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"A Union Is As Strong As The Workers In It"

This poster is one example of many in the Guide to the Kheel Center Poster Collection, #6227, that includes posters advocating for health and safety policy reform, human rights issues, discrimination, political campaigns, labor issues, and unionization. The poster above is an example of publicity used to boost unionism and the strength of unions.

See Collection #6227 for more posters.

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The PRO Act and worker misclassification

One of the Biden admin's most important pieces of legislation is the Protecting the Right to Organize Act (PRO Act), which reverses decades of union-busting policies and laws that have led to widening inequality, wage stagnation, and working poverty across America.

It's the first pro-worker law since 1935's NLRA, and it restores many of the rights to organize unions and create serious penalties for employers who break the law to prevent their workers from unionizing (today, employers break labor laws with impunity).

For a great, plain-language breakdown of its contours, check out this breakdown by Kim Kelly, Teen Vogue's labor reporter. Note that the law bans many of the dirtiest tricks used by Amazon to defeat the union drive in its Bessemer, Alabama warehouse.

https://www.teenvogue.com/story/what-is-the-pro-act

The PRO Act doesn't just restore the labor rights that have been stripped away from American workers - it also creates new protections to address the epidemic of worker misclassification where "gig economy" employees are falsely characterized as "independent contractors."

The gig companies - who use worker misclassification to pay sub-minimum-wage salaries and deny basic workplace protections - spent $200m to pass California's Proposition 22. Immediately, bosses fired their union workers and replaced them with gig workers.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/05/manorialism-feudalism-cycle/#prop22

Companies like Uber and Lyft have already showered $1.2m in a matter of weeks on DC politicians, lobbying against the PRO Act. That's not surprising, but what is interesting is their SEC-mandated disclosures about what they expect from the PRO Act:

https://theintercept.com/2021/05/06/pro-act-uber-lyft-doordash-instacart-lobbying/

“If a significant number of Drivers were to become unionized and collective bargaining agreement terms were to deviate significantly from our business model, our business, financial condition, operating results and cash flows could be materially adversely affected. In addition, a labor dispute involving Drivers may harm our reputation, disrupt our operations and reduce our net revenues, and the resolution of labor disputes may increase our costs." -Uber.

This is a very frank admission of what's at stake here. Corporations understand that the market allows companies to claim an ever-larger share of the proceeds of workers' labor, and that the only way to reverse that lopsided distribution is for workers to organize.

They acknowledge that when workers speak directly to customers about their labor conditions and withhold their labor in the face of unfair practices, corporations suffer - that is, the corporations win when workers are powerless and customers are ignorant.

Passing the PRO Act will not be easy. Establishment Dems like Mark Warner have signalled that they will side with bosses over workers on this bill.

https://discourseblog.com/mark-warner-pro-act-labor-democrats/

Warner falsely claims that the bill will take away the right of gig workers *not* to be unionized. This is just not true, as More Perfect Union reminds us: "This lets independent contractors join a union. It doesn’t force them to."

https://twitter.com/MorePerfectUS/status/1389587206298341382

The entire gig economy runs on idiotic lies like this one. Take the premise that workers are independent, organized into "two-sided markets" by apps that match workers and work, and that manage the process with cool, machine-like objectivity.

As is always the case with disciplinary technology, the gig work app isn't actually in charge - it's just a convenient way for human beings to hide their sadistic behavior behind a scrim of technology theater.

Think of Amazon Delivery Service Partner (DSP) drivers. Amazon maintains the pretense that these workers aren't employees OR contractors - they say that they're SUBcontractors, working for "entrepreneurs" who contract with Amazon to make deliveries.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/03/19/the-shakedown/#weird-flex

DSP drivers wear Amazon uniforms and drive vans with the Amazon logo. They are surveilled by multiple interior and exterior cameras that track their location, their driving, and (checks notes) their facial expressions?!

https://www.wired.com/story/some-amazon-drivers-have-had-enough-can-they-unionize/

Amazon gives its 2,500 DSP owners impossible delivery goals, and the DSP owners pass those on to their 158,000 drivers. This is why drivers have to piss and shit in bags in their trucks, a fact that Amazon denied even though they knew it was true:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/mar/25/amazon-delivery-workers-bathrooms-memo

But for all the electronic monitoring and micromanaging that DSP drivers endure, the exploitation they face is anything but automated. When DSP drivers are forced to work in dangerous and inhumane conditions, it's because human beings are imposing that on them.

Remember all those apps that monitor drivers? The DSP owners instruct their drivers to turn them off whenever there's a delivery crunch, and then order drivers to proceed at unsafe speeds on residential streets to make Amazon's quotas:

https://www.vice.com/en/article/xgxx54/amazon-drivers-are-instructed-to-drive-recklessly-to-meet-delivery-quotas

Workers who refuse to drive unsafely are disciplined and fired (those automated systems ensure that there's always some excuse for firing a worker, and the worker's misclassification as an independent contractor means they have no recourse in the face of unjust dismissals).

Amazon says this is all the work of rogue contractors, and not the result of its impossible quota system.

Worker misclassification lets Amazon have its cake and eat it too - force workers to shit in bags and risk their lives driving too fast, and then claim innocence.

Worker protections start with being recognized as a worker. Ending worker misclassification isn't incidental to the PRO Act, it's at its heart: without it, every worker who stands up for their rights will be reclassified as a contractor and crushed.

Image: Kheel Center https://www.flickr.com/photos/kheelcenter/5278801929/

CC BY https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

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Strikes and labor history photographs.  An incredible collection that seems even more relevant as we fight for our rights in this day and age.

