#workplace democracy

[probablyasocialecologist]

While the government officially had a legal rationale for the seizure, to the Yarur worker-leaders, it was much clearer — they understood themselves to be in a permanent and irreconcilable conflict with the boss that could only be overcome through taking the factory out of the owners’ hands and giving it to the workers. It was here that the now ex-Yarur workers pioneered Chilean worker self-management, becoming the first industry to put in place democratic structures for firms including an elected council, coordinating committee, and regular general assemblies. As the first of its kind to take on this new structure, there was enormous pressure for the ex-Yarur factory to succeed economically. But contrary to any fears about socialist inefficiency, production did not decline under the new system. The factory’s maintenance shop was converted into a spare parts factory, allowing for greater self-sufficiency by producing the vast majority of spare parts instead of importing them. Among other worker-led innovations were a new, more rational accounting structure as well as the design and construction of a successful ventilation system. Self-management not only improved the wages, benefits, and lives of the ex-Yarur workers but unleashed the workers’ creative energies that had been denied under capitalist management. The struggles of the ex-Yarur employees inspired workers around Chile to organize and demand the socialization of their own workplaces. As Winn documents in Weavers of Revolution, “Less than a quarter of the enterprises that had come under state control [by the end of the Popular Unity government’s first year] were on the government’s [original] list for incorporation into the social property area, [revealing] that it was the workers who were leading the way, shaping the social property area according to their own revolutionary vision and priorities.” At this point in time, forty enterprises employing seventy-one thousand workers had some form of worker participation in management.

#chile #salvador allende #socialism #workplace democracy

[ribzinc]

Miss Management. Who is she? And why is she asking me to work off the clock?

#text #anticapitalism #workplace democracy

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

“Labor Institute Meets,” Kingston Whig-Standard. March 2, 1942. Page 4. ---- Smashing Of Fascism One War Aim ---- Speaking at the evening session of the Labor Institute in the Sons of England Hall on Sunday on the topic "What Are We Fighting For?” Dr. Gregory Vlastos, department of philosophy, Queen's University, said Fascism betrayed labor, while under democracy, the workers had the right to organize. 

Under a Fascist regime, said the speaker, the worker was “but a pawn.” Hitler had but contempt for the masses and he betrayed labor shortly after coming Into power by imprisoning the union leaders and freezing wages at a rate which was lower than existed in Germany during the depression years, he stated. 

A second reason the war Is being fought was for a “new order,” said Dr. Vlastos, maintaining that "Fascism is a symptom of the disease of the old order and if it persists will breed similar systems.” It was therefore not enough merely to defeat Fascism. 

Fascism Everywhere He also pointed out that Fascism was not confined to Germany and Italy but has world significance and “will crop up anywhere.” 

Appealing for “solidarity” within the ranks of labor and as a basis for the post war world, Dr. Vlastos said that one of the causes of the war was a lack of solidarity. “It was every man for himself and every nation for itself. There was individualism in its purest sense,” he said. 

"The world ahead,” continued the speaker, “has to be built on a basis on which relatively large and wealthy nations can enter upon collective security to protect the smaller nations.” 

Similarly, within nations, the individual would have to accept responsibility for his neighbors, said Dr. Vlastos, and labor must not be treated as a commodity but should become partners in industry. 

Solidarity Needed He told the audience there must be solidarity in labor without regard for race or creed and labor should make demands for the common good of all. 

Concluding, Dr. Vlastos said that after solidarity had been established, it should be carried by the workers throughout the world. “There has been a most malicious propaganda against this,” he said declaring tor co-operation in the future between Canadians and American unions with the conquered peoples of Europe and “indeed with the German people who will be liberated.” 

The speaker was introduced and thanked by Alex Sorgat, secretary of the Trades and Labor Council, Kingston. A general discussion followed on the points brought out by the three speakers at the afternoon and evening sessions led by Drummond Wren of Toronto, general secretary of the Workers' Educational Association of Canada. 

The institute was sponsored by the Workers' Educational Association of Canada and the Department of University Extension, Queen’s University.  ---- ‘Over All’ Labor Plan Discussed ---- An “overall” plan for labor's part In wartime production was discussed thoroughly when the Labor Institute convened in the Sons of England Hall, Sunday afternoon and evening. The assembly was sponsored by the Workers’ Educational Association of Canada and the Department of University Extension, Queen’s University. 

Although many of the audience participated in the discussion, principal speakers were Harold J. Beveridge, liaison economist between the Wartime Prices and Trade Board and the National War Labor Board, Ottawa; Robert Stacey, St. Catharines, senior international representative of the United Automobile Workers; and Dr. Gregory Vlastos, Department of Philosophy, Queen’s University. 

Under the chairmanship of R. M. Winters, Queen's University, the afternoon session opened with a brief address by Dean Matheson of the faculty of Arts.

Dean Matheson expressed the hope that the Institute would succeed in getting down to the fundamentals in the problem of wartime production. 

Opening his address, Mr. Beveridge said that primarily the end of wartime production was a matter of time. “If we plan to win the war in 1942 our production methods will be different than if we expect to win in 1952 in which case 'business as usual’ would be quite all right,” he said. 

