Now, before admonishing me, hear me out. I ain't saying that smoking is good for you, the dangers are well known, and as a smoker I fully agree it's a bad, bad habit. But. Nobody cares for your health, and if you doubt it take a look at the food they feed you and the general quality of life low income people have come to expect. What's this got to do with unions, you say? Bear with me. Before smoking was vilified, and while it was socially unacceptable, workers who smoked (and that would be the majority) always demanded their break. No way you can make smokers work longer than they have to, without a "smoko". During the break, their hands busy rolling, smoking, lighting a cigarette, they'd socialise with each other, and what would workers talk about? You guessed it! Work, the boss, payment and whatever else they had in common. Kaboom! Here's your union in the making. Fast forward to today. I was passing by a construction site the other day, and workers were having their lunch break. Nobody smoked, naturally. The outcast smokers, (that is, one guy maybe), were far from the crowd, as the law demands, looking around with a guilty face. The majority of the workers were all sitting on a line, stuck on their phones, totally oblivious to the world around them. Now try getting a Union out of these guys. Conclusion? The war on smoking has always been part of the class war, but smartphones and social media were the final nail in the coffin of unionisation. Can we undo this?
You could try taking $ bets on the outcomes of reform efforts... Also, why aren't there more mystery/detective novels starring a health and safety rep, or a union steward? Life and death stuff, full of tension, swarming with enemies. See Tim Sheard's Lenny Moss novels -- I assume everyone is familiar with them!!!
Great stuff, Hamilton. On a (slightly) side note, I just watched an interview Jordan Chariton of Status Coup News on YouTube did with a community organizer, Tammy Tsai, in East Palestine, the small town in the heart of the Ohio rust belt that was devastated last year by Norfolk Southern's toxic train derailment and explosion (http://tinyurl.com/bdfzhrhp ).
One of the points Tammy made was that the company has successfully pitted residents against each other. This is a town in a region that was at the epicenter of the corporate gutting of industrial jobs and industrial unionism in the 20th and early 21st centuries. A region that went from majority traditional blue collar, Democratic voters, to solid "Trump country". The destruction of social solidarity has downstream effects far afield of individual workplaces.
By contrast, she pointed out the story of Times Beach, Missouri, another community that also suffered devastating health injuries due to corporate negligence, but whose unbreakable solidarity won residents comprehensive concessions from government and corporate interests.
I'm retired now but from a union family, and there's so much that's attractive about unions if people only knew...
Yes, there's the quality of work life when people unionize, and there's the wonderful feeling of solidarity and community that comes with the process of unionizing.
There's also the incredible history: Joe Hill, Ginger Goodwin and all the amazing others who did so much for ordinary people. It's also a class thing, so many members of the working class support unions, but much of the middle class looks down on them mostly, I think, because of the anti-union propaganda.
All that wonderful history and those great values are so appropriate for these times.
"reporters who talked to the corporate executives, in the same way that some hardy reporters specialize in visiting prisons to chat with serial killers"
Read and shared your article from in these times. It made me think of how affluent people have chosen to support stores like Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s, which, in my community displaced union markets, and the jobs in those stores are unreliable. The one time I went to Whole Foods the clerk told me that she only gets a promotion if she loses weight. I consider UFCW desperately important in representing grocery workers and warehouse workers. All of them should be unionized. I agree with one of your readers that the absence of union stories on television is very noticeable and troubling.
Hamilton, I've appreciated your work for years. Yes, I bought, read, and enjoyed "The hammer". I've also been a member of two unions. One was at the Swedish Institute of Computer Science, where I was a guest researcher. In Sweden, there's nothing unusual about "high brow" professional types being unionized. The other was at UC Davis, where I was a graduate student. We went on strike to force the assholes nominally running the university to recognize our union. (And we won! But probably mostly because the state legislature told the assholes to stop stalling and start negotiating.)
So was I inclined to read about "a burgeoning reform movement inside of one of America's biggest unions"? Actually, I was, and I did. It's a good piece, and I wish Ms. Guenther and her collaborators success in reforming the UFCW. Still ...
I find it difficult to feel much optimism about the future of organized labor in the USA or, not at all coincidentally, the future of American society in general. I suspect I'm far from alone, and I suspect that's one reason why even terrific labor reporters like you don't get much attention.
Here's the crux of the matter. You write, "The American dream died due to 50 years of the rich getting richer while wages stagnated for the working class—> That happened because of the decline of worker power". That isn't wrong, but it's missing something crucial: tens of millions of poor Americans have voted for that over and over and over.
Having grown up among such people, I believe they've done so mainly out of bigotry and superstition, that is, because they're white-, male-, and christianist-supremacists. They're so obsessed with putting "uppity" brown people, women, etc. back in "their place" (as my mother used to say) that they're willing to impoverish themselves and their children rather than share the country with those Others as anything like equals.
