Now coor­di­nat­ing a salt­ing pro­gram, she stress­es that salt­ing ensures a union dri­ve will have ​“a work­place-orga­niz­ing com­po­nent, to main­tain a lev­el of mil­i­tan­cy on the shop floor and make sure the cam­paign is putting the work­ers first. Work­ers should be tak­ing a lead on the mes­sag­ing and on the goals and plan­ning the actions.”

For­mer salt Kendra Bak­er says salt­ing offers some­thing the labor move­ment bad­ly needs: a ​“space for young peo­ple to devel­op skills as work­place orga­niz­ers.” The 2011 upris­ing in Wis­con­sin and the Occu­py move­ment cre­at­ed ​“a lot of curios­i­ty and enthu­si­asm about the labor move­ment,” she said.

A few unions are recruit­ing salts these days, usu­al­ly young peo­ple who apply for low-wage jobs in retail, hos­pi­tal­i­ty, or logis­tics. But unions are reluc­tant to talk about salt­ing, not want­i­ng to alert man­age­ment to look out for sus­pi­cious char­ac­ters. In this arti­cle every work­er will use a pseu­do­nym and their sit­u­a­tions will be disguised.

Salts these days tend to be young peo­ple who were activists in col­lege — the same sort of folks many unions recruit to be staff organizers.

But salts we spoke with saw advan­tages to being on the inside.

Ron­nie Stevens decid­ed to salt after being a staffer. ​“I had come up against frus­tra­tions about lack of access to work­ers in the shop,” he said, ​“and the gen­er­al frus­tra­tions that any orga­niz­er has try­ing to get in touch with peo­ple for that first con­ver­sa­tion — as well as the trust aspect.

​“But the core thing for me was the inside/​outside dichoto­my. It always felt kind of strange to me try­ing to go in and tell peo­ple what to do about their own work­place with­out real­ly hav­ing much knowl­edge of it myself.”

Bri­an Smith said sim­ply, ​“I like work­ing.” But he also says ​“it’s eas­i­er as a polit­i­cal-mind­ed per­son. Peo­ple are more recep­tive to your ideas when you’re work­ing with that person.”

Independence

Brit­tany John­son orig­i­nal­ly salt­ed with the goal of get­ting a staff job; some unions use that route. Now, she says, ​“I wouldn’t want to work as staff. I don’t like to be paid to think a cer­tain way. In any staff posi­tion you have to fol­low the president’s vision. Your voice has no pow­er on staff. When you’re a mem­ber you can talk as much as you want to.

Stevens, too, likes hav­ing ​“a cer­tain amount of polit­i­cal inde­pen­dence I wouldn’t have as a staff orga­niz­er. I have the abil­i­ty to dis­agree with some­body that is abstract­ly above me in the food chain. If I dis­agree, it doesn’t mean I lose my job.”

His union is one that grants salts more auton­o­my than some. ​“I have a fair amount of say in the direc­tion and strat­e­gy of the way things go,” he said. ​“I’m not just feed­ing information.”

Johnson’s work­place has a union con­tract now, and she’s think­ing of what her next salt­ing job might be. Her father is ashamed she’s not using her col­lege degree, she said. ​“But I feel like the exact oppo­site. I feel so proud that my job is ​‘I get food out of the win­dow, I give it to the customers.’

​“Obvi­ous­ly I’m start­ing a lot of trou­ble in my work­place. But it feels clean.”

Of course, a major draw is the thrill of being right in on the action. ​“The salt is in a posi­tion to seize an oppor­tu­ni­ty quick­ly,” Bak­er said, ​“and that is a big advan­tage. That’s what’s so inspir­ing and invig­o­rat­ing: it inspires peo­ple to take fur­ther action, actu­al­ly feel­ing there’s some­thing they can do.”

Describ­ing a march on the boss to defend a sus­pend­ed co-work­er, Jim McCormick said, ​“That was the first lit­tle taste of pow­er, when we saw that fear in their eyes.”

You’re an organizer

Although most unions will be going for recog­ni­tion and a con­tract, those fac­ing large or for­mi­da­ble employ­ers may be focus­ing on non­ma­jor­i­ty shop floor orga­ni­za­tion for the time being.

The deci­sion to use salts can col­or the fla­vor of the cam­paign — though some unions like to keep a tight rein. These just want the salt to col­lect names and address­es for home vis­its from staffers, and scout out poten­tial leaders.

But most salts we inter­viewed said they were expect­ed to orga­nize: to set up meet­ings, to train lead­ers, to col­lect signed cards for union rep­re­sen­ta­tion, and/​or to insti­gate work­place actions about imme­di­ate issues.

How it works

Union staffers will advise you on how to get the job. ​“When you apply for a cor­po­rate job there are a bil­lion ques­tions on this inter­net psy­cho­log­i­cal ques­tion­naire,” explained Jon Isaac­son. ​“The answers they want are not always obvi­ous, like ​‘if you see a co-work­er steal­ing, what do you do?’

​“The union had most of the answers and a method of fig­ur­ing out the rest.” The union told Isaac­son what to wear and ​“how to harass the man­agers till they hired me.”

Salts report­ed not a lot of trou­ble get­ting jobs they were overqual­i­fied for, par­tic­u­lar­ly where turnover is con­stant. John­son said man­age­ment didn’t blink at her col­lege degree and the union told her not to hide it. Nor did her co-work­ers find it too odd, giv­en the state of the economy.

John­son not­ed that man­agers tend to main­tain the dis­crim­i­na­to­ry demo­graph­ics of the work­place: for instance, Lati­no dish­wash­ers, black cashiers, and white servers.

Stevens said management’s bias­es helped him: ​“As a rea­son­ably well-spo­ken young white guy I could get any job. I fit their mod­el of some­one responsible.”