Main Features Referring to labor supply the visiting economist said wage rates and allocation of labor to the most essential Industries were the most important features.

Mr. Beveridge mentioned the manipulation of wage rates as a means to attract workers from non-essential to essential industries and to obtain the highest rate of production from the workers. 

“Another method in the offing,” he stated, “is the freezing of workers to their jobs.” 

Among labor problems facing the Government, Mr. Beveridge mentioned total labor supply, unemployment, the Introduction of women as workers, and training of labor— the young in schools and industries, in actual operating, in re-training of over-age workers, and those In non-essential production. 

The speaker revealed that the Government is at the present time studying methods employed in Britain, Australia, and Russia for the introduction of women to war industries. 

Of civilian industries, Mr. Beveridge stressed the need for economy and simplification. The elimination of inefficient producers, concentration of production, fewer and bigger management units, manipulation of wage rates, and the keeping of labor in civilian industries were mentioned as present problems facing students of labor condition. 

Difficulties Discussed Enlarging on the difficulties encountered by freezing the wage rate, the liaison economist from Ottawa said it was found to take away the incentive to produce hard and if salaries were pegged to a low level, it caused workers to leave for more remunerative positions. 

"Freezing does not meet the problem,” asserted Mr. Beveridge. 

In an open discussion which followed the brief address, many causes for a production below the maximum possible were given. These Included the policy of voluntary enlistment, depleting labor man-hours lost through an inadequate supply of materials. 

Summing up, the facts as presented by the workers of the audience, Mr. Beveridge said he believed the only solution lay in labor representation in plants, industry, on boards and even in the Government, where delegates might be allowed to participate in the formulation of broad political policies. T

he Government is suffering in its study of the problem, the gathering was told, by the inability to obtain facts and figures from employers because no labor representative is available to command the facts. 

Robert Stacey Introduced by Drummond Wren, general secretary, Workers’ Educational Association of Canada, Robert Stacey, UAW senior international representative, said: “In our union we have attempted to formulate a definite plan to increase war production, that is, labor representation in almost every directional phase of the war effort.” 

“Canada's war effort at the present time is not what it could be,” he asserted adding “not by a jugful.” As contrast Mr. Stacey gave the facts of British labor workers organized and unions there “don't have to battle the Government and employers for permission to assist in the war effort.” 

“Here,” he declared, "we are not allowed so far— by management or Government— to take part in these things.” 

Citing the spread in the wages for men doing identical work in various plants in Ontario, Mr. Stacey revealed that although the cost-of-living spread in the centres mentioned was no more than 10 per cent, the spread of wages for the same job in the same essential industries in different plants was about 100 per cent. 

#kingston ontario #labour institute #queen's university #workers' educational association #united auto workers #fascism #antifascism #world war II #canada during world war 2 #total war #war economy #industrial relations #management and labour negotiations #working class politics #wage scales #wage freeze #total mobilization #workplace democracy #union demands #industrial unions #union politics

[carolinemillerbooks]

New Post has been published on Books by Caroline Miller

New Post has been published on https://www.booksbycarolinemiller.com/musings/thoughts-on-altered-states/

