vikingqueef

vikingqueef, 2 months ago

The American public seems to have emerged from the initial jolt of the pandemic with a newfound clarity familiar to survivors of catastrophes. Many people experienced an evaporation of the things that lent their lives the illusion of stability. Jobs disappeared and the social safety net’s holes loomed large. For scores of working people, it was—though they might not use this term—a radicalizing experience. Millions suddenly confronted the fact that if we didn’t protect ourselves, nobody else would. “I don’t really know if any amount of money would make working in this environment and being exposed to this level of risk feel worth it,” one grocery worker said early in the pandemic. For “essential” workers, it became clear that the work and the risk were a package deal.

This realization supercharged public interest in organized labor, bolstering a surge of support for union activity, which had already been growing slowly since the Great Recession in 2009. Polls show that public approval of labor unions is now at its highest point since 1965. This is unsurprising. Since the start of the Reagan era, wages for average workers have stagnated, astounding wealth has flowed to a tiny percentage of society, and the resulting rise in economic inequality has destabilized our political landscape. When this slow but steady erosion of the American Dream met the shock of Covid, it became all but impossible to avoid the conclusion that “Organize or Die” could be a literal slogan.

In 2020, we saw the launch of the (ultimately unsuccessful) union drive at the Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama­—at that point the most serious organizing effort against the Bezos empire. The addition of Covid’s burden to the weight of algorithmically driven warehouse work was the tipping point for fed-up workers unwilling to risk their lives for $15.50 an hour. That effort was followed in 2021 by a series of victories: a successful union vote at the Amazon warehouse in Staten Island, the launch of the still-growing Starbucks union organizing campaign, and a mini-wave of strikes dubbed “Striketober.” The drumbeat grew louder in 2023, with major strikes in Hollywood and at the Big Three automakers. In September, Joe Biden spoke at a picket line in support of United Auto Workers, the first sitting president in history to do so. It was clear that something was happening.

But what, exactly? The long-overdue return of unions to the spotlight is not the sea change that it can appear to be. In the middle of the 20th century, when American unions were at peak membership, about one in three workers was in a union. By 1980, the number had fallen to one in five, and by 2005, one in eight. This unrelenting decline in union density—the percentage of workers who are members—is the biggest problem facing organized labor. And since strong unions tend to improve wages and conditions even for nonunion employees, and make politics more worker-friendly, low union density is a problem for the entire working class and, more broadly, anyone with a job. Each success is meaningful to individual workers. But the wins do not add up to a transformative movement unless they can reverse decades of decline—which has not yet happened.

In 2022, even as the popularity of unions hit a generational high, union density fell to 10.1 percent, the lowest on record. The inability to channel all this excitement, during the most pro-union administration of most voters’ lifetimes, into an economy wide barrage of large-scale organizing drives, should put a lump in the throat of anyone who cares about the class war. The traditional analysis of union decline cites two main causes. The first is the devastating effects of the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act—which restricted how unions could strike; outlawed “closed shops”; and enabled states to pass “right to work” laws, which under the guise of worker freedom allow a member of a unionized workplace to opt out of paying fees. The second cause is corporate America’s decades-long project to perfect its union-busting tactics.

But you can’t just chalk up organized labor’s woes to the old saws of union-­busting businesses and hostile laws. They also reflect the atrophied state of labor’s institutions, a lack of adequate organizing ­infrastructure and budgets, and, in many cases, an attitude of resignation that decades of decline inflicted on some union leaders who should, right now, be rushing to capitalize on the favorable conditions.

vikingqueef, 2 months ago

just fyi, its not the whole body. there is more. i don’t want to break any rules or upset the publisher by posting the whole article. they need the traffic too

vikingqueef, 2 months ago (edited 2 months ago)

When Britain’s miners went on strike in March 1984, there were three pits in Kent, with Tilmanstone, Betteshanger, and Snowdon collieries all huddled together near England’s southeast coast. This was a small, remote corner of the coalfield, far from both the old mining heartlands of South Wales, Durham, and Scotland, and the new center of the industry in Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire. According to market logic, Kent was “peripheral,” and its collieries were easy targets for closure. Conditions were tough. Betteshanger miner Gary Cox described how the coal seams were “about 3 foot thick. In Nottingham they were 14 foot thick. You could sneeze in Nottingham and get their coal off because it was crap. They actually had to mix our coal with Nottinghamshire coal just to make it any good to sell.”

