Workers of the US, Unionize!
Things are getting worse materially for Americans in general, and specifically for workers. But the good news is that workers are starting to fight back.
After many sounding the death knoll for worker unions, the past year or so there have been some very high-profile attempts to unionize workers. And, believe it or not, finally some high-profile victories!
The most recent win is Apple Store workers in Townson, Maryland. Workers were able to successfully unionize, despite anti-union propaganda from the not-as-socially-conscious-as-they-pretend-to-be Apple. Per the BBC:
“News outlets have alleged that Apple has hired a law firm known for its union expertise, and collated “talking points” for its management teams to dissuade employees from signing up to one.
In April, Motherboard released an audio recording of retail vice president Deirdre O’Brien telling employees that while she recognised the right to join a union, “it’s equally your right not to join a union”.
”I’m worried about what it would mean to put another organization in the middle of our relationship[…]” the released audio says.”
Mega-corporations must be scared shitless at this point. Starbucks now has unionization drives popping up across the country, with a number of them voting to unionize amid allegations of Starbucks retaliating against employees — including firing union organizers in the Memphis area (where I live) and possibly even closing an entire store, with only one week’s notice to workers, in Ithica, NY.
“Workers at the College Ave. location previously went on a one-day strike in April for what the union says were unsafe working conditions — “a waste emergency caused by the overflowing grease trap.” Starbucks later cited the grease trap as reason for shuttering the location, according to the union.”
The question that logically comes up is one that the progressive and socialist left has been mulling for a year or so now — should there be a general strike?
While many thought that there simply wouldn’t be enough support at the grassroots level (workers themselves) or enough infrastructure (union organizers, for example) to successfully lead a nationwide strike, these and other recent successful battles for union have me wondering again if this might be our last chance to try for the coming years, or possibly decades.
Come November, the Democrats are almost certainly going to lose the House and probably Senate. It will be harder to make a pro-worker argument that these workers represent a broader will of the people when the country has just put the GOP in the majority — a party that not only is anti-union in its economic policies (despite lip service and crumbs to labor), but is violently anti-democracy for our country, much less at the workplace.
Even Fortune — by no means a radical pro-union news outlet — thought it was was newsworthy that workers at a Memphis Starbucks successfully voted to unionize, even after Starbucks had (allegedly) just coincidentally cooked up excuses to fire seven of the organizers.
On the other hand, a nationwide strike that’s a failure could be an even bigger blow to this burgeoning movement that could set the fight for workers rights and compensation back further. This sort of movement probably would have needed to be organized months, if not years, ago. But I don’t think even most experts on the (actual) left thought there’d be a growing number of high-profile union wins in such a short time.
Either way, it’s great that more and more workers are waking up to their power. Without workers’ labor, there is no Apple or Starbucks. A strange side effect of the pandemic is that many workers are realizing that there are more important things than having a crappy job, and if their employer won’t do something to make that job last crappy, workers can join forces and make demands, or — especially with companies in many industries hurting for new workers, and more options available to those looking for work — they tell their current boss to take this job and stuff it.
