Huge Supreme Court case today. Glacier v. Teamsters.
Cement truck drivers went out on strike. Some of the cement in their trucks hardened (as cement is known to do). After the strike, the company sued the workers for destruction of property. Issue is whether they can.
If the company wins, it will vitiate the ability of workers to strike in this country (which has been happening quite a bit, don't you know).
And now is where I remind you that the Roberts Court has been the most pro-business court in US history that lives to smash labor rights.
If "White working class voters" were motivated by economic self interest, their MAGA spokespeople would be up in arms for the workers.
Instead, it's the kind of case that proves MAGA is just in it for the racial bigotry and doesn't give a toss economic anxiety.
One (dumb) thing that is happening in this thread from people determined to lick jackboots, the issue IS NOT whether the workers had to empty the cement trucks after they started striking. The issue is whether the NLRB (Which said the workers' actions were FINE) has any power.
Like there was an actual ruling from the National LABOR Relations Board that said the workers DID take reasonable precautions to avoid the destruction of property.
The nihilist Republicans are saying the NLRB doesn't matter and they should still be able to sue anyway.
This is all going even worse than I figured, and I figured it would go pretty badly.
Essentially KBJ and Sotomayor have abandoned the best arguments for the unions, and are now focused on limiting the scope of the eventual corporate victory.
Well, that sucked.
Every labor case start with this Court 6-3 against labor.
This case might be 8-1 or 9-0 with the liberals siding with the jackboots to limit the scope of this ruling. Getting very Fulton v. City of Philadelphia (anti gay adoption case that was 9-0) vibes.
If you're an accelerationist in this thread talking about how this will bring back a militant labor movement, I want to ask you who the militants will be. You're the radical edge of the movement. It's people like you who will be the first militants.
So I have a question: are you salting key industries? Are you organizing towards wildcat strikes?
If not, then it's likely that the militant turn you're looking for won't come to pass.
So get organized with the I.W.W. or email your local UNITE-HERE or Workers United chapter and tell them you want to salt and learn to organize.
Yeah it doesn't seem like some of the people in this thread have every seriously engaged with a union. They're almost all timid as mice and the primary role seems to be more about navigating the bureaucracy of the NLRB to get a contract rather than developing labor militancy. If we seriously want a militant labor movement we're gonna have to build it pretty much from scratch, which isn't to say we have to build all new unions, but the existing ones need serious transformation before they're willing to challenge the existing order.
Every union has militancy inclined leadership in it. The project is multifold:
-organize your shop with a mainstream union who has the resources to back you up through the contract process.
-find militant leaders and gain their support in organizing towards direct action at your jobsite. If your leadership won't back you, turn to the wobblies, they will.
-get trained as a shop steward, join your MAT or CAT, run for election, or become a staff organizer. Become the leadership that can back up militancy.
-organize leadership to reform your union, move them towards working w/o a contract, lower strike thresholds, aggressive new organizing, better strike pay, 1 member 1 vote, illegal action, rolling strikes.
-salt for militant locals to build their membership base and our collective capacity.