However, even if you disagree with my assessment of their motives, it's simply a fact that huge numbers of Americans have voted for this shitshow repeatedly. For example, they did it when they first elected and then re-elected Ronald Reagan by "landslides", even after he personally crushed PATCO, among other sociopathic acts. Less than four years ago, about 74 million mostly poor people - as Mr. Dancy says in your piece, "When I was growing up, there were unions - and there was a middle class. ... Today, you just have the rich and the poor" - voted to re-elect the worst president in American history, who had done absolutely nothing for most of them aside from hurting people they despise*.
Mind you, I'm not advocating surrender. Even if it's hopeless, the good fight is still the good fight. Moreover, local victories are still possible and can be highly beneficial to the workers they affect. And conceivably, eventually, local victories may discernibly change the bigger picture. But with fascism (by any other name) on the rise throughout North America** and Europe***, among other places, it doesn't seem likely.
I don't know quite what a writer like you should do about that, other than (obviously) point out to working people that "conservatism", as practiced by both Republicans and "centrist" Democrats, has thoroughly screwed them over for the past 40 years or so. It's hard to get through to people who continually act contrary to rational self-interest for no good reason.
*Yes, I'm painfully aware Joe Biden isn't a great president, but he's a lot better than his predecessor, as was obvious at the time. I'm also aware unions contributed significantly to deposing his predecessor, at least temporarily.
**I'm in Canada, whose politics are less depraved than the USA's, but they're catching up. The media here are proclaiming that the next prime minister will be Pierre Poilievre, who used to be known as Stephen Harper's attack dog. If so, I expect he'll be the worst PM in Canadian history.
***Even in Sweden. When I lived there in the 1990s, fascists were few and demoralized. Now, they're the second largest party in the Riksdag.
Despite being viciously attacked in the first paragraph, I thoroughly enjoyed this piece. And saved the In These Times article to read after work. Looking forward to seeing you in Chicago!
I was very excited to go to one of the CA dates but I got a wicked head cold from international travel and don’t want to accidentally give it to a bunch of nice strangers
I’d love to see you do strong profile of Jane McAlevey emphasizing all of her work building organizing infrastructure. Also, The Hammer was great. Also great: Have you read Nick Romeo’s The Alternative?
Your message would be better received if it were not so obviously couched in political terms.
In particular, the reality that unions have affiliated with the Democrat party despite said party now obviously focusing on government, corporate and academic elites.
The failure to recognize the class nature of labor vs. management, as opposed to the "liberal" vs. "conservative" or the "Republican vs. Democrat" is a structural problem in this attempt to "communicate" labor relations news.
Now, before admonishing me, hear me out. I ain't saying that smoking is good for you, the dangers are well known, and as a smoker I fully agree it's a bad, bad habit. But. Nobody cares for your health, and if you doubt it take a look at the food they feed you and the general quality of life low income people have come to expect. What's this got to do with unions, you say? Bear with me. Before smoking was vilified, and while it was socially unacceptable, workers who smoked (and that would be the majority) always demanded their break. No way you can make smokers work longer than they have to, without a "smoko". During the break, their hands busy rolling, smoking, lighting a cigarette, they'd socialise with each other, and what would workers talk about? You guessed it! Work, the boss, payment and whatever else they had in common. Kaboom! Here's your union in the making. Fast forward to today. I was passing by a construction site the other day, and workers were having their lunch break. Nobody smoked, naturally. The outcast smokers, (that is, one guy maybe), were far from the crowd, as the law demands, looking around with a guilty face. The majority of the workers were all sitting on a line, stuck on their phones, totally oblivious to the world around them. Now try getting a Union out of these guys. Conclusion? The war on smoking has always been part of the class war, but smartphones and social media were the final nail in the coffin of unionisation. Can we undo this?
You could try taking $ bets on the outcomes of reform efforts... Also, why aren't there more mystery/detective novels starring a health and safety rep, or a union steward? Life and death stuff, full of tension, swarming with enemies. See Tim Sheard's Lenny Moss novels -- I assume everyone is familiar with them!!!
Great stuff, Hamilton. On a (slightly) side note, I just watched an interview Jordan Chariton of Status Coup News on YouTube did with a community organizer, Tammy Tsai, in East Palestine, the small town in the heart of the Ohio rust belt that was devastated last year by Norfolk Southern's toxic train derailment and explosion (http://tinyurl.com/bdfzhrhp ).
One of the points Tammy made was that the company has successfully pitted residents against each other. This is a town in a region that was at the epicenter of the corporate gutting of industrial jobs and industrial unionism in the 20th and early 21st centuries. A region that went from majority traditional blue collar, Democratic voters, to solid "Trump country". The destruction of social solidarity has downstream effects far afield of individual workplaces.
By contrast, she pointed out the story of Times Beach, Missouri, another community that also suffered devastating health injuries due to corporate negligence, but whose unbreakable solidarity won residents comprehensive concessions from government and corporate interests.
I'm retired now but from a union family, and there's so much that's attractive about unions if people only knew...
Yes, there's the quality of work life when people unionize, and there's the wonderful feeling of solidarity and community that comes with the process of unionizing.
