Today in Labor History April 14, 1930: Over 100 Mexican and Filipino farm workers were arrested for union activities in Imperial Valley, CA. 8 were convicted of “criminal syndicalism.”

#workingclass #LaborHistory #imperialvalley #mexican #filipino #union #farmworkers #immigrant #strike #syndicalism #prison #repression #antilabor

"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

Conservative pro-corporate and anti-labor ideology devouring the Federal Government

"While Project 2025 and similar initiatives have been public about their plans to reshape the federal workforce, Trump and other figures in his administration have denied or downplayed links with the initiative. These documents provide further evidence that the implementation is already well underway, with designated personnel quietly drafting policies that were intended only to be publicly attributed to those in charge of the federal agencies."

https://www.citationneeded.news/trumps-project-2025-ghostwriters/

#USA #Trump #Project2025 #Ideology #Conservatives #AntiLabor #Ghostwriting #Propaganda

Today in Labor History October 24, 1947: Walt Disney testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee, naming many of his own employees as communists, including Herbert Sorrell, David Hilberman and William Pomerance, because of their activism as union organizers. In 1993, the New York Times wrote that Disney had been passing secrets to the FBI from 1940 until his death in 1966. In return, J. Edgar Hoover let Disney film in FBI headquarters in Washington and made Disney a "full Special Agent in Charge Contact."

In 1971, Ariel Dorfman and Armand Mattelart published “How to Read Donald Duck,” a book-length essay critiquing Disney comics as capitalist propaganda for U.S. corporate and cultural imperialism. It became a bestseller throughout Latin America and is still considered a seminal work in cultural studies. It was first published in Valparaiso, Chile when Allende was in power. Pinochet banned it and conducted public book burnings.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #disney #anticommunism #antilabor #unionbusting #communism #witchhunt #huac #fbi #union #censorship #bookburning #BookBans #Chile #allende #pinochet #dictatorship #writer #author #books #comics @bookstadon

GOP gov blasted over holiday post: 'Sit this one out' https://www.alternet.org/bill-lee-labor-day/

#BillLee #AntiLabor #AntiUnion #AntiGunControl #AntiGay #VoteRepublicansOut #Tennessee #NoRepublicansEverAgain #VoteBlue

#Project2025’s extreme #antilabor agenda is an attack on #unions and the entire #workingclass

https://www.mediamatters.org/project-2025/project-2025s-extreme-anti-labor-agenda-attack-unions-and-entire-working-class

Today in Labor History June 23, 1947: The anti-worker Taft-Hartley Act was passed, overriding President Harry Truman’s veto. It came on the heels of the largest strike wave in U.S. history. When World War Two ended, inflation soared and veterans flooded the labor market. As a result, frustrated workers began a series of wildcat strikes. Many grew into national, union-supported strikes. In November 1945, 225,000 UAW members went on strike. In January 1946, 174,000 electric workers struck. That same month, 750,000 steel workers joined them. Then, in April, a national coal strike began. 250,000 railroad workers struck in May. In total, 4.3 million workers went on strike. It was the closest the U.S. came to a national General Strike in the 20th century. And in December 1946, Oakland, California did have a General Strike, led by women retail workers. It was the last in U.S. history, and the action the most prompted Congress to take action on behalf of their corporate bosses.

Taft-Hartley rolled back many of the labor protections created by the 1935 Wagner Act. It weakened unions in numerous ways, including the banning of the General Strike, and all forms of protest in support of workers at other companies, effectively prohibiting solidarity actions. It also allowed states to exempt themselves from union requirements. Twenty states immediately enacted anti-union open shop laws. There hasn’t been a General Strike in the U.S. since then.

#LaborHistory #workingclass #tafthartley #generalstrike #union #antiunion #antilabor #unionbusting #solidarity #oakland #WorldWarTwo #congress

#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