Thoughts On Altered States

Sitting down to lunch with my broker, his conversation turned to an old worry. “The national debt keeps growing.  Congress has to reign it in.” “What’s your solution?” I asked before taking a sip of coffee. “Should children of low-income families go without lunch?  Should we put an end to healthcare for the indigent?” My companion’s cheeks grew red.  “I’m not proposing that.  But if we don’t cut costs somewhere, we’ll all go down. Raising taxes harms the economy.” “Let’s close tax loopholes, instead,” I replied.  “Corporations and the superrich should pay their fair share.” The man opposite me dropped his gaze to the menu as he uttered a sigh. “I think we should order.” By now, our skirmishes over the economy had become a ritual, like an old Kabuki dance. Neither of us expected to convince the other. Still, over time, an idea formed in my head. I saw that neither of us had grappled with the essence of the problem: the way money flows in our society. Sorting ourselves into camps of right or left persuasion was pointless. The mess society finds itself in is the result of human enterprise. Scientific or technological achievements both benefit and imperil us, whether they lie in harnessing atomic energy, extending human life, or advancing knowledge through artificial intelligence (AI). Yet each time we reach a crossroads for change, entrepreneurs gallop ahead, though they are no more far-sighted about the outcome than the average citizen. Even so, those of us who remain silent are responsible for the consequences. By enjoying the fruits of relentless industrialization, we have made climate change possible.     We have granted entrepreneurs another indulgence, one also detrimental to society: the right to accumulate vast sums of money. The result is economic inequality that endows the few with power over the many.  Elan Musk, for example, imagines his entrepreneurship gives him the right to decide the outcome of warring armies.  Hail Caesar! Do these oligarchs of innovation set out to degrade our democracy? I doubt it.  Generally, they are inspired by an idea they believe will benefit the public and themselves. If they are successful, money and influence follow.  Call it the unwritten law of greed, but the more they gain, the more reluctant they are to share.   They cannot help themselves.  A plethora of studies show that unlimited access to money and power physically alters the brain and changes its thought processes.  One historian likens the aberration to a tumor that destroys human sympathy. Doug Rushkoff, a media theorist, describes the outcome of this affliction on society.  …a whole bunch of billionaires [have] left a whole lot of really poor and unhappy people.  (“The Defector” by Malcolm Harris, Wired, Sept. 23, 2023, pg. 28) Entrepreneurship is a poor tool for defending a democracy.  Its objective, according to economist Glen Weyl, isn’t to spread equality but to end competition.  Should we be surprised when entrepreneurs prove unresponsive to the needs of others?  Psychologist Timothy Leary didn’t think so.  He once described them as psycho-sexually immature white men who want all the benefit[s] of being sealed up in their perfectly controlled and responsive environments without ever having to face the messy, harsh reality of the real world.  (“The Defector,” by Malcomb Harris, Wired, Sept. 23, 2023, pg. 68)  Leary singles out white men for criticism but history provides no evidence that women and minorities, given the same privileges, would behave differently. Self-love is a condition of being human.  Take the example of one newly minted entrepreneur.  He avows the goal of his startup is to make technology safe for humanity. (“Transformers,” by Steven Levy, Wired, October 2023, pg. 37.)  Even so, success has brought a change.  No longer an open-source organization that shares its creativity, his company, having grown to almost $30 billion, has gone private. (Ibid, pg. 37.)  It’s a progression all too familiar.  This sense of history brings me to the role the elderly should play in modern society. After retiring, many return to the workplace bringing with them a different perspective than their younger coworkers. Most importantly, they tend to humanize the environment, displaying more patience on the job than their younger colleagues.  Says one manager, we find that retirees are really great at interacting with clients and showing empathy. (“How We Are Changing America,”pg. 7) In their new role, the old blanch to learn that among the young are those who show an alarming willingness to question democracy’s value.  The latter even dare to ask, “Would it be a bad thing to build a machine that CHANGES HUMAN LIFE AS WE KNOW IT, (“Future Tense,” by Nick Bilton, Wired, October 2023, pg. 77-81) Given what’s at stake, seniors may be forgiven for worrying about the future of their children and their children’s children. Experience has taught them that it’s easier to destroy a civilization than to build one.  Frankly, as someone old, I grow weary of complaints about Joe Biden’s age. The number of candles on a cake has nothing to do with leadership.  What matters is vigor coupled with wisdom born from practice.  These the President has. What is aging, after all, but one of several altered states in a life? Is one period in time truer than the one before or after it?  We can only know what we know at a given point in life.  Someone young looks to the future and sees a road not taken.  Someone old pauses, remembering where the minefields are. No one either young or old, rich or poor, poet or scientist sees the whole of existence. It takes a village for us to prosper.  Simply put, we need each other.

#It Takes A Village #age and competence #AI #democracy and capitalism #Doug Rushkkoff #elderly in the workplace #Elon Musk #How money flows in American society #Joe Biden #Malcomb Harris #Nick Bolton #power and empathy #role of the old in modern society #Steven Levy #the benefits and perils of entrepreneuship #the national debt #the pluses and minuses of industrial progress

[llewelynpritch]

https://youtu.be/_ywyLiNT3Cs Richard Wolff, Professor of Economics Emeritus, University of Massachusetts, Explains 3 Kinds of Socialism. "I want to go over with you the three major ways this idea of socialism is understood, because those ways are relevant today, those ways are fighting it out amongst themselves in terms of the allegiance, feelings and thoughts of people around the world, and they're going to shape our future." 9 August 2019

#wolff #richardwolff #democracy #democratise #workplace #socialism3 #Youtube

[yourtongzhihazel]

Just can't stop deep throating the western propaganda can you? Hong Kong is occupied? By who? The Chinese? Alright, winston churchill settle down.

Question: Is Hong Kong directly administered by Beijing like Shanghai or Shenzhen, or is it an SAR?

The answer is: it's an SAR! Which means, Beijing has no direct administration thanks to its handover agreement signed in 1997. Beijing can only get administration after 2050. This is why billionaires run to HK to escape Beijing's mire! This is why HK housing is fucking terrible compared to literally everywhere else in China! This is why HK companies can get away with 996, whereas companies and billionaires who push for 996 on the mainland, like Alibaba and jack ma, are disciplined under threat of capital punishment!

Funny how you only believe us if we agree with you, otherwise we're "brainwashed propagandized buffoons". Look in a fucking mirror sometime, would ya? You've got propaganda flowing out of every orifice like a racist 长江. Not surprising, coming from a zionist.

Tank man climbed off the fucking tank. He did not get run over! Did you all forget this? You can also search for the Tiananmen incident on the Chinese internet and literally everyone under the sun knows about and talks about it. Maybe if you weren't looking for it with english terms, terms which Chinese people don't use, you'd have found them! And I FUCKING WISH talking about Tiananmen square would get you fucking arrested IM FUCKING SICK OF HEARING IT!!! My fucking libshit uncle has been going on and on and on about "184", "muh tiananmen", "muh CPC oppressions" and the motherfucker is still coming in my messages to drop translated pragerU videos. That's whose side you are on btw. A man who thinks all muslims are all "terrorist cockroaches [sic]". Though I reckon you do actually agree with him on that.

