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Ali Zuberi's avatar

Great article and a great point.

Another thing to note is that one of the reasons we were able to have so many people gather in protest in 2020 was that people were working from home, and so therefore had the freedom to go where they wanted when they wanted.

When the protest started to get too much potential, a surprising amount of return-to-the-office mandates suddenly popped up, with no medical data offered to back the change.

I think they want us in their commercial buildings 40hrs a week so they can make rent, and so we can’t just leave and go fight for power.

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Al Davidoff's avatar

Yes!

So often even when we muster power in workplaces, commmunities, and broader movements we fall back inside the same limiting systems.

A coupe micro examples to go along with your union experience Hamilton- when I was a local UAW President bargaining contracts we would generate a certain amount of leverage to force employers to make some concessions. I remember when the light bulb lit up for me that some issues add material gain- always important- but other issues helped us build our power for the long term- ultimately leading to better material gains.

Small things like the right to do significant union orientation in work time. When I was with 1199, at one nursing home we bargained for a monthly work time union “information session.”

The UAW allowed an impressive system of negotiated union staff helping w EAP, benefits etc to slide into a certain level of political nepotism and demobilizing BUT using leverage to OWN our workplaces and our movements,

to build organization is a much appreciated critical distinction.

One last example from the community side. We had effectively elected a fully progressive local government only to realize how circumscribed we were by State and National laws and by our tax system. Passing lefty resolutions or making small incremental progressive change was ok, but using resources to seed and support

grassroots neighborhood and tenant organizing helped drive bigger change and imbed political progress.

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