The union doesn’t make a for­mal agree­ment with the salt — noth­ing writ­ten or enforce­able — but relies on the salt’s enthu­si­asm for the project. One union does a lengthy vet­ting process before­hand, even tak­ing prospec­tive salts on retreats to assess commitment.

Once on the job, con­tact with a staff orga­niz­er is fre­quent, for strat­e­gy dis­cus­sions and morale upkeep. Some unions have reg­u­lar meet­ings of salts from relat­ed workplaces.

Not in it for the money

Isaacson’s union offered him $15 an hour for the time he spent apply­ing for jobs, 15 hours a week, for up to three months. Any of that time not active­ly spent look­ing for work, he helped out on oth­er projects.

Anoth­er union offers small stipends meant to cov­er extra costs: gas to meet­ings, for exam­ple. A third paid a salt, whose job offered very few hours, $15 an hour for eight hours a week to assist a staff orga­niz­er. (The com­bi­na­tion was still far less than a liv­ing wage.) Most pay no stipend once the salt is on the job.

One union, though, sub­si­dized salts on a low-wage job at $125 a week. At one point, they all decid­ed not to take the mon­ey. ​“It didn’t seem right,” McCormick said. ​“We would have been tak­ing in more mon­ey than the few amount of dues we were col­lect­ing. For our co-work­ers to find out, they would be like, ​‘I’ve been giv­ing that jerk $5 out of my pay­check every month; it’s all about the money.’”

Loose lips sink ships

Unions insist the salt main­tain strict secre­cy, not reveal­ing their salti­ness to co-work­ers, for fear man­age­ment will find out. ​“The worst thing I can think of is for a per­son to expose a cam­paign that hasn’t yet been pub­lic,” Bak­er said.

Smith point­ed out that ​“you nev­er know what could hap­pen at work. You can end up in a fight with some­one over what­ev­er, they could be pissed and blow you out of the water. And the whole orga­niz­ing dri­ve is now compromised.”

It’s touchy, though — these are co-work­ers you may be encour­ag­ing to take risks. You want to deserve their trust. Isaac­son said he is OK with keep­ing his sta­tus under wraps both because ​“peo­ple would think it was weird if you were there with ulte­ri­or moti­va­tions” and because ​“it would be too easy for the com­pa­ny to make some­thing of it.”

Salts jus­ti­fy their means by their right­eous end. ​“Every­body has secrets at work,” John­son said. ​“Some of them are undoc­u­ment­ed.” ​“With every job you have to keep up appear­ances,” Bak­er rea­soned. ​“When you work for cor­po­rate Amer­i­ca you have to live two lives, whether or not you’re a salt.

​“It may seem disin­gen­u­ous to your co-work­ers. It could also seem like this cam­paign is very important.”

McCormick, now a salt him­self, was recruit­ed out of the shop by a salt. He wasn’t mad when he found out his co-worker’s ​“ulte­ri­or moti­va­tions,” he said. He was just glad some­one was there with a plan.

What’s hard

Besides the usu­al frus­tra­tions of orga­niz­ing — co-work­ers who back­bite, fatal­ism, those who are best off in the work­place not see­ing the need for change — low pay is a prob­lem for salts. John­son took on two oth­er part-time jobs.

​“I couldn’t do the best job I want­ed to do as an orga­niz­er because we were try­ing to meet co-work­ers out­side work,” she remem­bered. ​“When do I have time to go for a drink after work? Our orga­niz­er says peo­ple like the per­son who brings in food for every­one. But I couldn’t afford to do that. Some­times the orga­niz­er would give me mon­ey out of his pock­et to do it.

​“But I could not pay my bills on that wage.”

John­son did work up to a bet­ter-pay­ing job in her shop — the only one, she says, that might sup­port a fam­i­ly. Isaac­son wants to keep his retail job and finds sales intel­lec­tu­al­ly challenging.

But he adds that his first salt­ing job, at Star­bucks, was the worst he’s ever had — ​“like a robot.” Mean boss­es, the grave­yard shift, heat and cold — there’s a rea­son your par­ents told you to go to col­lege and dodge these lousy jobs.

How­ev­er: ​“The job might be hor­ri­ble but salt­ing is fun,” Isaac­son says. ​“You get to pull the wool over the boss’s eyes.”

Joys

An organizer’s goal is to see co-work­ers take ini­tia­tive with­out your prod­ding. McCormick describes the day when ​“our fly­ers were all over the break room and bath­room before we even got there. It was a real good feel­ing — awesome!”

But his group went on to bet­ter things: One day the super­vi­sor sent a woman work­er home because, he said, she wasn’t keep­ing up with the guys. ​“She came and vis­it­ed friends in var­i­ous areas and as a group we imme­di­ate­ly decid­ed, no, this isn’t right. Togeth­er we did our own march on the boss. The peo­ple involved in that were the core of peo­ple who lat­er went on strike.”

Anoth­er time, a peti­tion got the boss to back down on charg­ing a fee for a com­pa­ny-required test.

Stevens’s co-work­ers had a vic­to­ry dur­ing January’s polar vor­tex: they were prepar­ing a peti­tion to alle­vi­ate the cold in their refrig­er­at­ed work­place when the cold front rolled in. As the state closed high­ways, boss­es said to keep work­ing. But when work­ers left their machines, man­age­ment gave in, sent them home, and said to take the next day off, too.

Is salt­ing for you? At the end of the day, ​“we have to get jobs any­way,” Bak­er said. ​“We need more peo­ple to be doing this. If we want to build the labor move­ment, you need to be strate­gic about where you’re working.”

Reprint­ed with per­mis­sion from Labor Notes.