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Found in the Archives Friday

Today’s Found In The Archives is a 1978 exposé on union-busting tactics written by an undercover @1199seiu reporter!

Check out the Kheel Center’s guide to other anti-union campaign materials here:

This item was found during a year-long survey that the Kheel Center is conducting to better document and describe their collections.

[kheelcenter]

March for Jobs and Freedom, On This Day in 1963

#OnThisDay Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “I Have a Dream” Speech in 1963 at the March for Jobs and Freedom in Washington D.C. to thousands of union members.

Lost to history is the emphasis on the March for the fight for jobs that paid a living wage and the role of the labor movement in organizing this massive demonstration.

Images above depict members of the International Ladies’ Garment Worker Union (ILGWU) packing Pennsylvania Station in New York City, standing in front of the Lincoln Memorial, heading on buses to Washington D.C., and marching through the capitol with ILGWU signs.

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Malcolm X and Rosa Parks were two of the civil rights leaders assembled by A. Philip Randolph for a 1962 rally supporting poorly-paid Black, Hispanic, and Caribbean hospital workers in their bid for union recognition as part of the Local 1199 Drug and Hospital Union in what is now Brookdale Medical Center in New York City. This was the only time Malcolm X identified himself with a labor union.

Above, Malcolm X addresses the crowd in front of a sign reading “Negro and Puerto Rican Communities Support Local 1199’s Fight to End Exploitation …” Joining him on the platform are A. Philip Randolph, Rosa Parks, and other labor leaders. Photographer unknown.

[kheelcenter]

Images of Labor

"We were nervous and we didn't know we could do it. Those machines had kept going as long as we could remember. When we finally pulled the switch and there was some quiet, I finally remembered something: that I was a human being, that I could stop those machines, that I was better than those machines anytime." - Sit-down striker 1936

Bread and Roses, one of the sponsors of the poster featured here, is the nonprofit arm of Local 1199/SEIU. It was founded in 1979 as a cultural resource for union members in NYC to increase their exposure to the arts.

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Women of Hope: African Americans Who Made A Difference was a poster collection created by Local 1199's Bread and Roses Cultural Project. This project, founded in 1979 by Moe Foner, served to help workers have a chance to express their creativity and artistic talents that were put on the backburner by working.

For more from Local 1199's Bread and Roses Cultural Project, see Collection #6084 G.

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"If I went to work in a factory the first thing I'd do would be to join a union" - Franklin Roosevelt

This poster was released by the CIO Department of Education and Research. Collection 5284 holds hundreds of documents from the AFL-CIO Education Department, including letters and correspondence, testimonies, and information about training schools and institutes created all across the United States during the 1920s-1960s.

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Union Women Build the Future

"Union Women Build the Future" Poster by Lincoln Cushing

From the Kheel Center Poster Collection, a great resource for studying the iconography of labor through time.

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Another feature from our Poster Collection #6227, this graphic created and displayed by the UAW-CIO Education Department emphasizes to its members the importance and respect workers' voices should be given.

Alt text: The poster portrays a man cornered, being faced by a horde of other men. It reads "Let Him SPEAK" followed by a quote by John Stuart Mill "...If all mankind, minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, making would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind". UAW-CIO Education Department Poster is inscribed on the bottom.

[kheelcenter]

Wipe Out Discrimination!

This poster was distributed by the CIO Committee to Abolish Discrimination, through the Department of Research and Education.

The Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), proposed by John L. Lewis in 1928, was a federation of unions that organized workers in industrial unions in the United States and Canada from 1935 to 1955. The Committee for Industrial Organization was formed by the presidents of eight international unions in 1935. The presidents of these unions were dissatisfied with the American Federation of Labor's unwillingness to commit itself to a program of organizing industrial unions. In 1936, the A.F. of L. suspended the ten unions which proceeded to organize an independent federation, the Congress of Industrial Organizations. The CIO subsequently became the A.F. of L.'s chief rival for the leadership of American unions. The groups were reunited in 1955 as the AFL-CIO.

[kheelcenter]

April Archives Hashtag Party ~ Archives Snapshot

You can observe a lot from one photo... how about ten? Check out these snapshots from a Southern Tenant Farmers Union meeting in Arkansas in 1937, taken by Louise Boyle.

Curious about the Southern Tenant Farmers Union? Check out our digital collection "Louise Boyle. Southern Tenant Farmers Union Photographs, 1937 and 1982" here:

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In Remembrance

On this day 113 years ago in 1911, one of the worst workplace disasters occurred since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire.

Near the end of the work day a fire broke out, and within 18 minutes 146 of 500 workers had died. Exits were blocked, to keep the workers inside during the workday.

To learn more, visit https://trianglefire.ilr.cornell.edu/index.html , our remembrance website for the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire. Here you can find original text documents, photos, interviews of survivors and witnesses, a timeline of events, floor plans, and more.

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Wondering how Local 1199 strove to attract members and increase unionization within workplaces? Take a look at these posters and notices from the 1960s-70s!

[kheelcenter]

Look what we found in the archives...

A small United Farm Workers (UFW) banner!

The UFW was founded in 1962 by Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta, and other labor leaders. The flag was designed by Richard Chavez, Cesar’s brother. Remarking on the flag, Cesar Chavez stated, “A symbol is an important thing. That is why we chose an Aztec eagle. It gives pride. When people see it they know it means dignity.”

This item was found during a year-long survey that the Kheel Center is conducting to better document and describe our collections.