We better hope it's just strikes -- because frankly, the alternative is violence. I would prefer strikes. It's good to remember, however, that in the past peaceful strikes were very often met with violence from the oligarchs.
It's also true that many of the things being done to workers today can be viewed as a form of violence. Not letting a worker urinate as needed for example, is something I would view as violence.
I am an inherently peaceful person. I will not call for violence. It would be absurd to believe, however, that violence isn't going to happen. History (and Luigi) suggest it's coming.
Exactly right...whether one 'approves' of violence or not is a moot point...It is simply what happens when people are pushed past their breaking point and have exhausted all other forms of address
Great piece. The fact that this reality was not made clear to working people across the country even after Trump and Musk openly displayed and even boasted about their disdain for workers was political malpractice by Harris, her campaign and the leadership of the Democratic Party.
I think even more important to the future of unions then public sector unions is the Davis Bacon and prevailing wage laws. Having spent 15 years in the 1970-80's in the building and trades in a southern right work state, the key to the survival of our local was the requirements to use union labor at the nearby very large federal site that gave the local the ability to always have enough employment to fund the 4 year apprenticeship program that then provided well trained workers that contractors could depend on to do quality work in competition with the non-union shops. I spent 4 years doing troubleshooting on complex manufacturing control systems that those non-union maintenance departments were incapable of doing because of the lack of training.
Once they kill Davis Bacon, all that will go away and will be replaced by undertrained, underpaid people that will do poor quality work in unsafe conditions. Never forget that even the dystopian hell Musk and his cohort want to create requires somebody to build and maintain the infrastructure for it and the funding for that infrastructure often comes from the federal government.
Has this nation ever rationalized the training for building and mechanical/industrial trades? One black mark against unions is the belief that they create quotas for entering a licensed trade to keep the fees charged way up. I once watched my mother get royally fleeced by a union electrician and have avoided them since. This collusion between state licensing boards and trade unions is unclear to me. If public opinion was supportive of unions why would they be in such decline. From what I've heard, many regard unions as another corruptible, self-interested, political pressure entity to keep prices up and trade entry. restricted. I'm not subscribed to anything asked here, only confused.
So, if your mother had been fleeced by a non-union electrician would you have avoided non-union shops and considered the organizations, funded by non- union contractors, dedicated to erasing trade unions to be "corruptible, self-interested, political pressure entity to keep prices up"?
I'm just trying to understand your criteria for judging unions.
Thanks for your reply and the good questions. Being merely human, my experiences do inform my attitudes. So, yes to having this go the other way if my experience was different. I didn't mean this to be a judgement on unions. I am absolutely pro labor. But only because of who I am. My impression of the public attitude toward unions is that it's not favorable. Another anecdote: For years I volunteered at my local high school as a tutor. I did it partly for my respect for education and my respect for teachers. When I told a teacher there about my admiration for the profession, she replied, "that's nice of you, but many of them are just unionists."
So many thoughts as I read this post, and I'm absolutely pro labour.
How do we get people realizing the importance of unifying our movements? As a working class person who's been an environmental and social justice activist for most of my adult life, it frustrates me that the social justice, environmental and pro Palestine movements are so separate.
We will all have different priorities, but it would be so great if we would have even a basic understanding of each other's perspectives, and show up to each other's events. Is that too much to ask?
The other piece that jumped out at me was the pathetic political situation we have in most of the western world. What was once left is now corporate and undemocratic. Think Democrats, Blairites and third way labour types. They're in the pocket of big money.
Whenever I read an article urging people to get involved with the Democrats in the USA, I delete it. With their support of Israel's genocide, their contempt for the working class and their undemocratic processes? No way! And what are Americans to do? Rebuild the Democrats? Join the Green Party? Something else?
And recruiting more union members sounds great, but what's the incentive when their power has been stripped?
I hope union members learn to flex those strike muscles because I think they're going to need them.
"How do we get people realizing the importance of unifying our movements?"
A lot of people won't fight for something until they HAVE to...Before now, there was always the OPTION to organize and unionize, you know, if things ever got bad enough...Unionizing takes a lot of time, effort and money and DISFRUPTION in people's lives...My guess is that they weigh the cost benefits of those things against simple going along to get along...
