Source: Alan Hanson, Labor Notes, October 18, 2016
The last time you organized a petition or voted to strike, were any of your co-workers caught off guard by the way the boss reacted? Was someone disciplined—or promoted? Did the CEO send out a misleading letter, or show up on night shift to shake everyone’s hand?
Whenever we take action at work, we can expect management to fight back—though the tactics vary widely, depending whether they’re trying to scare us, confuse us, deflate us, or divide us.
As organizers, we need to prepare our co-workers for whatever the boss might lob our way. For that we use a method called inoculation.
The point of inoculation isn’t just to let workers know what the boss will do. More important is teaching them to interpret why the boss is acting this way…..