Corporate America Is Panicking
They're terrified of the resurgence of collective bargaining and they're cashing in their Supreme Court chips.
Once upon a time, unions built the most powerful industrial nation in the world. During the 1940s and 1950s, 1 out of every 3 private sector workers was in a union. With good pay, benefits, and a pension, the American middle class became the envy of the world and the United States became the richest nation in history.
The rich became unimaginably wealthy but, as always, that wasn’t enough for the greedy fucks and they wanted more. They wanted all of it. So they started to systematically undermine unions with propaganda and laws designed to disempower the American workers who had made them so much money.
The rich kept getting richer but now they didn’t have to share that prosperity with the filthy plebes doing the work.
The result was 40 years of wage stagnation and the middle class shrinking.
Meanwhile, Republicans crushed unions all across the country, pushing union membership down to just a little over 10%. The results have been predictable. Unsafe work conditions. Low wages. No job security. Laughable benefits. Retirement? What’s that? All while corporations rake in record profits and their CEOS are paid hundreds of millions to cut costs.
And then…Joe Biden became president. Funny things happen when you have an aggressively pro-union president. Pro-union stuff kicks off in a big way.
Since Biden was elected in 2020, his National Labor Relation Board ended the Trump regime’s overt attack on unions. Like magic, there was a huge surge in union drives and a historic number of strikes, most of them successful.
Worse, decades of anti-union propaganda has lost its punch. The public was invariably on the side of the unions. One can only guess but perhaps if corporations hadn’t been so fucking greedy, the propaganda would have continued to work? Not for nothing, banks were directly responsible for the 2008-2009 financial collapse which cost tens of millions of people their jobs, their homes, and their retirements. The bankers? They walked away with golden parachutes and no one went to jail.
During Covid, corporations were incensed that people didn’t want to expose themselves to a deadly virus for minimum wage. Afterward, while the Great Resignation was putting pressure on the job market, “no one wants to work anymore!” became the mating call of the greedy business owner who refused to pay a fair wage. Then there was this asshole:
Tim Gurner, CEO of Australian real estate company Gurner Group, said at The Australian Financial Review Property Summit on Tuesday that workers need to be put in their place — potentially through unemployment.
…
"We need to see unemployment rise," he said. "Unemployment has to jump 40, 50% in my view. We need to see pain in the economy. We need to remind people that they work for the employer, not the other way around."
It’s not often they vomit their hate for us out in the open like that but there it was.
It’s been clear for some time now that corporate America has been getting extremely nervous about all this union activity. Millions of workers have been demanding better pay, more benefits, better working conditions, and they’ve been winning. The fucking nerve of the peasants! They should know their place!
So now Corporate America is demanding the Supreme Court they paid billions to take control of do something about it:
Upset by the surge in union drives, several of the best-known corporations in the US are seeking to cripple the country’s top labor watchdog, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), by having it declared unconstitutional. Some labor experts warn that if those efforts succeed, US labor relations might return to “the law of the jungle”.
In recent weeks, Elon Musk’s SpaceX as well as Amazon, Starbucks and Trader Joe’s have filed legal papers that advance novel arguments aimed at hobbling and perhaps shutting down the NLRB – the federal agency that enforces labor rights and oversees unionization efforts. Those companies are eager to thwart the NLRB after it accused Amazon, Starbucks and Trader Joe’s of breaking the law in battling against unionization and accused SpaceX of illegally firing eight workers for criticizing Musk.
The current Supreme Court, controlled by Republican extremists beholden to their corporate owners, is intensely hostile to unions and the rights of workers. They’re also in the midst of a coordinated assault on the core concept of government itself. Two of their more pressing agendas are overlapping here.
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That means there is a very real chance that the NLRB will be declared “unconstitutional,” freeing corporations to go wild in attacking unions and retaliating against workers.
It’s really important to understand that Republicans, before they realized that fascism was a viable strategy, planned to rule the country for the next 25 years or so by judicial fiat. That’s why they stole 2 Supreme Court seats and packed the lower courts with young far-right ideologues who are unqualified for their lifetime positions but would rule in the most extreme way possible.
Even though they’re still all in on fascism, judicial fiat is still Plan B, and why not do both at the same time?
Will the greedy fucks get their way yet again? It’s not clear. The Supreme Court could very well side with them. But the public will not and workers are not at all interested in going back to the way things were. I know scumbags like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos think the peasants should get back to digging the moats around their castles but those days are done. Strikes are going to continue. Unions are going to form whether Musk fucking likes it or not.
It took the GOP decades to kneecap unions and, frankly, they don’t have decades left to try again. The best they’ll be able to do is slow the incoming tide but they’re not going to be able to stop it and that’s good news for everyone who isn’t a greedy ratfuck billionaire.
There are 238 days until the 2024 election. Vote blue like your life depends on it.
Great article! My dad was a union member and a proud Democrat. He was also a Jimmy Carter type of Christian. When I vote, I always ask myself who would my dad vote for. The answer is always the Democrat.
I’ve never held a union job, but I support unions 100%. I’ve never crossed a picket line. I’ve canceled Amazon, WaPo, won’t drink at Starbucks and crushed to hear about Trader Joe’s, but there are other places to shop.