would have made the same decision if an employee was self-promoting a cause, not just a union cause.”
Wolf said they had never been asked for their side of the story. “Other workers have done the same thing and they haven’t been fired,” Wolf said. “They went after me because I was active in the union.”
In May 2016, workers at the three Babeland stores voted 21-4 to join the union. At the time, the RWDSU alleges in a press release, the owners led an anti-union campaign, complete with anti-union literature. During mandatory meetings, employees were given a list that outlined what being in a union would look like, and how things might change at Babeland. One of the pamphlets read: “The union will try to negotiate on various issues but there is no guarantee. With a union, you could gain, you could lose, or things could stay the same. The one guarantee is you’ll have to pay union dues or equivalent fees.” This was followed by a chart that compared Babeland wages to retail stores in NYC and nationally. The pamphlets also said that under a union, “Everyone is treated the same when not all employee needs are the same.”
“They have been anti-union every step of the way,” Julian Goldhagen, an employee, said in a press release.
From the beginning, Basile said, the owners would pull workers off the floor for two-on-one meetings, and the attitude itself was very negative.
Cavanah said she and Venning just wanted to get an understanding of how their employees felt. “They [the union] see it that way and I see it as just wanting to investigate how deep the problems are and how to solve them,” said Cavanah. “It’s a tiny little company. There are two people that own it and I don’t think it’s wrong of us to want to know what’s going on with our workers, so we did talk to them individually.”
In one instance, workers held an event outside of one of the Babeland stores where they handed out free condoms and snow cones. “It’s very positive and it brings customers,” Basile said. “Customers like that the store is union. As soon as they did that, they got an e-mail that’s like, How could you do this, you’re ruining business. The way their campaign has looked is emotional manipulation and emotional shaming to try to make the workers feel like what they’re doing is bad and the owners are victims.”
In the e-mail, provided to B+B, the owners wrote:
We’re here. We are not fighting this process or trying to be in conflict with any of you. We’re working hard both at the bargaining table and every day to reach an agreement that is satisfying and productive for everyone involved. We’re listening and want to keep the dialogue going. That’s why it’s frustrating when it seems that no matter what we do, the conflicts are just going to keep coming and the tension is going to keep rising. The message comes across loud and clear to our customers that the staff joined a union because they’re unhappy with the way we are running things. Our customers know that when you approach them about the union, you’re asking them to take sides. It’s damaging to the business and eventually, customers will stop shopping here. We want to keep the bargaining at the table and discussions going in the workplace.
Basile and Cavanah said they were currently negotiating a contract with employees; while some terms are complete, they still need to bargain over wages. Phil Andrews, director of the Retail Organizing Project, said that “actions like this by the company only make it more difficult to reach a fair contract.”