Tell you again how communism is so much better for the workers? Here you go you fascist shitlib:

Workplace democracy in the CPC. Chinese wages are rising. Mandatory annual pay raises for private sector (public sector is a given) and CPC control. 95% of Chinese people have insurance and an annual visit costs just 2 USD. Workplace safety is better than Australia.

#i fucking hate liberals #death to liberalism

[txttletale]

It is so fucking embarrassing watching you promote liberal ideas against censorship. I thought you were better than that. It's bad when the UK punishes you for criticizing J. K. Rowling because they're serving capital, not because anyone should be allowed to say anything. Ideally they would have much harsher libel laws, and they would enforce them against capital rather than in its favor.

ideally the UK would be made of pudding. it's a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, dummy, all its laws are enforced in favour of capital and as a result it would be better if they didn't exist. libel laws and restrictions on speech in capitalist countries are in fact always bad for this reason and the UK's uniquely repressive ones are uniquely bad.

anyway freedom of speech is great, the reason the liberal conception of it is ridiculous is because it is fundamentally freedom of the rich to speak, like all bourgeois rights--read pat sloan's soviet democracy: all sorts of institutions in the early soviet union, from workplaces to schools, had their own worker-controlled newspapers in which the conduct of managers and administrators could freely be criticised and issues brought to their attention. this is a clear and obvious social good and what a real genuine freedom of speech looks like.

#tattletxt #the problem with bourgeois freedoms are that they are false freedoms #freedoms for the rich and freedoms to oppress and be oppressed

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The unexpected upside of global monopoly capitalism

I'm touring my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me TODAY (Apr 10) at UCLA, then Chicago (Apr 17), Torino (Apr 21) Marin County (Apr 27), Winnipeg (May 2), Calgary (May 3), Vancouver (May 4), and beyond!

Here's a silver lining to global monopoly capitalism: it means we're all fighting the same enemy, who is using the same tactics everywhere. The same coordination tools that allow corporations to extend their tendrils to every corner of the Earth allows regulators and labor organizers to coordinate their resistance.

That's a lesson Mercedes is learning. In 2023, Germany's Supply Chain Act went into effect, which bans large corporations with a German presence from using child labor, violating health and safety standards, and (critically) interfering with union organizers:

https://www.bafa.de/EN/Supply_Chain_Act/Overview/overview_node.html

Across the ocean, in the USA, Mercedes has a preference for building its cars in the American South, the so-called "right to work" states where US labor law is routinely flouted and unions are thin on the ground. As The American Prospect's Harold Meyerson writes, the only non-union Mercedes factories in the world are in the US:

https://prospect.org/labor/2024-04-08-american-workers-german-law-uaw-unions/

But American workers – especially southern workers – are on an organizing tear, unionizing their workplaces at a rate not seen in generations. Their unprecedented success is down to their commitment, solidarity and shrewd tactics – all buoyed by a refreshingly pro-worker NLRB, who have workers' backs in ways also not seen since the Carter administration:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/14/prop-22-never-again/#norms-code-laws-markets

Workers at Mercedes' factory in Vance, Alabama are trying to join the UAW, and Mercedes is playing dirty, using the tried-and-true union-busting tactics that have held workplace democracy at bay for decades. The UAW has lodged a complaint with the NLRB, naturally:

https://www.commondreams.org/news/alabama-mercedes-benz

But the UAW has also filed a complaint with BAFA, the German regulator in charge of the Supply Chain Act, seeking penalties against Mercedes-Benz Group AG:

https://uaw.org/uaw-files-charges-in-germany-against-mercedes-benz-companys-anti-union-campaign-against-u-s-autoworkers-violates-new-german-law-on-global-supply-chain-practices/

That's a huge deal, because the German Supply Chain Act goes hard. If Mercedes is convicted of union-busting in Alabama, its German parent-company faces a fine of 2% of its global total revenue, and will no longer be eligible to sell products to the German government. Chomp.

Now, the German Supply Chain Act is new, and this is the first petition filed by a non-German union with BAFA, so it's not a slam dunk. But supermajorities of Mercedes workers at the Alabama factory have signed UAW cards, and the election is going to happen in May or June. And the UAW – under new leadership, thanks to a revolution that overthrew the corrupt old guard – has its sights set on all the auto-makers in the American south.

As Meyerson writes, the south is America's onshore offshore, a regulatory haven where corporations pay minimal or no tax and are free to abuse their workers, pollute, and corrupt local governments with a free hand (no wonder American industry is flocking to these states). Meyerson: "The economic impact of unionizing the South, in other words, could almost be placed in the same category as reshoring work that had gone to China."

The German Supply Chain Act was passed with the help of Germany's powerful labor unions, in an act of solidarity with workers employed by German companies all over the world. This is that unexpected benefit to globalism: the fact that Mercedes has extrusions into both the American and German political spheres means that both American and German workers can collaborate to bring it to heel.

