Postmortem on Bessemer Amazon Defeat by Mike Goldfield, New Politics, April 14, 2021 https://newpol.org/postmortem-on-bessemer-amazon-defeat/ . . . The recipes that give a union a greater chance of success are not necessarily that radical. Three successful campaigns are worth noting. Two are little known. The UAW, of course, failed abysmally at the Toyota TMMK plant. Yet construction unions in Kentucky were overwhelmingly successful. Toyota originally tried to hire non-union construction labor to build the plant and to do maintenance once the plant was built. The unions defeated these proposals and gained all union workers in both instances. They mobilized thousands of construction workers to demonstrate, including disrupting Toyota events, and exposing some of their detrimental practices. They formed alliances with construction unions in nearby states and nationally, to refuse aid to Toyota; these other unions’ aid was vital for support. The comparison to the UAW, which refused to engage in militant, disruptive, or mobilization tactics, in the illusory hopes that they could develop cooperative relations with the company, is documented in a wonderful dissertation by my former student Amy Bromsen, Condescending Saviors: Union Substitution At Toyota Motor Manufacturing Kentucky (tmmk) https://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/oa_dissertations/2147/
West Virginia and other teachers mobilized their constituencies in massive demonstrations. In Oklahoma, thousands of teachers occupied the state house. The RWDSU held no mass rallies outside the facility involving the Amazon workers themselves. These rallies might have emboldened activists and more reticent workers and would have taken place outside the company’s control. As far as I know, they did not rent facilities in Bessemer or Birmingham for workers to hold large meetings. These were also problems with the UAW approaches. So, their mobilization tactics were not adequate. . . . And there were not clear sets of public demands the union put forward, just dignity, etc. They should have said, if the union is certified, we will ask for $20 or so per hour (the striking miners at Warrior Met Coal company nearby rejected well over this amount), union safety and health committees, longer and more frequent breaks and lunch periods, less monitoring by computer and supervisor, no discussion of output and breaks without a union steward present, etc., demands that could have been developed at public meetings of workers, not to put in stone the examples that I have given. The question of control of the workplace, pace of work, monitoring, etc. is ubiquitous across industries, something that needs to be formulated precisely for each type of work. ... . . . Finally, while it is necessary to organize extensively inside the facility, even at times on a non-majority basis, this is not a permanent solution. Large companies can only be forced to bargain extensively, especially over wages and benefits, but general safety conditions as well, when the whole company is organized into a union. ...I have little sympathy for the syndicalist arguments, aside from their emphasis on workplace organizing and mobilization. ### On Wed, Apr 14, 2021 at 12:36 PM Richard Modiano <[email protected]> wrote: > "Was Bessemer a “blowout”? There’s no question that union organizers > had hoped the results would be much closer, but it almost certainly > was closer: of the almost 600 objections, the overwhelming majority > came from Amazon’s lawyers, and they objected to ballots that the > union believes were mostly from its supporters. > > "That’s not nearly enough to change the outcome of the vote, but more > than enough to push the union’s vote tally to well over 1000 votes > from workers who for two months had endured one of the most relentless > and vicious anti-union campaigns in recent decades. Not such a > blowout." > > https://againstthecurrent.org/bravery-not-blowout/ > > -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#8022): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/8022 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/82099370/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/8674936/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