Now, because of those 2 generations of neglect they are going to have to fight hard, long, and 'bloody' for something they could have EASILY had if they had grown those unions under the most labor friendly administration in living memory...And just have fucking voted for Harris who CLEARLY would have continued Biden's initiatives
I live in SC which as you are probably aware is very anti-union and some of that anti-unionism came by way of Detroit and the UAW.
I have spent basically my whole adult life working in heavy industry and have given lots of thought to unions down through my 40 years in a paper mill.
I think unions are good, CONCEPTUALLY, but in reality do two things that doom them to irrelevance.
1)Seniority
Seniority fosters mediocrity. Keep your nose clean, do the bare minimum to not get written up and you WILL rise to the top. How in the world does a young, sharp, go-getter pass by that 50 year old do-nothing who assigns the young go-getter all the bad jobs...for years.
2) ALWAYS siding with the union employee.
There will always be bad employees, that's a given. I've had a hand in firing several over my 35 years in that paper mill. I did not enjoy firing my co-workers but it's true.. One bad apple WILL spoil the whole bunch.
Until unions tackle those two items, unions have an uphill slog. Not only do they have to deal with those issues but the have to be vocal about having done that.
My entire career was in a non-union paper mill so I have no direct experience with unions but I read the news and nothing leads me to believe I am wrong about seniority and reflexively protecting bad employees.
Go read the story of Mack Truck in Winnsboro, South Carolina. The UAW killed that plant. Not only did they kill the physical plant but they bred several hundred men and women who despise unions to this day and their message is as anti-union as it is possible.
So, conceptually, unions sound great for workers. In practice, unions are their own worst enemy.
I was in the hospital workers union for a few years as a young man. No complaints there. But the atmosphere surrounding unions is not good as it's made through impressions. Like the military members allow their organization to form their personalities. My brothers in law, both in the electrical union, have become increasingly arrogant and condescending. I know this is about counteracting worker exploitation. But for the public, the abuses of unions are much more visible. Why is the graphics on their vans and stationery so super-patriot proud right-wing? I do remember the effigies of Saddam crucified onto the grilles of their union trucks.
The recent “memo” offering 8 months pay to those who resign is an example of the Musk labor reduction/exploitation plan. This is (was?) an opportunity for union action. Including clarification , explanation , education , recommendation , and organized resistance. The idea of fighting this out in the courts is just a waste of time. Any possible favorable outcome will be too late anyway. Many older veteran employers will take the perceived easy way out. Organized resistance is the most effective method. Successful organized opposition with favorable results is itself a tremendous recruitment tool. The idea of strength in numbers is not new. This is an opportunity for unions to show that they are effective and can counter the threat posed by Musk and his team of disrupters.
I do agree that increasing union militantism is needed, but I think it's important to note that moving to a strike requires considerable internal organizing--strikes typically need to have a 90%+ bargaining unit support to be effective--this can't happen without steady and effective tools aimed at engagement, building such capacity takes time, and sometimes even a few negotiating cycles. Strike likes the UC UAW strike, and the UC-AFT near-strike were years in the making. Obviously, a ULP strike is another animal, but again, there needs to be a strong sense of solidarity within the membership. As for union-friendly politicians, policy only goes so far, and the real success of the union has to be at the bargaining table, but anybody who's been seriously doing this work for more than an election cycle knows this. In many ways the DLC did more to undermine labor than the Republicans. As bad as the situation is (and it's bad), I still think about the big drop off we expected to see in our locals post-Janus (I'm a public sector unionist)--we lost very few members--the bigger challenge was recruiting new members, which meant and still means raising out gain on organizing and membership recruitment. This is happening, but not quickly as one would like.
Union members are one of the few demographics that stayed steadily Democratic which is one reason why increasing union membership is vital for the Democrats as well as for workers.
I appreciate your analysis, especially its observation that many unions have grown moribund by centering themselves around a legal regime that appears to now be in exile.