The same is true for antitrust regulators. The multinational corporations that are in regulators' crosshairs in the US, the EU, the UK, Australia, Japan, South Korea and beyond use the same playbook in every country. That's doubly true of Big Tech companies, who literally run the same code – embodying the same illegal practices – on servers in every country.

The UK's Competition and Markets Authority has led the pack on convening summits where antitrust enforcers from all over the world gather to compare notes and collaborate on enforcement strategies:

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/cma-data-technology-and-analytics-conference-2022-registration-308678625077

And the CMA's Digital Markets Unit – which boasts the the largest tech staff of any competition regulator in the world – produces detailed market studies that turn out to be roadmaps for other territories' enforces to follow – like this mobile market study:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/63f61bc0d3bf7f62e8c34a02/Mobile_Ecosystems_Final_Report_amended_2.pdf

Which was extensively referenced in the EU during the planning of the Digital Markets Act, and in the US Congress for similar legislation:

https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/2710

It also helped enforcers in Japan:

https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Technology/Japan-to-crack-down-on-Apple-and-Google-app-store-monopolies

And South Korea:

https://www.reuters.com/technology/skorea-considers-505-mln-fine-against-google-apple-over-app-market-practices-2023-10-06/

Just as Mercedes workers in Germany and the USA share a common enemy, allowing for coordinated action that takes advantage of vulnerable flanks wherever they are found, anti-monopoly enforcers are sharing notes, evidence, and tactics to strike at multinationals that are bigger than most countries – but not when those countries combine.

This is an unexpected upside to global monopolies: when we all share a common enemy, we've got endless opportunities for coordinated offenses and devastating pincer maneuvers.

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

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/10/an-injury-to-one/#is-an-injury-to-all

#pluralistic #monopoly #labor #nlrb #germany #harold meyerson #supply chain act #right to work #onshore offshore #uaw #vance alabama #vance #alabama #bafa #mercedes #antitrust #trustbusting

[free-and-to-none-accountable]

Hey you should read the Industrial Worker

Launched in 1907, Industrial Worker is the official English-language publication of the Industrial Workers of the World, a worker-led union dedicated to direct action, workplace democracy and industrial unionism. Follow the IWW on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

Questions, comments, and other concerns about Industrial Worker should be directed to the IWW’s Industrial Worker Editor at [email protected].

The IW is the place to go stay abreast of what's going on in the One Big Union and its affiliates and to keep up with the radical movement for workers' rights. In addition to current events, the IW also conducts interviews and publishes articles about labor history and what's going on in the IWW.

Like we had said in this article from 2019: "If you’re a member of the working class, then this is your blog. We built this site to be a place where workers can write about what matters to them and share their experience in labor and community organization."

Come check it out, it's real good

#iw #rebagel

[odinsblog]

🗣️ Please pay attention

Amazon argues that national labor board is unconstitutional, joining SpaceX and Trader Joe’s

Amazon is arguing in a legal filing that the 88-year-old National Labor Relations Board is unconstitutional, echoing similar arguments made this year by Elon Musk’s SpaceX and the grocery store chain Trader Joe’s in disputes about workers’ rights and organizing.

The Amazon filing, made Thursday, came in response to a case before an administrative law judge overseeing a complaint from agency prosecutors who allege the company unlawfully retaliated against workers at a New York City warehouse who voted to unionize nearly two years ago.

In its filing, Amazon denies many of the charges and asks for the complaint to be dismissed. The company’s attorneys then go further, arguing that the structure of the agency — particularly limits on the removal of administrative law judges and five board members appointed by the president — violates the separation of powers and infringes on executive powers stipulated in the Constitution.

The attorneys also argue that NLRB proceedings deny the company a trial by a jury and violate its due-process rights under the Fifth Amendment. (source)

ICYMI, this is a case of corporations going, “7th Amendment Protections for me, but not for thee.”

It is strongly worth noting that in 2018 the John Roberts Court ruled 5-4 that companies can use forced arbitration clauses to stop people from joining together to fight workplace abuses - in effect denying individuals their 7th Amendment protections.

Subsequently, binding arbitration clauses used by corporations has proliferated; sneaking into all manner of common legal documents: personal banking applications, ordinary car loan applications, furniture purchases, and more. This is, unsurprisingly, a direct violation of the 7th Amendment that guarantees HUMAN BEINGS AND PEOPLE the right to a jury trial in certain civil cases and inhibits courts from overturning a jury's findings of fact. Republicans and SCOTUS are perfectly okay with corporations having more rights than workers and using forced arbitration to block people from having access to jury trials—but God forbid if corporations don’t have their right to a jury trial.

This legislative push to bestow corporations with more rights than people, while simultaneously taking away rights from human beings, has been nothing if not thoroughly and methodically done. At this rate, no corporation will ever need to fear a class action lawsuit again.

Amazon, SpaceX and Trader Joe’s are union busting.

