If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/21/eight-and-skate/#strike-to-rule

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The studios obviously need writers. The gleeful, anonymous studio exec who got such an obvious erotic charge at the thought of workers being rendered homeless as punishment for challenging corporate power completely misread the room, and his comments didn't demoralize the writers. Instead, they inspired the *actors* to go on strike, too.

But how *have* the writers stayed out since May Day? How have the actors stayed out for 69 days since their strike started on Bastille Day?

3/

We can thank the studios for that! As it turns out, the studios have devoted so much energy to rendering creative workers as precarious as possible, hiring as little as they can getting away with and using punishing overtime as a substitute for adequate staffing that they've eliminated all the workers who *can't* survive on side-hustles and savings for six or seven months at a time.

4/

But even for those layoff-hardened workers, long strikes are *brutal*, and of course, all the affiliated trades, from costumers to grips, are feeling the pain. The strike fund only goes so far, and non-striking, affected workers don't even get that. That's why I've been donating regularly to the #EntertainmentCommunityFund, which helps all affected workers out with cash transfers (I just gave them another $500):

https://secure2.convio.net/afa/site/Donation2?df_id=8117&8117.donation=form1&mfc_pref=T

5/

As #HotLaborSummer is revealed as a turning point - not just a season - long strikes will become the norm. Bosses still don't believe in worker power, and until they get their minds right, they're going to keep on trying to starve their workforces back inside. To get a sense of how long workers will have to hold out, just consider the #WarriorMet strike, where Alabama coal-miners stayed out for *23 months*:

https://www.thenation.com/article/activism/warrior-met-strike-union/

6/

As #KimKelly explained to @adamconover in the latest #Factually podcast, the Alabama coal strikers didn't get anywhere near the attention that the Hollywood strikers have enjoyed:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvyMHf7Yg0Q

(To learn more about the untold story of worker organizing, from prison unions to the key role that people of color and women played in labor history, check out Kelly's book, "Fight Like Hell," now in paperback:)

https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Fight-Like-Hell/Kim-Kelly/9781982171063

7/

Which brings me to the #UAW strike. This is an historic strike, the first time that the UAW has struck *all* of the #BigThree automakers at once. Past autoworkers' strikes have marked turning points for *all* American workers. The 1945/46 #GM strike established employers' duty to cover worker #pensions, #HealthCare, and #CostOfLivingAllowances. The GM strike created the American middle-class:

https://prospect.org/labor/2023-09-18-uaw-strikes-built-american-middle-class/

8/

The Big Three are fighting for all the marbles here. They are refusing to allow unions to organize #EV factories. Given that no more internal combustion cars will be in production in just a few short years, that's tantamount to eliminating auto unions altogether.

9/

The automakers are flush with cash, including billions in public subsidies from multiple bailouts, along with billions more from #greedflation price-gouging. A long siege is inevitable, as the decimillionaires running these companies earn their pay by starving out their workers:

https://www.businessinsider.com/general-motors-ceo-mary-barra-salary-auto-workers-strike-uaw-2023-9

The UAW knows this, of course, and their new leadership - helmed by the union's radical president #ShawnFain - has a plan.

10/