In his poem “The Grievance, It’s Out of My Hands,” Martin Glaberman lays bare the dead end of business unionism. He traces the life of a workplace grievance as it leaves the worker’s hands, passes through the steward, disappears into the committee, gets reviewed by the rep, and is eventually filed somewhere in the bureaucratic stratosphere: far removed from the shop floor where the problem began. It’s a grievance in name only. What was once a real, felt injustice becomes paperwork, procedure, delay. In the end, it’s not only out of the worker’s hands; it’s out of the workplace altogether.
But in a solidarity union, the grievance stays where it belongs: on the shop floor, in the hands of the workers, among the people who have the power to act on it.
That means grievances aren’t just complaints to be managed, they’re flashpoints for collective action. They’re opportunities to bring coworkers together, to test and build our solidarity, and to change our conditions on our terms.
At Sakana Sushi, a restaurant where the Detroit IWW had an active campaign (code-named “The Moby Dick”), a cook came forward with a clear grievance: wage theft. Under a business union model, he might’ve been told to file a complaint with the labor board or wait to see if a steward could escalate it through the official channels. Instead, we escalated it ourselves.
First, the cook raised it directly with the boss. When that was ignored, we circulated a petition. When the demand still wasn’t fully met, we organized a march on the boss, with a group of workers confronting management together. Each step wasn’t about moving the grievance up a chain; it was about spreading it out, broadening the issue across the workplace, and increasing the pressure through unity. We didn’t remove the grievance from the site of struggle; we multiplied it. We socialized it.
The cook wasn’t a member of the union when this all began. In fact, nearly everyone else at the shop had already signed a red card. Everyone except him. He had seen the front-of-house staff take action and win through a previous march on the boss. But he hadn’t felt the need to join until it happened to him. When he wasn’t paid for his overtime, he came barging through the back door of the restaurant, approached the committee members who were on shift and said “Sign me up!”
The Demand Letter and the Myth of the Contract
On August 14, 2018, a small delegation of IWW members from Sakana hand-delivered a petition to the boss. It was quick and direct and we left without giving him a chance to respond. The grievance was unpaid hours and overtime, and we figured a small action would put the boss on notice and resolve the issue. When the deadline came however, the cook only received payment for the hours worked at his normal hourly rate and that’s when he came to the committee asking to join and take action. We had debated a few options, but after meeting with organizers from Stardust Family United, we settled on a clear strategy: deliver our demands backed by visible, direct worker action: a march on the boss.
The march was successful- not only in pressuring the owner, but in transforming the worker himself. He became the first to speak and then others followed. The message was clear: this isn’t one person’s problem, it’s everyone’s. He had gone from being the only person who hadn’t signed a red card, to leading a confrontation with the boss over stolen wages. He wasn’t just asserting his rights; he was becoming part of the union, part of the struggle, and part of something larger than his individual case.
These sorts of demand deliveries function the way a contract should, but often doesn’t. In mainstream labor relations, people talk about contracts as the mechanism that solidifies gains. But a piece of paper doesn’t enforce itself. If workers aren’t organized, a contract is just a piece of paper.
That’s why it’s not the contract that solidifies gains; it’s the organization behind it, with or without a contract.
And especially right now, with the NLRB effectively defunct, bogged down in delays, hostile courts, and chronic underfunding, even legally recognized contracts are becoming increasingly toothless. Unions that once relied on state and federal mediators and the labor board to intervene on their behalf are now scratching their heads and hoping for some sort of electoral alchemy to put grievance procedures back in their hands.
In that environment, any union that relies on the state to enforce its victories is already losing ground. A grievance that depends on lawyers, filings, and federal agencies is a grievance that can be ignored.
But a union built on direct action and collective strength enforces its own gains. We don’t need to win recognition through the state to act like a union. We don’t need the boss to agree to a process in order to set demands. And we don’t need a contract to defend our dignity. We need each other.
Our demand letter worked not because it was legally binding, but because the people delivering it were. We were organized, visible, and ready to escalate. That’s what got the worker paid and what prevented retaliation.
That’s how real power works. Not on paper. On the floor.
Building Power in Action: From Demand Letters to Escalation
On December 30, 2018, we escalated further: we delivered a second demand for across-the-board raises for the kitchen staff. We demanded a 50¢ raise immediately, and another 50¢ raise every six months moving forward. This wasn’t charity- it was a response to the growing skill, experience, and responsibility that workers were already taking on, without compensation. The confrontation lasted much longer than we had anticipated, but the boss was outnumbered nearly ten to one and eventually caved.
Less than a year later, on July 3, 2019, we delivered another set of demands, again through a march on the boss. This time, when the owner didn’t comply, we didn’t back down. We escalated strategically:
- Phone zap: workers and supporters flooded the bosses cell phone while he was vacationing in Cape Cod with calls demanding action
- Dining room flyering: during busy hours, we handed out flyers to customers explaining the situation and asking them to contact ownership directly
- T-shirt action: coordinated shifts where workers wore the same messaging on shift, creating a sense of visibility and unity
Not all of the demands were met. Some were ignored. But every action advanced our collective capacity. We didn’t just get better at writing demand letters- we learned how to escalate, how to craft strategy, how to read the power dynamics of our workplace in real time.
That’s something a contract can’t teach. And it’s why we reject the idea that legal agreements are what “solidify” gains. Too often, workers are told that a contract is the final step, the proof that your union is “real.” But as we see all around us, especially today with a near-paralyzed NLRB, contracts are only as strong as the organization that backs them.
In our campaign, it was the action that won back pay. It was organization that won raises. It was escalation that forced bosses to respond. And it was the process of struggle itself that made us stronger and more confident.
We didn’t just win demands. We created a space where workers transformed into organizers. And in doing so, we weren’t just resisting exploitation; we were building the new world in the shell of the old.
The committee at Sakana dwindled over the years and the restaurant eventually went out of business. But the campaign produced lessons on organizing that are being retold through articles, case studies in training, and through the more and better organizers we continue to produce in the IWW and across the restaurant industry.
This article originally appeared in the 2026 Winter print edition of Industrial Worker.
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author. They do not purport to represent that of the IWW or Industrial Worker as a whole.