But this latest case against the NLRB isn’t just an attack on labor and worker’s rights, it’s a fascistic attack on the very heart of fairness and democracy itself.

#politics #amazon #7th amendment #forced arbitration #spacex #trader joes #nlrb #workers rights #class action lawsuits #labor unions #union busting #collective bargaining #labor law #labor rights #scotus #john roberts court #john roberts #republicans are evil

[workingclasshistory]

On this day, 19 July 1936, in response to a right-wing coup by general Francisco Franco, workers across Spain took up arms and launched one of the most far-reaching social revolutions in history. The ensuing civil war pitted the working class against the Spanish capitalists, who were backed by Nazi Germany and fascist Italy. In the revolutionary areas, anarchist and socialist workers and peasants took over workplaces and land and began to run them collectively. Thousands of mostly working class people came from all over the world to aid the workers of Spain. One of them was British socialist author George Orwell, who described the scene in Barcelona: "It was the first time that I had ever been in a town where the working class was in the saddle. Practically every building of any size had been seized by the workers and was draped with red flags or with the red and black flag of the Anarchists; every wall was scrawled with the hammer and sickle and with the initials of the revolutionary parties… Every shop and café had an inscription saying that it had been collectivised… Waiters and shop-walkers looked you in the face and treated you as an equal. Servile and even ceremonial forms of speech had temporarily disappeared. Nobody said ‘Señor’ or ‘Don’ or even ‘Usted’". Western democracies, including Britain and France, abandoned the republic and enforced a blockade on Spain which stopped the flow of aid and weapons to the anti-fascists. Meanwhile, Italy and Germany openly flouted the ban, and the US oil giant Texaco supplied the nationalists with oil and other supplies without even demanding payment while stopping any supplies to the republic. Ultimately, after nearly three years of bitter and bloody warfare, the nationalists with their superior weaponry and equipment, were victorious. Learn more in our podcast eps 39-40. We've also got books and more commemorating it, here: https://shop.workingclasshistory.com/collections/spanish-civil-war?sort_by=created-descending https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=664426942397191&set=a.602588028581083&type=3

[racefortheironthrone]

Which federal laws and policies would you get rid of or modify in order to help the American labor movement.

I was looking through the labor law tag on my blog and your ask reminded me I haven't actually written a comprehensive post about this on Tumblr. (Indeed, you'd have to go back to my old, old policy blog from 2009...it's been a while.)

One silver lining of the Sisyphean struggle to restore American labor law that's been going on since the 1970s is that the labor movement and their allies in Congress, academia, think tanks, and progressive media have been thinking through this very issue of "what reforms would make a real difference" for a long time. I'm not going to say it's a solved question, but the research literature is pretty robust.

For the purposes of this post, I'm going to focus on the three most recent reform packages: the Employee Free Choice Act that was the main vehicle during the Obama years, Bernie Sanders' Workplace Democracy Act (which was introduced repeatedly between 1992 and 2018), and the Richard L. Trumka Protecting the Right to Organize Act (PRO Act) that is the current proposal of the Democratic legislative caucuses. There's going to be quite a bit of overlap between these proposals, because it's very much an iterative process where allies in the same movement are trading ideas with one another and trying to stay abreast of new developments, but I'll try to tease out some of the similarities and differences.

EFCA

While EFCA contained a number of provisions that sought to close various loopholes in U.S labor law, the three main provisions largely target the flaws that have made it extremely difficult to win a union through the National Labor Relations Act process devised in 1935 that has turned into a Saw-style gauntlet thanks to the professionalization of union-busting and the Federalist Society's strategy of death-by-a-thousand-cuts:

"Card check." Probably the most common pattern of union-busting in the workplace today is a war of attrition by management waged by an industry of specialized law firms. Generally what happens is that the union files for election with a super-majority of ~70% workers having signed union cards, then management delays the vote as long as possible to give their hired "union-avoidance" firm to systematically intimidate, surveil, propagandize, and divide workers, up to and including illegally firing pro-union workers pour encouragez les autres. Over several months, what happens is that the initial 70% of pro-union support starts to erode as workers decide it's just too dangerous to stick their necks out, until the vote happens and the union loses either by a squeaker or a landslide.

Card check short-circuits this process by just saying that if the union files with a majority of cards, you skip the election and the union is recognized. And for all the pearl-clutching by the right, this is actually how labor law works in many democratic countries, because the idea of a fair election that lets management participate is an oxymoron.

Arbitrated first contract. In the event that enough workers keep the faith and actually vote for a union, management's next move is to draw out collective bargaining for a year or more. After a year, the original vote is no longer considered binding and employers can push for a "decertification" vote, which they usually win because workers either give up hope or change jobs. So this provision says that if the two sides can't reach an agreement on a first contract within 120 days, a Federal arbitrator will just impose one, so that at least for two years there will be a union contract no matter what management wants.

Strengthening enforcement. As I said above, one of the problems with existing labor law is that there are basically no penalties for management knowingly breaking the law; companies literally just budget in a line-item and do it anyway. This provision would allow unions to file an injunction against employers for unfair labor practices or ULPs (at present, injunctions are only required for violations done by unions), and would add triple back pay for illegal firings and fines of $20,000 for each ULP. This would make union-busting much more expensive, because companies routinely rack up hundreds and hundreds of them during a campaign.

