TMS: Organizing to Win the Impossible Fight

NinaIllingworth April 4, 2022November 5, 2022 ALU, Amazon, Amazon union, anticapitalism, Bernie Sanders, blog, Brett Wilkins, CA4, Can't You Read, child labor, Chris Smalls, Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Civil Rights Act, Clarence Darrow, class war, Common Dreams, democratic socialism, George Floyd Protests, instagram, Jacobin, Jeff Bezos, labor, labor class organizing, labor organization, labor rights, Media Madness, minimum wage, Nina Illingworth, Nina-Bytes, organizing a revolution, organizing against captalism, Pinko Postcard, police violence, Quickshot Quotations, revolution, right to organize, Shuvu Bhattarai, Social Justice, social media, Socialism, ST2, Starbucks union, Starbucks Workers United, the Mini-Skinny, TMS, Tumblr, union busting, Wagner Act

Editor’s note: the Mini-Skinny is a social media analysis collection that aggregates related posts I made about a given subject over a short period of time. Today’s post features analysis from April 1st through 4th, 2022.

Snowballs and Avalanches

“For wholly different reasons, it would be wise for both capital and workers to remember that the reason the wealthy ruling classes conceded our right to unionize in the first place, is because the other option was a full-blown socialist revolution.”

Huzzah my friends! It turns out Jeff Bezos can in fact bleed; at least metaphorically. With the inspiring news that some 8,000 Amazon workers in Staten Island, NY have overcome millions of dollars worth of dirty tricks to successfully organize a union, the Pig Empire labor class finally has something to celebrate again. Throwing in the shockingly successful organizing efforts of the Starbucks Workers United campaign, some commentators have even suggested we might be on the dawn of a new golden age for organized labor. Now, would be a great time to start talking to friends and coworkers, about the importance of unions.

In these heady moments however, I think it’s vital for workers and organizers to remember two key things. First, power concedes nothing without struggle. A lot of hard work went into these first few victories, and successful organizers everywhere will tell you that corporate power still has most of the advantages in this fight. There are a hundred and nine more Amazon warehouses in America alone, not to mention thousands upon thousands of coffee shops and fast food restaurants; for these first few victories to transform labor class life, workers will have to continue the fight until it is finished.

Secondly, labor class leftists must remember that unions aren’t just for fighting back against capitalists at work. If you can organize your coworkers to protect each other from the bosses, we can organize against the monied classes politically, to protect the labor class as a whole. If a mere 8,000 workers is enough to make neofuedalism tremble, just imagine what we could do with millions? A better way of life is there for the taking, if we want it badly enough.

By all means folks, celebrate; but don’t stagnate. Now is the time to remember that fortune favors big ideas, and bold actors. “Be realistic; demand the impossible.”

A Launching Platform for Change

In today’s edition of Quickshot Quotations, I’d like to kick things off with the banger quote above from American lawyer and famous civil libertarian, Clarence Darrow. To say that Darrow was a complicated, and not entirely admirable man, would indeed be an understatement, so we’re not going to waste a lot of time drilling down on him here. As both a former labor lawyer, and champion for the legal rights of the marginalized however, Darrow makes the grade; and he’s certainly on point here.

Although the American education system does an intentionally poor job of teaching labor history, most folks passably on the left in the Pig Empire know at least a little bit about the achievements of labor unions. In the U.S. we owe the eight hour workday to a decidedly anarchist labor movement in the late nineteenth century. Its progeny would go on to win the legal right to collectively bargain, establish the right to a minimum wage, and stamp out child labor; among other accomplishments.

Perhaps more importantly for today’s discussion however, the hard won battles fought at least in part by American labor, have contributed to higher wages and a more egalitarian society above and beyond the unionized workplace; for example, organized labor played a huge role in obtaining Social Security benefits for all Americans, and establishing equal employment provisions in the Civil Rights Act. While their track record is far from perfect, there is clear evidence that union organizing, even in America, can be a positive force for all sorts of social changes.

Of course, if we pull the lens back and consider the larger world outside of the U.S., the picture becomes even more inspiring. Unions in places like Canada helped win the fight for universal public healthcare in that country. In Europe, some unions have lent their support to successful battles for childcare rights, environmental conservation initiatives, and the fight against imperialist invasions abroad. Finally of course, virtually every socialist country in human history has relied on the early support of trade unions and their ability to organize; even if socialists often find a union tied to employment, somewhat paradoxical.

I mention all of this here today, in the warm afterglow of perhaps the most significant American organized labor victory in my adult life, to remind folks that this moment can be both an end unto itself, and a beginning of something larger, and even more wonderful. As workers fight to organize against greedbag employers in hyper-exploitative corporate environments, it’s important to remember that the very same principles of organizing to build power against capitalist predation, also apply to every aspect of Pig Empire life outside of work too. Like Joe Hill famously noted, “there is power in a union.” Not just power against the bosses, but the power to in fact, change the world.

The Starbucks Worker Organizing Model and American Labor

I must confess that, out of necessity it seems, most of the articles I share and analyze in Nina-Bytes are overwhelmingly infuriating, heartbreaking, or negative in some very obvious and often overwhelming way. Such is the price of trying to decode messages from the propaganda model in a neofeudalist society, on a boiling planet. Given that capitalist life in the Pig Empire is essentially a never ending class war rigged in favor of the owner and investor classes, I’m not really sure what good it would do to try and put a positive spin on the situation anyway.

