Ugh… the Pinkertons… it’s kind of fucked up how little has changed, eh?
Oh, they’ve always been aware. There is a pretty long history of violence against unions in America. What gave the bosses pause was when the US government gave labor unions official sanction and a seat at the table. The government for the past 40 years or so have been actively undermining labor unions, though.
Sounds like she’s getting a lot of money from farmers because her excuse that
she could not “subject our farmers to a complicated new set of laws that would require them to hire lawyers just to understand.”
Farmers would have to hire lawyers to understand the new law? That’s bullshit. The farmers would need to hire lawyers to help them screw over farm workers is more like it.
That was indeed a disappointing turn 
It’s pretty telling that the Maine Organic Farmers and Growers Association (MOFGA), made up mostly of what would be considered small farms with no real resources to “hire lawyers” were in favor of this bill, but the agribusiness in the state were against it. The local reporting is also totally slanted. MOFGA should get at least as many column inches as Ore-Ida. 
Out here in the Ore- part or Ore-Ida, the push is to recognize overtime for farm workers. Likewise, it’s the small farmers (and that includes the vineyards and wineries) who are backing overtime and the industrial ag companies fighting it.
More than any other time in recent memory, the present moment offers many Americans a chance to make work better.
American employees in 2022 have more leverage over their employers than they have had since the 1970s, the result of a confluence of factors. The pandemic that began in 2020 has prompted a widespread reevaluation about what place work should have in the lives of many Americans, who are known for putting in more hours than people in most other industrialized nations. There’s also been a groundswell of labor organizing that began building momentum in the last decade, due to larger trends like an aging population and growing income inequality. This movement has accelerated in the past two years as the pandemic has brought labor issues to the fore.
“I feel like there’s a change in the culture of Americans” to become more pro-labor, said Catherine Creighton, director of the Co-Lab at Cornell University’s Industrial and Labor Relations school.
“The pandemic created a huge shift where people can take the time to say, ‘What’s going on in my life?’ And it just stopped the clock for a moment, for people to say what’s important and not important,” she said.
Wow…
Some real thought and care went into that.
Much appreciation received. Must be great for morale!
I’ve always thought it was terrible that there are so many unpaid internships in corporate America. Institutions get away with b.s. reasoning that workers are being paid “in experience.” The same goes for artists being paid “in exposure.” People’s time and effort are valuable, and they should be paid for their work.
The folks in management engaging in this would probably be very upset if they were asked to work for no pay. Still, the NFL (an organization with plenty of profits) keeps doing crap like this:
Headliners can afford this, but the rest should be covered in the “production costs.”
Remember, the NFL wanted performers to pay for the privilege of participating in the Superbowl.
Hailed as “heroes” during the early months of the pandemic, these workers, most of whom are women and people of color, say they’re facing untenable levels of pressure.
Ah, there’s the problem.
“women and people of color” =/= “heroes”
That is nice, they can use the courts to keep you in your bad job with no contract in an at will state.
This case is also being discussed here:
2021 did not totally suck:
This won’t onebox for some reason, but a representative in New Hampshire has introduced a bill that would include the history of the Labour movement into the mandatory history syllabus.
https://www.concordmonitor.com/Teaching-Labor-History-in-Schools-44637894