To what extent do you perceive union support for Democrats as ultimately enabling the party’s disregard for working class interests? I wrote recently about how Democrats serving the interest of Wall Street ultimately paved the road for Trump by abandoning middle and working class voters. https://shahidbuttar.substack.com/p/7-ways-democrats-made-donald-trump
Many helped put Trump back in office because the status quo ante under Obama, then Biden, had long been untenable for working families. Unions who enable corporate Democrats might ultimately undermine the interests of their own rank and file.
I say this having run for Congress as a Democrat to challenge a quintessential corporate Democrat and unabashedly corrupt oligarch enabled by unions more beholden to the party’s power structure than their own members or their economic interests.
Definitely an unhealthy relationship between the Democratic party and unions which I've written about previously. But I'd say that the long term decline of union power is what allowed the D party to slide into neoliberalism and not vice versa.
While labor participation has certainly declined from its historic high watermarks in previous eras, that alone doesn't explain the neoliberal co-optation of the Democratic Party.
i don't know....Hamilton said below that unions stayed steadfastly democratic...that wasn't my understanding, but I will always defer to Hamilton on these matters
(:
perhaps we're making a distinction between UNIONS and union MEMBERS?
Yes I think it makes sense. Worker ownership is seeing growth in several states. The growth has been spurred by favorable policy. There have even been some union co-ops created recently.
We better hope it's just strikes -- because frankly, the alternative is violence. I would prefer strikes. It's good to remember, however, that in the past peaceful strikes were very often met with violence from the oligarchs.
It's also true that many of the things being done to workers today can be viewed as a form of violence. Not letting a worker urinate as needed for example, is something I would view as violence.
I am an inherently peaceful person. I will not call for violence. It would be absurd to believe, however, that violence isn't going to happen. History (and Luigi) suggest it's coming.
Exactly right...whether one 'approves' of violence or not is a moot point...It is simply what happens when people are pushed past their breaking point and have exhausted all other forms of address
Great piece. The fact that this reality was not made clear to working people across the country even after Trump and Musk openly displayed and even boasted about their disdain for workers was political malpractice by Harris, her campaign and the leadership of the Democratic Party.
I think even more important to the future of unions then public sector unions is the Davis Bacon and prevailing wage laws. Having spent 15 years in the 1970-80's in the building and trades in a southern right work state, the key to the survival of our local was the requirements to use union labor at the nearby very large federal site that gave the local the ability to always have enough employment to fund the 4 year apprenticeship program that then provided well trained workers that contractors could depend on to do quality work in competition with the non-union shops. I spent 4 years doing troubleshooting on complex manufacturing control systems that those non-union maintenance departments were incapable of doing because of the lack of training.
Once they kill Davis Bacon, all that will go away and will be replaced by undertrained, underpaid people that will do poor quality work in unsafe conditions. Never forget that even the dystopian hell Musk and his cohort want to create requires somebody to build and maintain the infrastructure for it and the funding for that infrastructure often comes from the federal government.
Has this nation ever rationalized the training for building and mechanical/industrial trades? One black mark against unions is the belief that they create quotas for entering a licensed trade to keep the fees charged way up. I once watched my mother get royally fleeced by a union electrician and have avoided them since. This collusion between state licensing boards and trade unions is unclear to me. If public opinion was supportive of unions why would they be in such decline. From what I've heard, many regard unions as another corruptible, self-interested, political pressure entity to keep prices up and trade entry. restricted. I'm not subscribed to anything asked here, only confused.
So, if your mother had been fleeced by a non-union electrician would you have avoided non-union shops and considered the organizations, funded by non- union contractors, dedicated to erasing trade unions to be "corruptible, self-interested, political pressure entity to keep prices up"?
I'm just trying to understand your criteria for judging unions.
Thanks for your reply and the good questions. Being merely human, my experiences do inform my attitudes. So, yes to having this go the other way if my experience was different. I didn't mean this to be a judgement on unions. I am absolutely pro labor. But only because of who I am. My impression of the public attitude toward unions is that it's not favorable. Another anecdote: For years I volunteered at my local high school as a tutor. I did it partly for my respect for education and my respect for teachers. When I told a teacher there about my admiration for the profession, she replied, "that's nice of you, but many of them are just unionists."
