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5/1 May Day Open Thread

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The Wobblies is about the IWW from the last century. Recently re-released, it has been placed into the film registry of the Library of Congress.

This version has Spanish subtitles, but it is the film.

More about the film:

“Solidarity! All for One and One for All!” With that slogan, the Industrial Workers of the World, aka the Wobblies, took to organizing unskilled workers into one big union and changing the course of history. Along the way to winning an eight-hour workday and fair wages in the early 20th century, the Wobblies were one of the few unions to be racially and sexually integrated and often met with imprisonment, violence, and the privations of prolonged strikes. This award-winning film airs a provocative look at the forgotten American history of this most radical of unions, screening the unforgettable and still-fiery voices of Wobbly members–lumberjacks, migratory workers, and silk weavers–in their 70s, 80s, and 90s. Eerily echoing current times, THE WOBBLIES boldly investigates a nation torn by naked corporate greed and the red-hot rift between the industrial masters and the rabble-rousing workers in the field and factory. Replete with gorgeous archival footage, the film pays tribute to American workers who took the ideals of equality and free speech seriously enough to die for them. Directed by Stewart Bird and Deborah Shaffer, THE WOBBLIES is a rare and challenging invitation to rethink both past and present the eyes of an organization largely omitted from memory.

(summary attribution: anticopyright1, YT)

May Day celebrates fertility as well as workers’ rights. Seems like a metaphor for the unionization spring we’ve seen with Starbucks and Amazon.

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The Fighting Soul: On the Road With Bernie Sanders Part 1

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Two Weeks ago, I read an op-ed by Maureen Dowd, “Still Feeling the Bern. ” It’s a favorable interview and review of Ari Rabin-Havi about his book on working for Bernie Sanders as a staffer, later as “Earl’s” deputy campaign manager and close political adviser. The memoir is entitled The Fighting Soul: On the Road with Bernie Sanders.

Dowd supplies some good leads about the book, but I will include for brevity only this summation:

When Sanders met with Barack Obama at his Georgetown office in 2018 to tell him he was thinking about running for president again, Obama offered this advice: “Bernie, you are an Old Testament prophet — a moral voice for our party giving us guidance. Here is the thing, though. Prophets don’t get to be king. Kings have to make choices prophets don’t. Are you willing to make those choices?”

Rabin-Havt (whose brother, Raphi, worked with me at The Times for a spell) writes: “Obama continued, making the point that to win the Democratic nomination, Bernie would have to widen his appeal and convince the party to back him — which would mean being a different type of politician and a different type of candidate than he wanted to be. Bernie listened to Obama, but it was clear to me he never accepted that premise. He has a fundamental belief that he could lead an uncompromising movement that would challenge those who ran the Democratic Party while also leading that same institution, one he steadfastly refused to join.”

The author sums up with a trenchant point: Bernie may never see “the promised land,” but he did win.

“While Bernie Sanders will never be president, his two campaigns have transformed the Democratic Party and this country. Old orthodoxies about government spending and foreign policy have crumbled as a result of the unceasing efforts by an old socialist.”

I labeled this post part one for a good reason. Thanks to Dowd’s op-ed, I decided to buy a Kindle edition of the book and it arrived yesterday. I’m about 20% of the way through. It’s very relaxed in its prose, and candid at times about the frustrations in creating work arounds to make the trains run on time. Some of it has surprised me, such as learning that Bernie is a football fan. I thought he liked baseball and basketball, hereto alas, he likes football and roots for the New England Patriots. (The author is a Giants fan and finds the Pats annoying) I enjoy reading about Bernie’s proclivities and use of foul language when away from microphones. Dowd put it this way in her piece:

I relish hearing about what Rabin-Havt calls “Bernie’s natural impatience” with the frivolous — pretty much everything except the sweeping changes he wants in the country.

There are some happy moments with co-chairs of the campaign, such as Nina Turner’s great effort of personally adopting SC for one of the first primary states in campaigning for the senator. Rabin-Havt shared more of the strategy in the book, which political historians will appreciate. Much of it we knew from reports in the news and all of us who attended rallies, but Rabin-Havt reveals the thinking behind it.

Thus, this is my part 1 since I’m only a 1/5 of the way in the book. It’s a pleasure so far to read. I’ll give my own review later.

I’m posting some videos and reviews in the comments. feel free to add your own. I’ll be reviving this later in the week.

4/25-6 News Roundup & Open Thread

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Bernie Sanders and AOC Rally With Amazon Workers Ahead of Second Warehouse Vote

What started out as a lonesome, quixotic battle to unionize workers against online retail behemoth Amazon is getting a major boost from national progressive lawmakers.

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez rallied around Amazon Labor Union members and warehouse workers on Staten Island as the union prepares for the start of a second vote on Monday at a distribution center known as LDJ5, where some 1,500 employees ready orders for delivery.

“What this struggle is about, it’s not just Amazon Staten Island. This is the struggle that is taking place all across this country. Working people are sick and tired of falling further and further behind while billionaires like [Amazon founder Jeff] Bezos becomes much richer,” Sanders told the crowd of more than 300 people gathered near the bus stop that’s become the nucleus for ALU’s drive.

The once-longshot organizers are hoping to replicate their success earlier this month when they pulled off a history-making upset at the JFK8 Amazon warehouse across the street from LDJ5, becoming the first Amazon union in the country.

After receiving minimal support from progressive stakeholders, who remained largely silent during the unionization drive, the prevailing theme for Amazon Labor Union’s leaders going forward is solidarity.

Calling the rally “Solidarity Sunday,” Amazon Labor Union President Chris Smalls told THE CITY that presenting a unified front is “very important” for boosting worker morale ahead of the vote.