Today however I’d like to work against type for a moment, and look at this exciting March 28th, 2022 article from labor organizer Shuvu Bhattarai over at Jacobin; because for once, I think the good news here is more useful for the ongoing conduct of labor class liberation. Inside, Bhattarai catalogues the surprising (but welcome) successes of the Starbucks Workers United campaign in the United States; described here as “one of the most invigorating labor campaigns in recent U.S. history.” More importantly however, our author breaks down the SB Workers United method of unionization in great detail, while demonstrating why this thus far overwhelmingly successful model can easily be extrapolated to organizing in any other corporate chain environment.

All of this is, quite frankly, exciting news for the labor class here in the Pig Empire. For far too long, the public image of organized labor has existed as an overwhelmingly white, producerist caricature of what the actual labor class in America looks like. If the labor class in America is going to organize in the workplace, that workplace is going to be defined by the jobs we actually have; and that means we’re talking about organizing against corporations like McDonald’s, Amazon, and yes, Starbucks. These newly unionized Starbucks workers are the very face of what an American labor movement that actually wants to change anything is going to be, by necessity as Bhattarai notes:

“There are practical reasons why workers must be the ones driving and leading the unionization drive. For one, they are the ones who best understand and feel the numerous ways they are exploited by their management and thus are best able to develop tactics to use their shared conditions as a point of unity. Second, the common driving factor for workers seeking unionization is a lack of agency, which manifests itself in numerous forms: management abuse, poor pay, and unstable schedules. By creating a space where the workers are able to exert control over their workplace, through leadership of their unionization campaign, a space of empowerment is created that can bring forward the best from every worker. To create a force of highly motivated worker-organizers, worker control over strategy is an absolute precondition.”

Of course, the old Wobbly in me questions whether union organizing under the auspices of capitalist predation, also know as “the workplace,” can ever be an effective way to liberate workers and destroy capitalism itself. Given however the simultaneous need to both organize the labor class, and protect labor from the tender mercies of extractivist capital and the supervillains who make it go; this sure does look like a great starting point to me. In that light, I’m happy to offer up three cheers for the Barista revolution and all their successes.

In a class war that never ends, the only hope for the exploited remains refusing to allow our exploiters to define what labor is, and who has a right to a union. The Starbucks Workers United campaign drive, and the instructions provided in this article, can be a light in a purposely-darkened path forward; if we remember that all workers are labor, not just the guys in hardhats.

No Fools on this Drive

It turns out however, the Starbucks Workers United organizational effort isn’t the only good news on the docket last week. As I mentioned above, roughly eight thousand workers at a Staten Island Amazon Warehouse have united behind organizer Chris Smalls to form the Amazon Labor Union; becoming the first group of workers to defeat Amazon’s infamous union busting tactics. Although the ALU’s model of organizing differs from the Starbucks Workers United model, the principles behind the campaigns, and the people-power they’re conducted with reveal these movements to be brothers from another mother.

To call this a mere upset, doesn’t do what Smalls and his compatriots have accomplished here proper justice. These folks just chin checked Jeff Bezos and celebrated by clowning him on the news afterwards. To get a better idea of what this means for labor and some portions of the left, let’s look at this April 1st, 2022 summary by Brett Wilkins on Common Dreams. Inside we find a round-up of left-leaning voices and organizations praising the workers and noting that that brutal corporate exploitation has rendered the organizing iron hot as hell. Here’s an example:

“Varshini Prakash, executive director of the youth-led climate group Sunrise Movement, cheered Friday’s “win for workers across America,” while hailing “worker victories at giant corporations like Amazon and Starbucks” as “part of a growing wave of activism that is paving the way for a more just economy.”

While this certainly is a “watershed moment” for modern American labor, and that is something to celebrate, I personally couldn’t help but notice one of the comments Smalls himself made about the union’s victory. Namely, “this is the catalyst for the revolution.“ Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying eight thousand Amazon warehouse workers organizing into a union, means the revolution is on its way automatically; and I doubt that’s what Smalls meant either. What I am saying however, is that learning how to organize a union against corporate power, makes it easier to organize against capitalist power.

Furthermore, when you get right down to it, the solution to virtually every pressing problem in the Pig Empire, from imperialism, to the rise of fascism, and especially including climate crisis, is to organize the larger labor class towards the ultimate destruction of capitalism. How are you going to overthrow the ruling class, if you can’t even organize a union to check the tyranny of your employer? No, a union isn’t a revolution, and neither really, is democratic socialism; but you don’t get there, without organized and empowered workers acting as one to protect their class interests against capitalist predation.

Six years ago, I saw the doomed campaign of an independent democratic socialist Senator from Vermont, birth a whole new generation of young people further left than he was, and proud to call themselves socialists. Two summers ago, I saw outrage at murderpig violence against (primarily) Black men, transform into an American uprising that lasted a whole season. At the end of last week, I saw a man that Amazon fired and underestimated, turn the tables on arguably the most powerful corporation on earth. You know, the funny thing about an avalanche is that it always starts as a snowball or two, rolling down a hill.