A Rising Tide of Syndicalism?

My personal conventional wisdom has been that the major fight-back against a failing capitalism would be political. I think my conventional wisdom has been off.

Last week and other recent occurrences have instead pointed to towards a labor upsurge; a very welcome labor upsurge. Consider this, Last Thursday around 12,000 Minneapolis/St.Paul nurses struck for one day. These nurses are voting now on an open-ended strike which in the Twin Cities would amount to a city-wide health care strike. And then there's the pilots' strike against Spirit Airlines. Consider too that cabin crews have been striking against British Airways for three weeks now. And it should be noticed that Chinese workers are forming independent unions and are striking across the Chinese auto industry against low pay and brutal working conditions.

When I think about it, that the fight back is job actions and labor based should be no surprise. In the early stages of this second Great Depression it was the Republic Door and Window workers who conducted the first plant occupation in the U.S. for a long time, and Hart-Marx workers who threatened to occupy their plant should it be closed. In Europe there has been a steady stream of labor activity in the form of occupations against plant shut-downs; and of course that great French innovation, boss-napping.

Causes?

There seems to be two prevalent factors with the current strike activities. The first involves protracted over-work and other unsafe working conditions as the corporation continue to avoid hiring and working too small staffs right into the ground. The second factor involves corporate demands for worker concessions.

Twin City nurses for instance are strongly objecting to staffing patterns that clearly threaten the health and safety of patients. U.S. airline strikes such as against Spirit are against brutal scheduling and near minimum wage pilot salaries; this is a place where the poor economics and threats to passenger safety perfectly meet. And in China, industrial workers frequently die of over-work...

Local Developments:

Here in Salem and in Central Oregon a fight is brewing at Fred Meyer's stores. Fred's management is looking for major givebacks in health care and other benefits concessions. So far, Fred's demands are being actively opposed by workers and their union, The United Food and Commercial Workers' Union. A strike against Fred's is a distinct possibility.

Likewise, State of Oregon workers with both SEIU and AFSCME have refused to open their contracts and thus have refused to have the State's budget balanced on workers' backs.

Big Picture?

Workers did not cause this second Great Depression. Employers however do seem to think that workers should pay for this second Great Depression by working harder for less and thus bailing their bosses out. Fortunately, workers seem to be less and less inclined to cooperate with their bosses agendas.

This is all to the good!