#unionbusting

[meriol-lehmann]

entrepôt amazon, rue léon-malouin, coteau-du-lac

[pennsyltuckyheathen]

People want to attain the “American Dream”...a dream that’s history for a vast majority of Americans.  When a family with two incomes can’t afford a decent home, there’s something very wrong.  

In the 1970′s a family of six - father, mother and four children - could afford a three bedroom home with only the husband working.  I’m referring to my family and my Dad was a carpenter who also was - guess what - a card-carrying labor union member.

In 1981, Republican President Ronald Reagan fired 11,000 (insane right?) striking air traffic controllers. Replacements from the military, retired air traffic controllers and others crossed the picket lines (labeled “scabs” by union workers).  

Republicans, greedy businesses and corporate interests began a smear campaign against unions and union labor. They used Reagan’s union busting tactics as an opportunity to spread propaganda and lies to convince Americans that all union workers were selfish and overpaid and the union “bosses” were corrupt.  Not long after, if union workers went on strike, businesses and corporations brought in scabs to replace them.  This crippled the unions by taking away their bargaining power.    

And thus began the destruction of the middle class and the American Dream.  There was a gigantic sucking sound as all the profits and wealth got siphoned off to those at the top and it’s been going for over forty years.  

That’s how we all got fucked by the Republicans and the capitalist pigs who to this day still own them.  

[pennsyltuckyheathen]

In 1981 while Ronny Raygun was acting like he was President of the United States, the former Hollywood actor and Republican governor of California, negotiations between the air traffic controllers union which by the way supported Raygun for President - and the FAA came to a stand still.

Instead of acting as an intermediary, or having someone from his corporate capitalist administration do so, he refused to acknowledge their issues, declared the strike illegal, said they were jeopardizing public safety, lined up non-union workers - called "scabs" - to replace them, then fired over 11,000 of the ones that were still on strike.

Thus began the Republican smear campaign on behalf of greedy corporate interests to cast all labor unions as corrupt, infiltrated by the mob, full of union workers who were spoiled, selfish and overpaid, and not worthy of the union dues paid by the workers.

Prior to the air traffic controllers strike, union workers would go on the picket lines (strike) when negotiations between the union and corporate management stalled. Corporations almost never brought in replacement workers - called "scabs" by the unions.

Once Ronny Raygun fired the air traffic controllers, banned them from ever working as air traffic controllers again, and replaced them with non-union workers, it set an example for greedy corporations and executive management to replace union workers with "temp workers" who were paid less and eventually hired to replace the striking union workers.

Strikes by unions became useless since the company's management would rarely negotiate with the union leadership in good faith instead replacing the union workers with lower paid scabs.

As union membership declined, workers found themselves with stagnant wages and benefits and profit sharing and bonuses disappeared. Wonder where all the $ went? To executive management compensation packages and sweetheart deals, stockholders, and everywhere but the workers.

THIS IS WHEN CORPORATE GREED, LABOR EXPLOITATION AND INTIMIDATION KICKED INTO HIGH GEAR. THE TRANSFER OF WEALTH - CREATED BY THE WORKERS - BEGAN TO GO TO THE TOP LEAVING THEM TO FIGHT OVER SCRAPS THE CORPORATE GOONS DECIDED THEY COULD SPARE. THE AMERICAN DREAM BEGAN TO DIE AND THE PROSPERITY OF THE MIDDLE CLASS WAS ON THE ROAD TO DESTRUCTION.

