"Militant labor doesn't just protect labor rights – it protects human rights. Remember: MLK, Jr was assassinated while campaigning for union janitors in Memphis. LA teachers ended ICE sweeps at the school gates. Librarian unions are leading the fight against book bans.

The good news is that public opinion has swung wildly in favor of unions over the past decade. More people want to join unions than at any time in generations. More people support unions that at any time in generations.

The bad news is that union leadership fucking suuuuuuuucks. As Hamilton Nolan writes, union bosses are sitting on vast, heretofore unseen warchests of cash, and they just experienced a four-year period of governmental support for unions unheard of since the Carter administration, and they did fuck all with that opportunity:"

https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/29/which-side-are-you-on-2/#strike-three-yer-out

#USA #Capitalism #LaborLaws #Unions #AntiUnions #WorkerMovement #ClassWarfare

"Musk’s management of his own companies like X provides clues about what to expect from President Trump.

In Walter Isaacson’s biography of Musk, the business mogul lays out what he calls his five step “algorithm” for making organizations more efficient. After his first step, questioning every requirement, Musk’s second step is to remove as many processes as possible. He goes as far as saying that if you didn’t cut so deep that you have to add some parts back later, you didn’t go far enough. Here’s how Musk put it:

“Delete any part or process you can. You may have to add them back later. In fact, if you do not end up adding back at least 10 percent of them, then you didn’t delete enough.”

Sound familiar? As the Trump administration issues one sweeping declaration after another — blanket suspensions of foreign aid, DEI, federal grants, loans, and so on — the DNA of Musk’s management philosophy seems present in practically all of it.

There will be cuts. The question is: how much will be put back?"

https://www.kenklippenstein.com/p/trump-buyouts-mirror-elon-musks-twitter

#USA #Trump #Musk #PublicPolicy #AntiLabor #AntiUnions #Corporativism #Austerity

"If you wanted the malaise Carter so eloquently bemoaned to metastasize, you could do worse than enacting the very policies his own administration implemented: cutting taxes, shrinking the welfare state, deregulating the economy, and turning away from the increasingly besieged labor movement. These measures paved the way for a few at the top to grow fabulously wealthy, while the majority of Americans saw their wages stagnate and their unions destroyed while suffering the consequences of the ultrarich’s reckless, self-serving decisions. Our Second Gilded Age of obscene inequality and atomization is the predictable result of such policies.

Jimmy Carter rightly warned against the country taking a path that would lead to “fragmentation and self-interest. Down that road lies a mistaken idea of freedom, the right to grasp for ourselves some advantage over others. That path would be one of constant conflict between narrow interests ending in chaos and immobility.” It is a bit of tragic irony that he helped lead us further down that road."

https://jacobin.com/2024/12/jimmy-carter-malaise-speech-austerity

#USA #Carter #Neoliberalism #Austerity #AntiUnions

"Amazon workers at seven warehouses walked out Thursday morning, launching a strike ahead of the holidays after Amazon failed to meet a bargaining deadline set by the Teamsters union representing the workers.

In a press release, Teamsters declared it "the largest strike against Amazon in US history." Teamsters general president, Sean O'Brien, warned shoppers of potential delays, saying "you can blame Amazon’s insatiable greed."

"We gave Amazon a clear deadline to come to the table and do right by our members. They ignored it," O’Brien said. "These greedy executives had every chance to show decency and respect for the people who make their obscene profits possible. Instead, they’ve pushed workers to the limit and now they’re paying the price. This strike is on them."

The strike will impact warehouses in New York City, Atlanta, San Francisco, Southern California, and Skokie, Ill., with a looming threat that "Amazon Teamsters at other facilities are prepared to join them.""

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/12/amazon-faces-holiday-strike-after-refusing-to-bargain-with-warehouse-workers/

#USA #Amazon #HolidayStrike #AntiUnions #LaborMovement

#Amazon #UK #Unions #AntiLabor #AntiUnions #LaborUnions: "Amazon has once again discovered its incredible facility for ease-of-use. The company has blanketed its shop floor with radioactively illegal "one click to quit the union" QR codes. When a worker aims their phones at the code and clicks the link, the system auto-generates a letter resigning the worker from their union.

As noted, this is totally illegal. English law bans employers from "making an offer to an employee for the sole or main purpose of inducing workers not to be members of an independent trade union, take part in its activities, or make use of its services."

Now, legal or not, this may strike you as a benign intervention on Amazon's part. Why shouldn't it be easy for workers to choose how they are represented in their workplaces? But the one-click system is only half of Amazon's illegal union-busting: the other half is delivered by its managers, who have cornered workers on the shop floor and ordered them to quit their union, threatening them with workplace retaliation if they don't.

This is in addition to more forced "captive audience" meetings where workers are bombarded with lies about what life in an union shop is like.

Again, the contrast couldn't be more stark. If you want to quit a union, Amazon makes this as easy as joining Prime. But if you want to join a union, Amazon makes that even harder than quitting Prime." https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/06/one-click-to-quit-the-union/#foxglove

#USA #Amazon #AntiUnions #LaborUnions: "Amazon hired at least two union-busting consulting firms specifically to prevent its drivers from joining the International Brotherhood of Teamsters over the course of 2022, according to six reports filed to the Department of Labor and obtained by Motherboard. This is notable because Amazon claims that the drivers who deliver its packages are not its employees.

Motherboard reviewed five reports filed to the Department of Labor, which showed that Amazon spent more than $14.2 million total on anti-union consulting in 2022. Of that, $160,595 went to Optimal Employee Relations and Action Resources, who, on their own reports, specifically referred to “drivers” as the target group of their persuasion. Amazon and the contractors it hired are required to file these reports with the government each year."