“Salts” are people who take a job with the specific goal of unionizing a workplace.
They typically begin by establishing themselves as loyal colleagues, then quietly raise the topic of unionizing with co-workers.
The term in its labor sense traces to the turn of the 20th century.
Most early salts were working-class people, said Barry Eidlin, a sociologist at McGill University in Montreal who studies labor.
In recent decades, however, salts have increasingly been college-educated activists.
Persons:
Barry Eidlin
Organizations:
McGill University
Locations:
Montreal