Kent, known as the “Garden of England,” lies far from what’s popularly considered the core of Britain’s working class. Malcolm Pitt — a ripper at Tilmanstone, a Communist, and Kent area National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) president in 1984 — described the pits as “an industrial intrusion into the agricultural and holiday resort economy of East Kent.” That miners were cut off, a “breed apart,” was always part of their mythology.

But Kent offered its own version of isolation. The workers, often migrants from more established mining areas, figured as outsiders imposed on a hostile population. Some within the local coalfield communities recalled that in the early days of settlement, in the 1920s and ‘30s, housing notices would read “no miners, no dogs, no children.” Social ostracism was experienced most acutely by miners’ wives; the men at least had the camaraderie of the workplace.

vikingqueef, 2 months ago

thank god i’m putting my degree to use

vikingqueef, 2 months ago

not much of a democracy you’re protecting here when you say you can’t be critical of a politcal figure and if you are critical too many times, then you must be my sworn political enemy. y’all keep badjacketing anyone that says anything critical of biden or establishment dems and its really wild to watch.

vikingqueef, 2 months ago

Yea, why read anything that is contrary to your worldview. are you afraid your thoughts and opinions may change? or maybe that you will learn something from something you don’t like?

vikingqueef, 2 months ago (edited 2 months ago)

doesn’t matter because apparently saying you are not a Trumper somehow makes you more of a trumper. like those people are so proud to support trump, they will make sure you know in no uncertain terms.

vikingqueef, 2 months ago

Phil Ochs has something to say about liberals! www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cdqQ2BdgOA

vikingqueef, 2 months ago

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/03d1e34e-6159-47b9-b53d-6545b8b9e5db.jpeg

vikingqueef, 2 months ago

tale as old as time 1948

vikingqueef, 2 months ago

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/64071e48-f756-4e72-b783-ffcd8b81e9ea.jpeg

vikingqueef, 2 months ago

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/e3542d47-00ad-4593-9172-88e819bdd2dd.jpeg

vikingqueef, 2 months ago

I’d fuck tor

vikingqueef, 2 months ago

The union’s executive board reached the endorsement decision on Wednesday night.

“Currently, many voters, and UFCW 3000 executive board, feel that the best path to have the best nominee, and to defeat Trump, is to vote ‘uncommitted,’” the union said in a statement. “The hope is that this will strengthen the Democratic party’s ultimate nominee to defeat Trump in the General Election in November.”

“We need a nominee who can run and beat Trump to protect workers across this country and around the world,” the statement continued.

With over 50,000 members, the union is a force to be reckoned with as Biden seeks to win over voters in the primary contest.

The president is facing an uphill battle as he seeks to mobilize the broad coalition of Americans who delivered his 2020 White House win. His continued supply of weapons and diplomatic cover for Israel’s brutal assault on Gaza is one of the major sticking points for young voters and voters of color.

Just this week, more than 100,000 Michigan primary voters cast their ballots “uncommitted” in solidarity with Gazans under siege after a three-week campaign. Biden won the swing state by just over 150,000 votes in 2020.

“We stand in solidarity with our partners in Michigan who sent a clear message in their primary that Biden must do more to address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Biden must push for a lasting ceasefire and ending US funding toward this reckless war,” the Washington union said.

vikingqueef, 2 months ago

It was dead and buried a while ago. this is just the fallout

vikingqueef, 2 months ago (edited 2 months ago)

standing an kneeling are so much better for the torso, back and hips than sitting in a tradchair

vikingqueef, 2 months ago

now they are owned by alphabet too which is funny cause it was founded by the guys that founded google and they just restructured google and all its holdings to be under alphabet.

vikingqueef, 2 months ago

Yea I wasn’t saying it was a good thing for us or the world even. Its funny because of all the things you just mentioned.