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Before entering into bargaining talks later this week, the TCGplayer’s workers unions marched alongside other Syracuse-area union chapters in the Greater Syracuse Labor Council’s Labor Day parade and rally at the New York State Fair.

TCGplayer is a subsidiary of eBay with an online marketplace for trading card games and other collectible card game products. TCGplayer and EBay officially recognized TCGunion-CWA on Aug. 11, making history as the first group of eBay workers in the United States to gain union representation.

“We get our strength from solidarity,” said Richard Vallejo, a union organizer with TCGunion-CWA. “It’s about connecting not just our issues at our particular workplace, but connecting with other unions and other workers in the area, and building solidarity there to build a stronger movement overall.”

TCGunion-CWA marched with several other unions from the region, including Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers, United Brotherhood of Carpenters and the Manufacturers Association of Central New York on Monday.

“We came out here to celebrate all the hard work, all of our supporters, all of the people from the greater labor community and all the people that put in a lot of personal hard work that helped us build,” said Robert Guy, a bargaining member for the union. “We were really honored to be a part of the parade, be a part of this greater labor movement.”

The workers will be bargaining for more suitable wages, clearer grievance and disciplinary procedures as well as inclusive opportunities and fair hiring practices, according to TCGunion’s website. Justin Howard, a union member, said many of the workers have said that they don’t believe in the cost of living, they believe in the cost of labor.

“We haven’t had a raise in two years and a lot of people are starting to feel that,” Howard said. “The problem is that the rest of the world works off cost of living, and that’s gone up and our pay hasn’t, so a lot of people are having trouble making their ends meet and being able to pay their bills, because we haven’t seen that increase.”

Guy claimed the company combined each worker’s existing allowances of sick leave and personal time into one pool which contained significantly less hours. He said that a majority of the workers in the warehouse have lost at least 50 hours of leave due to the change.

Workers at TCGplayer began their unionization effort in 2020 with help from Service Employees International Union but claimed to have encountered obstacles with union-busting efforts from Littler Mendelson, a labor and employment law firm, as well as COVID-19 pandemic-related delays.

Following the failed unionization attempt, workers restarted their union efforts last summer, motivated by eBay’s acquisition of the company in October 2022, Vallejo said. With representation from the Communications Workers of America, the workers won their union election on March 10.

After the victory, eBay and TCGplayer began engaging in illegal delay tactics, CWA claimed in a press release. In response, CWA filed an unfair labor practice against TCGplayer with accusations of interference, restraint and coercion toward employees, according to the release.

TCGplayer and eBay filed an appeal against the victory, which was denied on Aug. 10 by the National Labor Relations Board. Mark Spadafore, president of the Greater Syracuse Labor Council, said this is a common strategy used by employers to invalidate the workers’ vote.

“When they lose a campaign, they try to use the regulatory process to their advantage, so that it denies workers their rights in the workplace,” Spadafore said. “But luckily, right now, they lost their appeal and instead are continuing to fight.”

Spadafore said that representatives from the workforce and CWA will now sit down with management to get a collective bargaining agreement. He explained that they will go through each proposal and section to create the first contract, which is often the most difficult.

“They won their union in the sense that they won the election, but until you get that first contract signed, sealed and delivered, you know there’s no continuity for their union,” Spadafore said. “They have a hard job talking to the workers, keeping them organized, keeping them motivated to make this all work.”

The union has elected its bargaining committee, Vallejo said. He said the bargaining process will probably last for several months, due to the nature of how the campaign went.

TCGplayer did not accept The Daily Orange’s request for an interview, instead writing in a statement that the company recognizes CWS as the collective bargaining representative.
but sent the following statement on the bargaining process.

“We are taking steps to immediately move forward with the bargaining process with the goal of reaching a labor contract,” TCGPlayer wrote.

Spadafore said the TCGunion is influencing a trend of high-tech, online publication and app-based workers unions nationally. Other similar unionization efforts mobilized because of “skyrocketing” property values since the COVID-19 pandemic, causing many workers to realize they can’t live on wages from large corporations like eBay, he said

“You heard that kind of trope well, ‘people don’t want to work anymore.’ No, people will work. They’re not willing to work for poverty wages,” Spadafore said.

The union hopes to continue its solidarity efforts with fellow unions and workers in the area, Guy said. Since the beginning of the movement, the workers have been active in the community through rallies and other events with the GSLC.

“It’s really great to see the same faces supporting us here as the same faces that were supporting us at the end of July with our rallies,” Guy said. “Solidarity is not just a thing you say, it’s a mindset and it’s an activity you engage in every day, and it’s been great to see that out here.”

News Editor Stephanie Wright contributed reporting to this article.

Published on September 4, 2023 at 11:42 pm

Contact Kendall: kaluther@syr.edu