Workplace Democracy Act

Sanders' proposal includes the main proposals from EFCA, and adds a bunch of additional reforms, like mis-classifying workers as independent contractors, banning captive audience meetings, making "joint employers" liable for labor law violations by franchisees, legalizing secondary boycotts, and requiring employers to report to the NLRB on all anti-union expenditures during a campaign and barring anyone convicted of an unfair labor practice from being hired for anti-union campaigns and making "union-avoidance" consultants liable for fines for ULPs (which would kill the "union-avoidance" industry, because they commit ULPs for a living).

PRO Act

The PRO Act is very much an updating of the previous efforts we've talked about. It bans captive audience meetings, allows for secondary strikes and boycotts, massively increases fines and allows for compensatory damages, ends mis-classification, speeds up the election process, etc.

It also contains a couple new and ambitious proposals:

it allows unions to sue management in court instead of having to complain to the NLRB, which opens management up to a very expensive legal proceeding and discovery.

it bans "right-to-work" as established by the Taft-Hartley Act.

it requires that any worker who's fired for pro-union activity be immediately reinstated while their unfair labor practice process or civil lawsuit is going through the process. This would be enormous just on its own, because it changes the entire veto structure of illegal firing. As it stands, employers fire people and maybe maybe have to pay some back wages in a couple years when the worker has found another job and is unlikely to come back. This would reverse the balance of power, such that the worker is immediately back and other workers can see that they can speak up without getting fired, which makes illegal firings a giant waste of time and money for management.

In terms of stuff that's not on this list that I would add, I would say that an enormous difference could be made by simply making it illegal for management to lock-out their workers or hire scabs. You do that, and unions can win almost every strike.

#labor law #labor law reform #labor movement #trade unions #unions #union movement #public policy

[capitalism-and-analytics]

So I want to know what you see as an end goal for capitalism.

I'm an Anarcho-Syndicalist, in short I would like to see more direct democracy w/in the workplace and a government run by the workers while also minimizing hierarchical power structures (to avoid jackasses trying to consolidate power) - the end goal I'd like to see is happier workers and more strongly bonded communities.

I understand if you don't answer this, we're all pretty busy with life and work. Wish you well.

My personal belief is that capitalism [and most economic systems] do not have goals and instead people are the ones that have the goals. The economic system is merely the mechanism to facilitate people pursuing those goals and the classification of a system being "good" or "bad" is nothing more than the effectiveness or efficiency of enabling people to achieve those goals.

Now that may seem like an arbitrary distinction, but as you summarized "the end goal I'd like to see is happier workers and more strongly bonded communities", which can be a goal within capitalism to as it is dictated by the people, not the system.

I am curious to hear more about your ideas to achieve your end goal; I know you gave me the short version, but if you have time, then I would like to hear more about the long version too.

[probablyasocialecologist]

If capitalism is a world system, it follows that the working class is an international class. Workers are divided by nation, but nationalism does not reflect their true interest. To take on the bosses, who operate globally, workers have to unite across national boundaries. To achieve emancipation, they have to destroy the bourgeois nation-state and create an alternative workers state based on direct democracy. To build a socialist economy, they have to take collective control of the workplaces, the transport system, and the global trade networks. To defend their gains and complete their revolution, they have to spread the struggle across the world.

There is no such thing, therefore, as socialism in one country. Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky, and many other leading Marxist thinkers have all stressed that proletarian revolution has to be worldwide or it will fail. A socialist siege economy can only ever be temporary. Eventually, either poverty and insecurity will force the revolution to turn in on itself and create new forms of exploitation in order to survive. Or the workers state will succumb to hostile pressure some combination of economic boycott, internal civil war, and foreign military aggression.

Neil Faulkner, A People's History of the Russian Revolution

#capitalism #socialism #socialism in one country #russian revolution

[gaysails]