[barufisher]

target has always been a shitty place to work but i cannot believe the quickness with which it has devolved in the last few months it is fucking MISERABLE they are inconsistent with schedules, drastically cutting hours and deliberately understaffing us even MORE than they already were, to the point they have people working split shifts to cover fulfillment rather than just scheduling more fulfillment team members which then results in every other department falling behind and struggling and creating the worst loop of catch-up that we can literally. never catch back up with

target has been loosing money rapidly since like 2023 and they love to blame and punish everyone else but the stupid assholes at corporate. but make no mistake this is still a billion dollar company and all the higher-ups are still getting big fat bonuses while i get. a 39cent raise after 5 years of doing the work of 3 people in one

[cockringvarric]

Kept getting over heated last night and had a BUNCH of weird dreams. At one point the the blonde boy from red white and royal blue was there, so then the plot of my dream fully STOPPED and it became an actual truvada commercial. IN my dream. Trying to sell me truvada. With the music from the real commercials and everything. And then the dream continued as normal about other things

[siliquasquama]

Girlboss is still a boss, fellow workers

[thetruth2024]

Worker Unions Will Be Ended If Donald Trump Wins The Election!

[snail-speed]

It took Twitter three tries to actually properly plan a boycott and give people time to prepare and it’s STILL on too short a notice andthey STILL pulled the “ackshually boycott starts now” bullshit

[barrymccaulkinem]

stupid is being conned into doing evil

evil is doing it of your own volition

but doing evil and expecting a handshake deal with your evil cohort to yield your reward later on? thats both my dude

[fans4wga]

26 September: thread by WGA member David Slack

Twitter thread by David Slack @/slack2thefuture:

"As WGA leaders meet today to finalize our deal, we begin a new era for writers — and for labor in our industry. But we also begin to face the final and most insidious form of unionbusting propaganda: a years-long effort to sell the lie that our strike was not worth it.

Over the coming days, months, and years, the studios, streamers, and their surrogates will take every opportunity to undermine what we have won together. They will seize on the inevitable consessions and compromises made by our NegCom as proof that we “failed.”

They will urge us to overlook all that we won through hard work and unwavering solidarity. They will claim it wasn’t enough, that we should have gotten X instead of Y, that we lost more by striking than we gained in this new contract. And they will be wrong.

They will tell us that the strike was unnecessary, it was a waste of our time and our savings, that our agents or managers or lawyers could have gotten us everything we won through individual negotiations without anyone having to walk a picket line. Well… then why didn’t they?

As hard as it is to believe right now, these lies can work. They’ve worked before. During our 2017 strike authorization vote, it was shocking to discover how many members believed we lost the ‘07-08 strike, in which we went on strike for the internet — and won the internet.

This didn’t happen by accident. It was the result of years of whispering by studios and anti-union allies. And they don’t just do it because they’re bitter about losing. They push the lie that we used our power and lost because they hope to stop us from using our power to win.

Our strike was necessary because, in our individual negotiations, our employers consistently refused to acknowledge our right and reasonable demands. Because the profound changes we needed could only be won through the unique and overwhelming power of collective bargaining.

Our strike was necessary because our employers made it necessary by driving our income down 23% in 10 years. Because they refused to address free work in features, streaming coverage in comedy-variety, the abuses of mini-rooms and the threat of AI until we withheld our labor

Our strike was necessary. Our strike was effective. Our strike is a victory. If anyone tries to tell you otherwise, it’s ‘cause they never want to see us stand up for ourselves again. Don’t believe it. We won this fight. We’re the WGA, and when we fight, we win. #WGAStrong"

[pennsyltuckyheathen]

UAW president says auto strike would hurt mostly 'billionaire class' | CNN Business

Auto prices up over 30%

Executive pay up 40%

Workers are offered 10% ☹️

Support UAW Union

[2mercia2furious]

help stop layoffs of immigration advocates

hi y'all. nonprofits that help immigrant communities are facing layoffs and severe cutbacks in hours-due to unionbusting. 🙃

and who is set to lose their jobs and hours? 👀

immigration advocates. community organizers. frontline workers who do difficult, precarious work. Black, Latine and AAPI people fighting to get immigrant communities across the U.S. the legal, educational and material resources they need to survive.

i don't work for Make the Road New York, but i can vouch that they're some of the most dedicated, thoughtful, tireless community advocates i've ever had the privilege of knowing.

what can you do about it?

if you're in the U.S., please sign to demand MRNY protect their workers.

tell them tumblr says no to unionbusting and yes to the workers fighting for all of our loved ones.

