After decades of retreat, it might just be that workers are coming into their own as a force for social change. Forty years of punishing austerity and a two-tiered labor system pitting new, temporary, or part-time workers against regular workers have finally found the lowest pay and conditions workers will tolerate. The risk of death and illness from COVID was a profound trigger magnifying an already dire situation. The bossesā ārace to the bottomā finally found the bottom.
The working class is cornered but the working class is fighting back. . . .
If everyday workers can force the strike weapon and organizing into the center of labor strategy and repurpose the millions funneled to the Democratic Party, then we will see a new form of pressure far stronger than phone banking and GOTV efforts.
Electoral politics may not be a total dead end but it sure as hell is a long winding detour compared to a direct confrontation with the corporations that dominate both the workplace and the electoral process. Why lobby politicians when you can challenge their masters.
that last line.
Enough of that shit.
Amazon warehouse workers in New York to labor watchdog: We want our union vote
Unions face test on Staten Island after defeat in Bessemer, Alabama
https://www.theregister.com/2021/10/25/amazon_new_york_union/
On Monday, a group representing workers at Amazonās warehouses on Staten Island, New York, electronically delivered a petition with at least 2,000 signatures to Americaās National Labor Relations Board in an effort to demonstrate thereās enough employee support to hold a vote on whether to unionize.
In an email to The Register , a spokesperson for the NLRB confirmed the filing had been made to its Region 29 facility in Brooklyn, New York. We understand the petition is likely to be published on the NLRB website on Tuesday.
[ā¦]
As workers take to the streets, some express frustration with labor union leadership
Great to see Time covering this issue, finally.
But wait, that subheading has a subtext: āDonāt forget, folks, unions are corrupt!ā
Typically, the US is not considered a āhotbedā of labor unrest.
Yet, this is precisely what we are seeing, as during the month of October, over 100,000 workers have either threatened to strike or actually have walked off the job to demand wage increases, improvements to their work conditions, and basic human dignity.
Dubbed āstriketoberā by activists and pundits alike, this strike wave is occurring across the country, in various industries.
And may it continue.
I hope to see plenty of rapacious big box stores go out of business when they canāt do business on black friday.
Iāll just leave this in hereā¦
Woo hoo!!
The serious fun started when they all went inside and caught the eye of the hapless Saturday supervisor. Perry and his co-workers laughed it up watching the panic their action provoked: āThis supervisor was freaking out, not knowing what to do. Heās on the phone with our bossāheās like, āYeah, thereās a lot of them.āā
The upshot was that the regular drivers got their guaranteed eight hoursāand an uncharacteristically relaxed workday, since there werenāt that many packages to deliver. The hybrids got to slip out early on a Saturday for once. And the union got data to bolster its case that there wasnāt enough work to justify the forced overtime.
I found myself nodding along to a lot of this:
Especially
Minimum pay gets minimum effort.
Thereās no reason to do more.
One night, I stayed late to help clean up the kitchen. We were understaffed again, as usual. The manager clocked us out 30 minutes early. He didnāt tell us until we were finally getting ready to leave.
He had this tone in his voice, like he was doing us a favor. The obvious truth is that he just didnāt want to pay us.
Casual reminder that wage theft is bigger than every other theft, burglary, and larceny combined.
These kind of events put the lie to the whole āunskilled laborā deception. Itās absolutely not unskilled, and treating it as such can lead to disasters.
(ETA Beau. Because itās what I do, I guess!)