"If low-wage workers do not always behave in an economically rational way, that is, as free agents within a capitalist democracy, it is because they dwell in a place that is neither free nor in any way democratic. When you enter the low-wage workplace – and many of the medium-wage workplaces as well – you check your civil liberties at the door, leave America and all it supposedly stands for behind, and learn to zip your lips for the duration of the shift. The consequences of this routine surrender go beyond the issues of wages and poverty. We can hardly pride ourselves on being the world's preeminent democracy, after all, if large numbers of citizens spend half their waking hours in what amounts, in plain terms, to a dictatorship. . . My guess is that the indignities imposed on so many low-wage workers – the drug tests, the constant surveillance, being 'reamed out' by managers – are part of what keeps wages low. If you're made to feel unworthy enough, you may come to think that what you're paid is what you are actually worth. It is hard to imagine any other function for workplace authoritarianism. Managers may truly believe that, without their unremitting efforts, all work would quickly grind to a halt. That is not my impression. While I encountered some cynics and plenty of people who had learned how to budget their energy, I never met an actual slacker [. . .] On the contrary, I was amazed and sometimes saddened by the pride people took in jobs that rewarded them so meagerly, either in wages or in recognition. Often, in fact, these people experienced management as an obstacle to getting the job done as it should be done. Waitresses chafed at managers' stinginess toward the customers; housecleaners resented the time constraints that sometimes made them cut corners; retail workers wanted the floor to be beautiful, not cluttered with excess stock as management required. Left to themselves, they devised systems of cooperation and work sharing; when there was a crisis, they rose to it. In fact, it was often hard to see what the function of management was, other than to exact obeisance. There seems to be a vicious cycle at work here, making ours not just an economy but a culture of extreme inequality. [Corporate decision makers and entrepreneurs] occupy an economic position miles above that of the underpaid people whose labor they depend on. For reasons that have more to do with class – and often racial – prejudice than with actual experience, they tend to fear and distrust the category of people from which they recruit their workers. Hence the perceived need for repressive management and intrusive measures like drug and personality testing. But these things cost money – $20,000 or more a year for a manager, $100 a pop for a drug test, and so on – and the high cost of repression results in ever more pressure to hold wages down. The larger society seems to be caught up in a similar cycle: cutting public services for the poor, which are sometimes referred to collectively as the 'social wage,' while investing ever more heavily in prisons and cops. And in the larger society, too, the cost of repression becomes another factor weighing against the expansion or restoration of needed services. It is a tragic cycle, condemning us to ever deeper inequality, and in the long run, almost no one benefits but the agents of repression themselves."

-Barbara Ehrenreich, Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America

#words #finally finished this book. bleak how it was published in 2001 and everything is worse now lmao

[loveoaths]

it fucking kills me that i have seen NO ONE talking about the reaction jess jordan, kendall roy’s assistant, has. because it is jess, and rava and sophie roy, who have the reactions that twitter and reddit and all the succession lovers are looking for in shiv, for some goddamn reason. it’s jess who not so subtly pleads with greg to delay calling the election, who is blown off dismissively and ignorantly by greg who cannot understand or even SEE how strong of a panic reaction she is havjng. to him, and every other roy and tom and everyone else at their level, this is just another crazy day with literally zero consequences. a fascist dictator president will literally not change the quality of their lives as rich white people. but it will change jess’ life, as a biracial woman. it will change rava and sophie roy’s lives, in spite of kendall’s money and protection. and the show purposefully cuts off their reactions — jess blinking fast and breathing hard and about to have a panic attack meltdown in the hallway, rava and sophie scared in the back of an SUV — because the show isn’t about them. the show is about the roys, who do not care about the consequences of their actions, partially because they never have to SEE the consequences of their actions. greg does not see jess freaking out; even when she is clearly panicked in front of her he cannot see her pain and if he could, he wouldn’t care. it’s only when he turns his back on her that she starts to break down, which is a great if painful blocking choice. not only is it realistic — she can’t lose face in her workplace, she can’t react negatively when she works for the guy who owns the Devil Right Wing Fascist TV Network, and she most certainly can’t react any way people don’t like because she is one of the few, if not the only, black women in the building and working for the roys. while greg sighs and laughs about this day being crazy, she is having a meltdown as she fears what this election result means to her. if rava, a wealthy woman of color with a powerful ex husband, is scared, how much more scared is jess? is everyone else under jess?

but the show cuts off her reaction and takes us back to shiv because this show is from the roy’s pov, and this episode is largely from shiv’s pov. shiv “cares about democracy” and the country to an extent, because democracy only effects her to an extent. she knows on paper this election is bad news. she also knows it’s not going to change her life directly because she’s rich. like her brothers, who do not care at all who is President, who only care about which candidate will give them what they want, shiv is more upset because this election means she isn’t getting what she wants. she’s going to lose her power in the potential matsson deal. because that is how the roys chose who would be president: they chose the candidate they could buy and who could sell them control over their interests for the lowest number, and meincken outbid jimenez by a landslide. tldr the reaction people are looking for in shiv and in the roys were there, but in jess and rava. and even rava and jess aren’t progressives, aren’t “feminist icons”, they’re also complicit and victimized all at once, like shiv is, but with far less say and power. it’s almost like… the show about face eating leopards… is making a point that if you get in a cage with a hungry leopard, at some point you will run out of steaks to throw at it and it, too, will eat your face off. huh.

#succession #succession spoilers #this is a ramble but my god i am getting heated now #so many gifs and essay posts about the roys… zero about rava and Jess…. who are actually used as surrogates for the audience and marginalize #*d and even they HAVE HIGHER AMOUNTS OF POWER AND CONTROL AND AGENCY than the average person and woman of color #like. idk y’all I know the succession fan base is overwhelmingly white and therefore has a white USAmerican pov etc etc etc but my god I am #seeing greg levels of missing the point and not recognizing the pain in characters other than the Roy’s lol #and like I get it’ they’re the main characters #but also like. idk. jesse armstrong has a p strong vision and uses his characters effectively so like #maybe let’s look at some of those minor characters reactions here to paint a less insular picture yknow