So many thoughts as I read this post, and I'm absolutely pro labour.
How do we get people realizing the importance of unifying our movements? As a working class person who's been an environmental and social justice activist for most of my adult life, it frustrates me that the social justice, environmental and pro Palestine movements are so separate.
We will all have different priorities, but it would be so great if we would have even a basic understanding of each other's perspectives, and show up to each other's events. Is that too much to ask?
The other piece that jumped out at me was the pathetic political situation we have in most of the western world. What was once left is now corporate and undemocratic. Think Democrats, Blairites and third way labour types. They're in the pocket of big money.
Whenever I read an article urging people to get involved with the Democrats in the USA, I delete it. With their support of Israel's genocide, their contempt for the working class and their undemocratic processes? No way! And what are Americans to do? Rebuild the Democrats? Join the Green Party? Something else?
And recruiting more union members sounds great, but what's the incentive when their power has been stripped?
I hope union members learn to flex those strike muscles because I think they're going to need them.
"How do we get people realizing the importance of unifying our movements?"
A lot of people won't fight for something until they HAVE to...Before now, there was always the OPTION to organize and unionize, you know, if things ever got bad enough...Unionizing takes a lot of time, effort and money and DISFRUPTION in people's lives...My guess is that they weigh the cost benefits of those things against simple going along to get along...
Now, because of those 2 generations of neglect they are going to have to fight hard, long, and 'bloody' for something they could have EASILY had if they had grown those unions under the most labor friendly administration in living memory...And just have fucking voted for Harris who CLEARLY would have continued Biden's initiatives
People should join unions. Stipulated. But we are at the point where you have written the 200th version of the same column. Branch out maybe?
[reading the sports section] enough with the sports!
I live in SC which as you are probably aware is very anti-union and some of that anti-unionism came by way of Detroit and the UAW.
I have spent basically my whole adult life working in heavy industry and have given lots of thought to unions down through my 40 years in a paper mill.
I think unions are good, CONCEPTUALLY, but in reality do two things that doom them to irrelevance.
1)Seniority
Seniority fosters mediocrity. Keep your nose clean, do the bare minimum to not get written up and you WILL rise to the top. How in the world does a young, sharp, go-getter pass by that 50 year old do-nothing who assigns the young go-getter all the bad jobs...for years.
2) ALWAYS siding with the union employee.
There will always be bad employees, that's a given. I've had a hand in firing several over my 35 years in that paper mill. I did not enjoy firing my co-workers but it's true.. One bad apple WILL spoil the whole bunch.
Until unions tackle those two items, unions have an uphill slog. Not only do they have to deal with those issues but the have to be vocal about having done that.
My entire career was in a non-union paper mill so I have no direct experience with unions but I read the news and nothing leads me to believe I am wrong about seniority and reflexively protecting bad employees.
Go read the story of Mack Truck in Winnsboro, South Carolina. The UAW killed that plant. Not only did they kill the physical plant but they bred several hundred men and women who despise unions to this day and their message is as anti-union as it is possible.
So, conceptually, unions sound great for workers. In practice, unions are their own worst enemy.
I was in the hospital workers union for a few years as a young man. No complaints there. But the atmosphere surrounding unions is not good as it's made through impressions. Like the military members allow their organization to form their personalities. My brothers in law, both in the electrical union, have become increasingly arrogant and condescending. I know this is about counteracting worker exploitation. But for the public, the abuses of unions are much more visible. Why is the graphics on their vans and stationery so super-patriot proud right-wing? I do remember the effigies of Saddam crucified onto the grilles of their union trucks.
The recent “memo” offering 8 months pay to those who resign is an example of the Musk labor reduction/exploitation plan. This is (was?) an opportunity for union action. Including clarification , explanation , education , recommendation , and organized resistance. The idea of fighting this out in the courts is just a waste of time. Any possible favorable outcome will be too late anyway. Many older veteran employers will take the perceived easy way out. Organized resistance is the most effective method. Successful organized opposition with favorable results is itself a tremendous recruitment tool. The idea of strength in numbers is not new. This is an opportunity for unions to show that they are effective and can counter the threat posed by Musk and his team of disrupters.