[becquerel]

whatever im like staunchly pro union in every scenario because my dad was a ups union manager and made me learn the anti union tactics and what the safest protocols are to interact in unions wrt gathering evidence for workplace mistreatment. literally nothing on online anti union posting is ever actually New and Different its the same unionbusting tactics that have been going for 50+ years. you literally just have to keep the worker solidarity regardless.

[wuntrum]

just finished the first episode of severance after not being able to watch it for a week and none of my friends are watching it as it comes out so please excuse me while word vomit in your ask box. but like the way they all get targeted with things that will make them stay, while also seperating their trust in each other. the outie family visitation room?? mark has a family too, this is just a way to get dylan to pull away. THAT IS NOT HELLY I SWEAR. insane show i swear to god they want me dead

yesssss the separation and like unionbusting measures theyre taking trying to get them all to trust lumon and not each other are sooo juicy. idk if youve had the chance to watch ep 2 yet so i wont say anything specific, but its sooo so interesting seeing the outie stuff in conjuction with what we saw in ep 2...yet again another week of pacing back and forth until next friday 😭

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Bad King Richard got rich by exploiting workers at King’s Faire

Next Tuesday (Oct 31) at 10hPT, the Internet Archive is livestreaming my presentation on my recent book, The Internet Con.

King Richard's Faire is the largest renfaire in New England, and its owner, Dick Shapiro, extracts a reported $400k/day – a sum that is only possible thanks to systematic and likely illegal worker misclassification, which lets him pay performers sub-minimum wages and deny them benefits:

https://www.reddit.com/r/boston/comments/172267v/kings_faire_inc_aim%C3%A9e_bonnie_shapiro_nets_over/

Many of the performers at KRF are absolutely unpaid – these are the "villagers" – who mill about looking picturesque in exchange for free admission. They even have to buy their own turkey legs.

When the faire is rained out, all workers – "volunteers" and paid workers – are sent home without any compensation. Attendees are also sent home with rain-checks, many of which go unused (there's no refunds in the land of King Richard).

Staff work from 8am to 730pm and are paid a day-rate that works out to $6/hour. After heavy weather events, staff are ordered to show up early to do cleanup, but are not paid for their time. Staff don't get health benefits – instead, local community groups like the Elks put on fundraisers to cover the health-care costs of the performers.

Now, King Richard's worker mistreatment is not an outlier in the medieval reenactment industry. Think of how the knights at Medieval Times – who put on nightly, potentially lethal performances to generate profit for their employer – unionized in the face of exploitative labor relations. To add insult to injury, Medieval Times sued the union, arguing that its name – "Medieval Times Performers United" – was a trademark infringement:

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/medieval-times-sues-union-trademark_n_63485fa5e4b0b7f89f54546b

This trademark wheeze is the latest desperate tactic to be deployed by the ruling class in the face of a surging labor movement with broad public support. Starbucks – one of the world's most notorious unionbusters – is doing the same thing to its union, Starbucks Workers United:

https://seattle.eater.com/23923490/starbucks-workers-united-union-lawsuits-copyright-trademark-israel-hamas-palestine-social-media

These moves are wildly out of step with the current of public opinion, which has swung hard for union rights in a manner not seen in generations. The outpourings of public support for striking entertainment industry workers were handwaved away as exceptions driven by the public's love of actors and writers. But that doesn't explain the strong, ongoing support for the UAW in their strike against all of the Big Three automakers:

https://pro.morningconsult.com/instant-intel/uaw-strike-public-opinion-october-2023

Bosses have always tried to smash worker power by dividing workers – by race, gender, or "skill" – but workers are workers and solidarity is the source of worker power. That's why the whole labor movement backed Equity Stripper NoHo, the first strippers' union in a generation:

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

Creative workers are part of a class of workers who suffer from "vocational awe," the sense that because your job is satisfying and/or worthy, you don't deserve to get paid for it:

https://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2018/vocational-awe/

(Think of joke about the father who finds his runaway son at the circus shoveling elephant shit: "Son, come home!" "What, and quit show-business?")

