Brandon Johnson is... fine, I think.
He's probably the most pro-labor politician we've had in a long while, tbh.
nah the dude has been absolutely terrible. Pritzker has been dunking on him since he got elected
He's better than the last 2 that Chicago has had but we got a long way to go
he's still better; this article is ultra-left garbage.
How is his presence co-opting the movement?
He ran on progressive vibes but has done a bunch of bad stuff while in office: increased CPD budget, attempted to contract GardaWorld to put migrants in tents, etc. He got AFL-CIO and some other unions to pledge not to strike during the DNC. How has he helped labor?
The CPB budget thing was coming etiher way. We knew that he would still do bad things. That wasn't the point though.
Has he done any good things? So far, the only positive thing I can say about him is he's not Vallas.
In fact it's quite possible he will hurt the labor movement. I'm not super familiar with CTU inner workings, but to an outsider it looks like the collaborationist "common good" bargaining process that CTU is signalling with him will probably conclude the cooptation and defanging of CORE. Workers shouldn't pull their punches. Ask for what you need, and let them cut the damn police budget if the city "can't afford" it.
Nobody is explaining to me how he's "co-opting" the movement so I don't really buy it.
Because he's a neoliberal Democrat who hasn't proven that he's actually actively pro worker yet. He still might. He hasn't yet. I'll trust him when he proves it.
That's not saying much. I'm willing to give 'em the benefit of doubt, tbh. I have a few friends that love him, even now.
Also, I don't really see how this is "co-opting" the movement.
Brandon Johnson's election was kinda a big deal because it was a direct blow against the Chicago Democratic machine.
He'll probably make a lot of disappointing decisions, no doubt, but for now, I can see why he would be included.
He was also elected on the back of the Chicago Teacher's Union. I guess they aren't real Labor though.
Chicago Teachers' Union was one of the first to call for a ceasefire.
The foreign policy of a teacher's union is orthogonal to their purpose and is also irrelevant.
Who invited him to speak? I found the list of their staff by finding a small link at the bottom of the About page (https://labornotes.org/staff), but the board doesn't even have pictures while the staff do. That feels weird, even if it's supposed to be some kind of "anti-hierarchy" signaling. Not that anyone on the board seems bad or anything. I just get annoyed when a website doesn't list something as obvious as who's in charge of the org or where their funding comes from.
I will also point out that while he's the opening speech, there's also a bunch of events already going on earlier in the day.