I do agree that increasing union militantism is needed, but I think it's important to note that moving to a strike requires considerable internal organizing--strikes typically need to have a 90%+ bargaining unit support to be effective--this can't happen without steady and effective tools aimed at engagement, building such capacity takes time, and sometimes even a few negotiating cycles. Strike likes the UC UAW strike, and the UC-AFT near-strike were years in the making. Obviously, a ULP strike is another animal, but again, there needs to be a strong sense of solidarity within the membership. As for union-friendly politicians, policy only goes so far, and the real success of the union has to be at the bargaining table, but anybody who's been seriously doing this work for more than an election cycle knows this. In many ways the DLC did more to undermine labor than the Republicans. As bad as the situation is (and it's bad), I still think about the big drop off we expected to see in our locals post-Janus (I'm a public sector unionist)--we lost very few members--the bigger challenge was recruiting new members, which meant and still means raising out gain on organizing and membership recruitment. This is happening, but not quickly as one would like.
Great piece. Do you know what percentage of union workers voted for Republicans, including Trump?
Union members are one of the few demographics that stayed steadily Democratic which is one reason why increasing union membership is vital for the Democrats as well as for workers.
https://www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/to-unfuck-politics-create-more-union
I appreciate your analysis, especially its observation that many unions have grown moribund by centering themselves around a legal regime that appears to now be in exile.
To what extent do you perceive union support for Democrats as ultimately enabling the party’s disregard for working class interests? I wrote recently about how Democrats serving the interest of Wall Street ultimately paved the road for Trump by abandoning middle and working class voters. https://shahidbuttar.substack.com/p/7-ways-democrats-made-donald-trump
Many helped put Trump back in office because the status quo ante under Obama, then Biden, had long been untenable for working families. Unions who enable corporate Democrats might ultimately undermine the interests of their own rank and file.
I say this having run for Congress as a Democrat to challenge a quintessential corporate Democrat and unabashedly corrupt oligarch enabled by unions more beholden to the party’s power structure than their own members or their economic interests.
Definitely an unhealthy relationship between the Democratic party and unions which I've written about previously. But I'd say that the long term decline of union power is what allowed the D party to slide into neoliberalism and not vice versa.
While labor participation has certainly declined from its historic high watermarks in previous eras, that alone doesn't explain the neoliberal co-optation of the Democratic Party.
Clinton's historic betrayal of the working class reflected his ambition and willingness to sacrifice the interests of his supports for his own personal advancement, at least as much as any exogenous factors. https://shahidbuttar.substack.com/p/fears-of-a-fascist-future-overlook
Biden followed a similar pattern when blocking rail workers from striking in 2022. https://shahidbuttar.substack.com/i/137458997/corporate-democrats-embrace-political-theater-rather-than-solidarity
I had thought the opposite...but yeah that scans...
i don't know....Hamilton said below that unions stayed steadfastly democratic...that wasn't my understanding, but I will always defer to Hamilton on these matters
(:
perhaps we're making a distinction between UNIONS and union MEMBERS?
Dies tenebrous sicut nox
Very interesting topic. Can I translate part of this article into Spanish with links to you and a description of your newsletter?
Look to the Luddites; Blood in the Machine.
There is no negotiating with a shark.
Thank you for writing this. I featured it in this week's round-up: https://michelleteheux.substack.com/p/this-week-in-income-inequality-jan-17f
Shared your piece in this week's round-up: https://open.substack.com/pub/michelleteheux/p/this-week-in-income-inequality-jan-17f?r=79vqn&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
Cogent analysis. Thank you
Would it make sense now to put energy and resources towards implementing other labor-empowering efforts: Like worker cooperatives, labor representation on corporate boards, employee ownership, the Mondragon model, etc.? Just the idea of moving forward on those fronts makes me feel slightly less ... doomed. https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/apr/24/in-the-us-they-think-were-communists-the-70000-workers-showing-the-world-another-way-to-earn-a-living
Yes I think it makes sense. Worker ownership is seeing growth in several states. The growth has been spurred by favorable policy. There have even been some union co-ops created recently.