Creative workers have long been encouraged to see themselves as "independent businesspeople" – LLCs with MFAs – and this mind-zap is augmented with our bosses' repeated insistence that the unions are for big burly blue-collar workers, not ethereal dreamers and pencil-pushers. Our bosses tell this story because it discourages us from forming unions and demanding fair pay and good working conditions (obviously).

Think of J Edward Keyes, the cartoon villain who serves as editorial director of Bandcamp. When the workers Keyes managed formed the Bandcamp United union, Keyes called them "white-collar tech workers…appropriating the language of the legitimately oppressed," adding "Fuuuuuck Bandcamp United":

https://www.404media.co/bandcamp-editorial-director-fuuuuuck-bandcamp-united/

Keyes's contempt notwithstanding, it's clear why Bandcamp workers need a union – after the company was flipped twice in rapid succession, its new owners, Epic Games and Songtradr, fired all its unionized workers. Keyes responded to coverage of this mass firing by calling the Pitchfork reporters who wrote about it "absloute amateur journalists."

The attempt to divide-and-rule "knowledge workers" from "industrial workers" is a transparent bid to shatter solidarity and make it easier to abuse and exploit all workers. Thankfully, workers are wise to that gambit, and understand that when all kinds of workers struggle together, they win.

Take the UAW strikes: for many years, the UAW was an objectively bad union, ruled over by a dirty-tricking clique who sold out the membership. It's normal to blame workers for bad leaders, but the UAW old guard had rigged union elections, making sure that they would stay in charge. It's not workers that like corrupt unions – it's bosses.

Before the UAW could fight back against their bosses, they had to fight back their bosses' minions in the upper ranks of their own union. That's where the the Harvard Grad Students' Union comes in. After years of worsening exploitation and working conditions, the Harvard Grad Students organized under the UAW, then joined forces with reformers in the union to oust the corrupt leadership.

During the leadership struggle, Harvard Grad Students helped their comrades from the auto-sector master the union's baroque constitution, so when the old guard tried to prevent motions from reaching the floor, the grad students were able to cite chapter and verse back at them. In the end, grad students and auto-workers together won the victory that paved the way for the strikes:

https://theintercept.com/2023/04/07/deconstructed-union-dhl-teamsters-uaw/

A strong, unified labor movement is necessary if America is to save itself from inequality, racism, the climate emergency – the whole polycrisis. The idea that creative workers aren't workers is bullshit – and so is the lie that all workers are uncreative. The "Worker As Futurist" project recruits Amazon drivers and warehouse writers to write science fiction about a future without Amazon:

https://jacobin.com/2023/09/amazon-workers-sci-fi-writing-bezos-imagination-speculative-future

They call this a "belief that rank-and-file workers, whose bodies and minds are exploited by capital, might have access to some knowledge about capitalism that is beyond even the most brilliant theorist or analyst of capitalism."

All workers can and should tell their own story. Doing so isn't just a way to change the narrative – it's also a way to change policy. The new merger guidelines from the FTC and DOJ Antitrust Division explicitly incorporate labor-market effects into antitrust policy. As Brian Callaci and Sandeep Vaheesan write for The Sling, the testimony of workers and unions can help produce the evidentiary basis for blocking the mergers that lead to monopolies:

https://www.thesling.org/workers-are-an-untapped-resource-for-antitrust-enforcers/

The rising labor movement is a force for profound change in every part of our economy and politics. Workers can be our knights in shining armor.

https://www.thesling.org/workers-are-an-untapped-resource-for-antitrust-enforcers/

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/2023/10/25/huzzah/#bad-king-richard

[sisville-v11]

so like haltmann works co would defs unionbust right. that seems like smth theyd try 2 do