There's also the incredible history: Joe Hill, Ginger Goodwin and all the amazing others who did so much for ordinary people. It's also a class thing, so many members of the working class support unions, but much of the middle class looks down on them mostly, I think, because of the anti-union propaganda.
All that wonderful history and those great values are so appropriate for these times.
Here's a song that always moves me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8Kxq9uFDes
Also, congratulations on your book.
"reporters who talked to the corporate executives, in the same way that some hardy reporters specialize in visiting prisons to chat with serial killers"
ouch and touche
Read and shared your article from in these times. It made me think of how affluent people have chosen to support stores like Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s, which, in my community displaced union markets, and the jobs in those stores are unreliable. The one time I went to Whole Foods the clerk told me that she only gets a promotion if she loses weight. I consider UFCW desperately important in representing grocery workers and warehouse workers. All of them should be unionized. I agree with one of your readers that the absence of union stories on television is very noticeable and troubling.
Hamilton, I've appreciated your work for years. Yes, I bought, read, and enjoyed "The hammer". I've also been a member of two unions. One was at the Swedish Institute of Computer Science, where I was a guest researcher. In Sweden, there's nothing unusual about "high brow" professional types being unionized. The other was at UC Davis, where I was a graduate student. We went on strike to force the assholes nominally running the university to recognize our union. (And we won! But probably mostly because the state legislature told the assholes to stop stalling and start negotiating.)
So was I inclined to read about "a burgeoning reform movement inside of one of America's biggest unions"? Actually, I was, and I did. It's a good piece, and I wish Ms. Guenther and her collaborators success in reforming the UFCW. Still ...
I find it difficult to feel much optimism about the future of organized labor in the USA or, not at all coincidentally, the future of American society in general. I suspect I'm far from alone, and I suspect that's one reason why even terrific labor reporters like you don't get much attention.
Here's the crux of the matter. You write, "The American dream died due to 50 years of the rich getting richer while wages stagnated for the working class—> That happened because of the decline of worker power". That isn't wrong, but it's missing something crucial: tens of millions of poor Americans have voted for that over and over and over.
Having grown up among such people, I believe they've done so mainly out of bigotry and superstition, that is, because they're white-, male-, and christianist-supremacists. They're so obsessed with putting "uppity" brown people, women, etc. back in "their place" (as my mother used to say) that they're willing to impoverish themselves and their children rather than share the country with those Others as anything like equals.
However, even if you disagree with my assessment of their motives, it's simply a fact that huge numbers of Americans have voted for this shitshow repeatedly. For example, they did it when they first elected and then re-elected Ronald Reagan by "landslides", even after he personally crushed PATCO, among other sociopathic acts. Less than four years ago, about 74 million mostly poor people - as Mr. Dancy says in your piece, "When I was growing up, there were unions - and there was a middle class. ... Today, you just have the rich and the poor" - voted to re-elect the worst president in American history, who had done absolutely nothing for most of them aside from hurting people they despise*.
Mind you, I'm not advocating surrender. Even if it's hopeless, the good fight is still the good fight. Moreover, local victories are still possible and can be highly beneficial to the workers they affect. And conceivably, eventually, local victories may discernibly change the bigger picture. But with fascism (by any other name) on the rise throughout North America** and Europe***, among other places, it doesn't seem likely.
I don't know quite what a writer like you should do about that, other than (obviously) point out to working people that "conservatism", as practiced by both Republicans and "centrist" Democrats, has thoroughly screwed them over for the past 40 years or so. It's hard to get through to people who continually act contrary to rational self-interest for no good reason.
*Yes, I'm painfully aware Joe Biden isn't a great president, but he's a lot better than his predecessor, as was obvious at the time. I'm also aware unions contributed significantly to deposing his predecessor, at least temporarily.
**I'm in Canada, whose politics are less depraved than the USA's, but they're catching up. The media here are proclaiming that the next prime minister will be Pierre Poilievre, who used to be known as Stephen Harper's attack dog. If so, I expect he'll be the worst PM in Canadian history.
***Even in Sweden. When I lived there in the 1990s, fascists were few and demoralized. Now, they're the second largest party in the Riksdag.
Despite being viciously attacked in the first paragraph, I thoroughly enjoyed this piece. And saved the In These Times article to read after work. Looking forward to seeing you in Chicago!
Enjoyed the article! Thanks.
I was very excited to go to one of the CA dates but I got a wicked head cold from international travel and don’t want to accidentally give it to a bunch of nice strangers
I’d love to see you do strong profile of Jane McAlevey emphasizing all of her work building organizing infrastructure. Also, The Hammer was great. Also great: Have you read Nick Romeo’s The Alternative?
Your message would be better received if it were not so obviously couched in political terms.
In particular, the reality that unions have affiliated with the Democrat party despite said party now obviously focusing on government, corporate and academic elites.
The failure to recognize the class nature of labor vs. management, as opposed to the "liberal" vs. "conservative" or the "Republican vs. Democrat" is a structural problem in this attempt to "communicate" labor relations news.