“You have to have politician support. We have to have the community supporting us and today was a good example and a good start to that leading up to the election that takes place tomorrow. So we couldn’t have asked for anything better than to have Bernie and AOC show up today,” Smalls said, wearing a red, yellow and black bomber jacket embroidered with the words ‘Eat the Rich.’

The ALU’s demands remain the same at LDJ5: a $30 an hour minimum wage, better working conditions, including two paid 30-minute breaks and an hour-long paid lunch break, better medical leave, additional paid time off and eliminating productivity rates that require workers to pick a certain number of items per hour.

But organizing workers at LDJ5 comes with its own set of challenges, and Amazon has no plans on relenting against the union, having already filed objections to the first vote claiming that the National Labor Relations Board is giving the ALU preferential treatment.

Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

‘Lies and Rumors’
Amazon has been shutting down the LDJ5 facility for an hour each shift to pull workers into so-called captive audience meetings staged by management to discuss the pitfalls of unionizing, said Maddie Wesley, an LDJ5 worker since August 2021 and the treasurer of the ALU.

The mood inside the distribution center has been “very intense” in recent weeks, Wesley recalled to THE CITY, as she was about to begin her Sunday afternoon shift.

“It’s a smaller facility, so we thought that would actually make it easier. But what’s made it difficult is that rumors spread quicker in a smaller facility, and so Amazon’s method of spreading lies and rumors has been somewhat effective because everyone kind of knows each other in the building,” Wesley said.

Among those rumors is that ALU leaders bought lavish cars with the money the union raised so far — almost $323,000 through GoFundMe, up from the roughly $100,000 they received prior to the first vote at JFK8.

Wesley said she’s heard rumors that she purchased a Mercedes Benz and that Smalls bought himself a Lamborghini.

“I got a little toy one from the dollar store,” Smalls joked.

Across the street at the JFK8 warehouse, management has been “grabbing people” and asking them to meet privately with Amazon lawyers and human resources to question them about whether they were coerced to vote in favor of unionization, said Pasquale Cioffi, a process assistant at JFK8 and supporter of the ALU who has been working for the company for two years.

“They’re putting pressure on the workers,” said Cioffi, who’s known as “Uncle Pat” among workers and the union. “They’re grabbing people, they’re taking them to the office and they want to know if they were somehow threatened.”

The unionization drive was sparked by Smalls’ termination in the spring of 2020 for allegedly breaking safety guidelines after organizing a protest over what workers alleged were inadequate COVID-protection measures.

In the months since, Smalls, his best friend Derrick Palmer, and other current and former Amazon workers have staked out a bus stop on the sprawling Staten Island campus, talking to workers about the benefits of joining a union as they go to-and-from their jobs.

The ALU’s unconventional tactics — like hosting barbecues and events outside of the facilities and deploying a robust social media presence on Instagram and TikTok — have so far proved successful against the multi-billion dollar online retailer.

In the days leading up to the Monday vote, The Rolling Library, a mutual aid group, partnered with the ALU to offer free books and COVID tests to workers. Meanwhile, members of the union stationed themselves outside of LDJ5, setting up a table outside one of the warehouse’s entrances to distribute union literature, snacks and barbeque fixings.

Within the distribution center, a 975,000 square foot facility opened in the fall of 2020, Amazon has ratcheted up its union-busting effort, deploying the same anti-union literature, posters and TV images it did at the warehouse across the street, workers said.

“It’s everywhere, all over the facility ‘please vote no,’ ‘please vote no,’” said Wesley.

According to Smalls, Amazon is “doubling down, tripling down on union busting.”

“It’s easier for them to isolate workers, so it’s a challenge. It’s definitely a challenge for organizing and they’re demonizing them and we have to withstand the onslaught of that as well. But I think the momentum is with the workers,” Smalls said.

The organizing effort secured a key win earlier this week when an administrative judge ordered that Amazon would have to reinstate and pay lost wages to Gerald Bryson, a JFK8 worker who helped lead the protest over working conditions at the warehouse. Bryson was fired by the company after staging another demonstration and getting into an argument with a coworker.

AOC: ‘NYC Is a Union Town’
The vote count for LDJ5 is slated to begin on May 2. In the meantime, the ALU is asking Amazon to recognize the union and begin negotiating a contract, which the ALU leadership considers the “real fight.”

“First and foremost, Jeff Bezos, Amazon, everybody, we got to recognize the fact that they did this thing and won a union election fair and square right here in New York City,” said Ocasio-Cortez. “And now what we need to do next is make sure we support them.”

“All of us as a city need to remember that New York City is a union town. Here in New York, you gotta treat our people right. If you can go to space, you can give our people a bathroom break,” she added, referring to Bezos’ “astronaut” tourism.

Propelled into the spotlight, Smalls has been a fixture on cable shows and late night TV in the weeks since the historic win — appearing on Tucker Carlson’s FOX News show and the Daily Show with Trevor Noah.

Media interest has also blossomed with dozens of cameras and reporters from major news outlets swarming to cover the ALU’s Sunday event, a far bigger crowd than at their press conference two weeks ago.

“We expected that after the win. We didn’t know it would be that rapid. This is about how we balance and stay grounded and stay true to what the ALU represents and don’t get distracted by the outside,” said Smalls.

“It’s been a whirlwind of things. I’m just trying to balance things as best as possible,” he said.

Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are at a union rally in NYC

(photo attribution: Josefa Velasquez)

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4-20 News Roundup and OT

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Benny’s Bar will be open later for mocktails and other libations. Join us in the comments below!