Meowdy! My name is Olive! I'm a transfem latina union organizer currently battling my former employer on wrongful termination, retaliation, and union busting.

I've worked in the recycling department at Free Geek for over 3 years, oftentimes working directly with the former manager to redevelop out-of-date processes that hadn't been changed since prior to Covid lockdowns. This included training documentation for the departments primary tasks in receiving donations. I personally trained and evaluated nearly every employee in the warehouse on how to operate a forklift. On countless occasions, I stayed late or came in on weekends, working overtime to ensure that public facing events would go on without a hitch when leadership would fail to plan in around available resources and labor. I was 1 of 4 employees elected to represent our BU in collective bargaining, which lasted over a year. Afterwards, because of our union local's federated structure, I was elected as Free Geek's Unit Representative to sit on the Local's executive board by unanimous vote in early 2024.

Despite all this, in the summer of 2024, when I had to take month and a half of time off for my safety in the wake of being evicted in a domestic abuse conflict, it was made very clear on my return that I was immediately being targeted with undue escalation. Starting with an instance of taking a single late arrival, which would normally require 3 to constitute grounds for disciplinary action, and trying to immediately elevate that up to the second step in our 4 step discipline until termination. This was clearly outside of our bargained contract, it felt deeply unfair and clearly extremely targeted. That day I cried in our Executive Director's office, begging and pleading with him to at the very least follow procedure and issue a warning, as I was already deeply concerned about the possibility of losing any security I had immediately after being forced out of my home. That September I began weekly therapy on Tuesdays, and established with my employer that I would need time off in the mornings to attend that as a medical accommodation. In February of 2025, I started Intensive Outpatient Therapy, in part recognizing that I still held wounds from those experiences of domestic abuse. I took 3 months off work, notifying my employer as required both before my leave and prior to my return.

The first week of my return occurred without much incident, save for our Executive Director suddenly announcing he would be co-managing the warehouse during the week of my return. That first Tuesday, my typical weekly therapy appointment was cancelled, so I arrived early as I'd already been excited to dig back into the piles of ewaste for literal and figurative gold for some time. Free Geek was how I got my first computer as a child, giving me access to education and community through online spaces I'd never dream of accessing otherwise, in many ways it would be an understatement to say that opportunity changed my life, it very well may have saved it. It's for this reason I care immensely about this organization, about giving what I could to give back and assist those people like me, who really need that lifeline, access and self-sufficiency a PC you own can give.

It's because of these reasons it felt like a true betrayal when I came in the next Tuesday, April 22nd, when I'd clocked in an hour before my scheduled medical accommodation, that I was informed by our Executive Director that this would be considered a no-call no-show, and that I would have a meeting on Friday for my termination. I'd immediately asked if I could just use my accrued sick leave, and was told that I may, but despite that fact, they would be moving forward with my termination due to a supposed lack of notice given to my employer. This is despite the fact that I had backed sick time in my accruals, and that I'd only used 7 hours up to that point in the year, establishing that time as falling under Protected Sick Time as established under Oregon law. There was never any attempt made to contact me the day of the inciting incident, despite other employees historically being reached out to at times when significantly late. Worse still, when I received my final check, the Sick Time I entered hadn't even been logged into my payroll, instead being illegally denied despite being used for medical needs.

I've been contesting this termination since the moment it happened, starting on the grievance procedure right away and going through all the motions. Everyone at ILWU5 fully supports me and the Local Executive Board elected to move forward with arbitration, with union funds covering legal expenses. Now, 6 months later at my time of posting this, we're ready to move into arbitration proper, waiting on the federal shutdown to continue this process. We've got a strong case, however these legal processes unfortunately take time. Despite working little odds and ends where I can, working hard manual labor for over a decade has left me with a lot of chronic pain that can make it particularly hard to keep up with rent and other expenses through all this. While I'm still doing what I can to try and keep a level of income coming in, any support at all you can give through this process would mean an immense amount to me. I really don't prefer to have a hostile relationship with my landlord because of continued missed/late payments.

Thank you for reading, may you move with grace.