American support for #unions is at its highest level in generations, from 70% (general population) to 88% (Millenials) - and yet, American unionization rates are pathetic.
That's about to change.
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If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
@pluralistic Don’t know you’re interested in hearing this. I’d really like to follow you. But whenever I do, there’s this flood of posts every day. So I need to mute or unfollow, which kind of defeats the point of following in the first place. The quality of your work is great. Maybe it’s just me but I feel Mastodon isn’t well suited for longer form content.
Is a 20+ post reply chain really how a significant part of humans interact with content now? If so, I’m probably old.
At issue in Cemex was what the #NLRB should do about employers that violate #LaborLaw during union drives. For decades, even the most flagrantly illegal union-busting was met with a wrist-slap.
For example, if a boss threatened or fired an employee for participating in a union drive, the NLRB would typically issue a small fine and order the employer to re-hire the worker and provide back-pay.
The NLRB's toothless response to cheating presented an easy equation for corrupt, union-hating bosses: if fines amount to less than the total, lifetime costs of paying a fair wage and offering fair labor conditions, you should cheat - hell, it's practically a #FiduciaryDuty:
Enter the Cemex ruling: once a majority of workers have signed a union card, any#UnfairLaborPractice by their employer triggers immediate, automatic recognition of the union.
In other words, the NLRB has fitted a tilt sensor in the American labor pinball machine, and if the boss tries to cheat, they automatically lose.
Cemex is a complete 180, a radical transformation of the American labor regulator from a figleaf that legitimized#UnionBusting to an actual enforcer, upholding the law that Congress passed, rather than the law that America's oligarchs wish Congress had passed.
It represents a turning point in the system of lawless impunity for American plutocracy.
In the words of #FrankWilhoit, it is is a repudiation of the #conservative dogma: "There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect":
It's also a stunning example of what regulatory competence looks like. The Biden administration is a decidedly mixed bag. On the one hand there are empty suits masquerading as technocrats, champions of the party's #centrist wing (slogan: "Everything is fine and change is impossible"):
But the progressive, #Sanders/#Warren wing of the party installed some fantastically competent, hard-charging, principled fighters, who are chapter-and-verse on their regulatory authority and have the courage to use that authority:
They embody the old joke about the photocopier technician who charges "$1 to kick the photocopier and $79 to know where to kick it." The best Biden appointees have their boots firmly laced, and they're kicking that mother:
Abruzzo has taken a series of muscular, bold moves to protect American workers, turning the tide in the #ClassWar that the #OnePercent has waged on workers since the #Reagan administration. For example, #Abruzzo is working to turn #WorkerMisclassification - the fiction that an employee is a small business contracting with their boss, a staple of the #GigEconomy - into an #UnfairLaborPractice:
She's also waging war on #RoboScabbing: app employment "platforms" like #Instawork that recruit workers to cross #PicketLines, under threat of being blocked from the app and blackballed by hundreds of local employers:
With #Cemex, Abruzzo is restoring a century-old labor principle that has been gathering dust for generations: the idea that workers have the right to organize #WorkplaceDemocracies without fear of retaliation, harassment, or reprisals.
But as #HaroldMeyerson writes for #TheAmericanProspect, the Cemex ruling has its limits. Even if the NLRB forces and employer to recognize a union, they can't force the employer to bargain in good faith for a union contract. The #NationalLaborRelationsAct prohibits the Board from imposing a contract.
That's created a loophole that corrupt bosses have driven entire fleets of trucks through.
Workers who attain union recognition face years-long struggles to win a contract, as their bosses walk away from negotiations or offer farcical "bargaining positions" in the expectation that they'll be rejected, prolonging the delay.
Democrats have been trying to fix this loophole since the #LBJ years, but they've been repeatedly blocked in the senate. But Abruzzo is a consummate photocopier kicker, and she's taking aim.
In #ThrivePetHealthcare, Abruzzo argued that failing to bargain in good faith for a contract is itself an Unfair Labor Practice. That means the NLRB has the authority to act to correct it - they can't order a contract, but they can order the employer to give workers "wages, benefits, hours, and such that are comparable to those provided by comparable unionized companies in their field."
