PLEASE HELP KEEP CHS PAYWALL-FREE!
Subscribe to CHS to help us pay writers and photographers to cover the neighborhood. CHS is a pay what you can community news site with no required sign-in or paywall. Become a subscriber to help us cover the neighborhood for as little as $5 a month.

 

Broadway still might be a union street. After last spring’s celebration of ten successful years at 113 Broadway E, Phoenix Comics staff are kicking off the next ten having successfully formed a union represented by UFCW 3000.

Elise Oziel, one of Phoenix’s six staff members, told CHS the team began discussing the formation of a union last summer.

“We already like working here and we wanted it to stay affordable for us to work here,” Oziel said. “I think that even when you have a really small staff, the desire to join the union shows that your staff are invested in the business, because if we weren’t invested and we wanted to make more money, we would go somewhere else.”

Phoenix staff are hoping the union’s ability to negotiate contracts will lead to annual raises and benefits like paid time off, which they currently do not receive, Oziel said, adding that “future staff members would already be set up for success.”

The plans for representation come as the labor efforts at smaller Capitol Hill businesses have ebbed and flowed on the tides of larger union fights at chains like Starbucks. Not all labor efforts along Broadwa have come over coffee. CHS reported here in 2022 on the unionization efforts around workers at Broadway’s location of the Crossroads thriftstore chain. Meanwhile, one symbol of the effort to grow unionization at small businesses here changed direction last year. CHS reported here on the decision to decertify their union by workers at Broadway’s Glo’s Diner late last year.

For the ownership at Phoenix, the effort has been an education.

Nick Nazar, owner of Phoenix Comics, told CHS the staff gathered a meeting to talk with ownership in December where they provided Nazar with a letter expressing the desire to form a union.

“I was pretty shocked,” Nazar said. “I’ve heard about unions but I myself in the 20 years I’ve been working in retail, on either side of the management or rank-and-file employee, had never dealt with the process, so I had no experience. I was really kind of stunned. I was both flattered and a little scared.”

Nazar says comics are a volatile industry and some months go well financially while other months are slower and you’re left wondering how to keep the lights on.

“I think I did my best,” Nazar said. “I basically took all of the time I was able to and tried to educate myself as fast as possible.”

Nazar resorted to online resources regarding unions and unionizations, and contacted a legal team to be escorted through the process. They said they learned what specific things need to be bargained about in union contracts, learned about contract timeframes and compared collective bargaining agreements to what was already happening at Phoenix.

During that December meeting with Nazar, the staff asked for voluntary recognition of the union.

“We didn’t get voluntary recognition, but we didn’t get any pushback in terms of union busting tactics,” Oziel said.

Oziel said the workers would have loved to have received voluntary recognition, although the union representative they were working with from UFCW 3000 prepared the team for the worst. On voting day, four staff members were present and each voted to unionize.

Last minute, the team discovered that their managers were part of the bargaining unit. Oziel said this was not originally part of the plan and that Nazar was not required to do so because managers may be excluded, but Oziel said there was appreciation for the decision.

“I think we’re all just trying to figure out what is possible,” Oziel said. “I don’t think any of us have been in a union before, except maybe me and it was not a union that I had any say in.”

Phoenix first rose on Broadway on Free Comic Book Day 2013. “This is the reason I moved to Seattle in the first place,” Nazar said at the time. In 2019, the store expanded in its Dick’s Drive-in neighboring building amid rising rents on Broadway. Today, Nazar says Phoenix has room for something for everyone, from comic books and graphic novels to board games and collectibles.

Oziel thinks a small, local comic book shop unionizing shows other businesses how employees like working there, and want to stay working there while having a stake in it. Soon, the important work of achieving a contract will begin. Oziel said the bargaining process could start soon.

Nazar said staff felt like this was a good time to unionize and get a collective bargaining agreement in the works following a positive year in revenue growth in 2023.

“It gives them a voice. It absolutely gives them a voice to talk with me,” Nazar said. “I had always believed and I always do believe that they feel empowered to come to me with any issues to bring up.”

Nazar said if it’s easier to bring issues up as a group—as a union—then it will be a positive move for Phoenix.

“I think in this day and age with unions so front and center in large corporate entities…I think that’s just important as a social thing. We need unions to better protect the rights of workers,” Nazar said. “I think we all kind of move forward together with a better idea as to what the future holds, which is honestly something I look forward to out of this.”

Phoenix Comics and Games is located at 113 Broadway E. You can learn more at phoenixseattle.com.

PLEASE HELP KEEP CHS PAYWALL-FREE!
Subscribe to CHS to help us pay writers and photographers to cover the neighborhood. CHS is a pay what you can community news site with no required sign-in or paywall. Become a subscriber to help us cover the neighborhood for as little as $5 a month.