#MitchMcConnell is a piece of shit, but he's no slouch at kicking photocopiers himself.
For a year, McConnell blocked senate confirmation hearings to fill a vacant seat on the NLRB. In the short term, this meant that the three Dems on the board were able to hand down these bold rulings without worrying about their GOP colleagues.
But McConnell was playing a long game. Board member #GwynneWilcox's term is about to expire. If her seat remains vacant, the three remaining board members won't be able to form a quorum, and the NLRB won't be able to do anything.
As Meyerson writes, centrist Dems have refused to push McConnell on this, hoping for comity and not wanting to violate decorum. But #ChuckSchumer has finally bestirred himself to fight this issue, and Alaska #GOP senator #LisaMurkowski has already broken with her party to move Wilcox's confirmation to a floor vote.
The work of enforcers like DoJ antitrust boss #JonathanKanter, #FTC chair #LinaKhan, and #SEC chair #GaryGensler is at the heart of #Bidenomics: muscular, fearless deployment of existing regulatory authority to make life better for Americans.
Of course, "existing regulatory authority" isn't the last word. The judges filling stolen seats on the illegitimate #SupremeCourt invented the #MajorQuestionsDoctrine and have used it as a club to attack Biden's photocopier-kickers.
There's real danger that Cemex - and other actions - will get fast-tracked to #SCOTUS so the dotards in robes can shatter our dreams for a better America.
Meyerson is cautiously optimistic here. At 40% (!), the Court's approval rating is at a low not seen since the #NewDeal showdowns. The Supremes don't have an army, they don't have cops, they just have legitimacy. If Americans refuse to acknowledge their decisions, all they can do it sit and stew:
The Court knows this. That's why they fume so publicly about attacks on their legitimacy. Without legitimacy, they're nothing. With the Supremes' support at 40% and union support at 70%, any judicial attack on Cemex could trigger term-limits, court-packing, and other doomsday scenarios that will haunt the relatively young judges for decades, as the seats they stole dwindle into irrelevance. Meyerson predicts that this will weigh on them, and may stay their hands.
Meyerson might be wrong, of course. No one ever lost money betting on the self-destructive hubris of #FederalistSociety judges. But even if he's wrong, his point is important. If the Supremes frustrate the democratic will of the American people, we have to smash the Supremes. Term limits, court-packing, whatever it takes:
And the more we talk about this - the more we make this consequence explicit - the more it will weigh on them, and the better the chance that they'll surprise us. That's already happening! The Supremes just crushed the #Sackler opioid crime-family's dream of keeping their billions in blood-money:
Make it the issue. Don't apologize, don't shrug it off, don't succumb to #LearnedHelplessness. Make it our demand, a litmus test: "If elected, will you vote to pack the court and restore democratic legitimacy?"
Meanwhile, Cemex is already bearing fruit. After an #NYC#TraderJoes violated the law to keep #TraderJoesUnited from organizing a store, the workers there have petitioned to have their union automatically recognized under the Cemex rule:
With the NLRB clearing the regulatory obstacles to union recognition, America's largest unions are awakening from their own long slumbers. For decades, unions have spent a desultory 3% of their budgets on organizing workers into new locals. But a leadership upset in the #AFLCIO has unions ready to catch a wave with the young workers and their 88% approval rating, with a massive planned organizing drive:
Meyerson calls on other large unions to follow suit, and the unions seem ready to do so, with new leaders and new militancy at the #Teamsters and #UAW, and with #SEIU members at unionized #Starbucks waiting for their first contracts.
Turning union-supporting workers into unionized workers is key to fighting Supreme Court sabotage. #OrganizedLabor will give fighters like Abruzzo the political cover she needs to Get Shit Done.
A better America is possible. It's within our grasp. Though there is a long way to go, we are winning crucial victories all the time.
The centrist message that everything is fine and change is impossible is designed to demoralize you, to win the fight in your mind so they don't have to win it in the streets and in the jobsite. We don't have to give them that victory. It's ours for the taking.
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