Depending on how you look at it, I either grew up in the periphery of the labor movement, or atop it, or surrounded by it. For a kid, labor issues don't really hold a lot of urgency - in places with mature labor movements, kids don't really have jobs, and the part-time jobs I had as a kid (paper route, cleaning a dance studio) were pretty benign.
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Cory Doctorow
•https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/20/a-common-foe/#the-multinational-playbook
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Cory Doctorow
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Cory Doctorow
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Cory Doctorow
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Cory Doctorow
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The teachers' unions were strong, and they cared about students *and* teachers, both those at the start of their careers and those who'd given many years of service. They came up with an *amazing* solution: "self-funded sabbaticals."
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Cory Doctorow
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This allowed Ontario to increase its workforce by about 20%, *for free*. Senior teachers got a year off to spend with their families, or on continuing education, or for travel.
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Cory Doctorow
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This worked *great* for everyone, including my family. My parents both took their four-over-five year in 1983/84. They rented out our house for six months, charging enough to cover the mortgage.
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Cory Doctorow
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Cory Doctorow
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No, really, it was *amazing*. Unions and the social contract they bargained for transformed my family's life chances.
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Cory Doctorow
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Cory Doctorow
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Tour
My parents were active in labor causes and in their unions, of course, but that was just part of their activist lives. My mother was a leader in the fight for legal abortion rights in Canada:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/doctorow/8882641733
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Me and Morgentaler
FlickrCory Doctorow
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Cory Doctorow
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https://www.flickr.com/photos/doctorow/53616011737/
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ALP kids and Kids for Peace banner, ca 1983, Queen's Park, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
FlickrCory Doctorow
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https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/morgentaler-honoured-by-order-of-canada-federal-government-not-involved-1.716775
My teens were a period of deepening involvement in politics. It was hard work, but rewarding and fundamentally hopeful.
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Cory Doctorow
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In hindsight, though, I can see that even as my activism intensified, it also got *harder*.
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Cory Doctorow
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What I couldn't see at the time was that all of this was provided by organized labor. The labor movement had the halls, the photocopiers, the lawyers, the experience - the *infrastructure*.
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Cory Doctorow
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Look, riding a bicycle around all night wheatpasting posters to telephone poles to turn out people for an upcoming demonstration is hard work, but it's *much* harder if you have to pay for xeroxing at Kinko's rather than getting it for free at the union hall.
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Cory Doctorow
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This was why the neoliberal project took such savage aim at labor: they understood that a strong labor movement was foundation of antiimperialist, antiracist, antisexist struggles for justice. By dismantling labor, the ruling class kicked the legs out from under all the other fights that mattered.
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Cory Doctorow
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Cory Doctorow
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Cory Doctorow
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Cory Doctorow
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https://pluralistic.net/2021/11/25/strikesgiving/#shed-a-tier
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Cory Doctorow
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https://unionhall.aflcio.org/bloomington-normal-trades-and-labor-assembly/labor-culture/edge-anarchy-first-class-pullman-strike
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Edge of Anarchy first class Pullman strike history
UnionHallCory Doctorow
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Cory Doctorow
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https://theintercept.com/2023/04/07/deconstructed-union-dhl-teamsters-uaw/
In other words, we're in the midst of a reversal of the historic role of labor and other social justice movements.
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The Teamsters and the UAW Gear Up for Struggle
Deconstructed (The Intercept)Cory Doctorow
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One of the key organizing questions for today is whether these two movements can continue to co-evolve and, eventually, merge. For example: there can be no successful climate action without climate *justice*. The least paid workers in America are also the most racially disfavored.
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Cory Doctorow
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One thing such a fusion can produce is a truly international labor movement. Today, social justice movements are transnational: the successful Irish campaign for abortion rights was closely linked to key abortion rights struggles in Argentina and Poland.,
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Cory Doctorow
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A global labor movement is necessary, and not just to defeat the divide-and-rule tactics of the NAFTA fight. The WTO's legacy is a firmly *global* capitalism: workers all over the world are fighting the *same corporations*.
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Cory Doctorow
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Cory Doctorow
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Cory Doctorow
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Mercedes just defeated a hard-fought union drive in Vance, Alabama. In part, this was due to admitted tactical blunders from the UAW, who have recently racked up unprecedented victories in Tennessee and North Carolina:
https://paydayreport.com/uaw-admits-digital-heavy-organizing-committee-light-approach-failed-them-in-alabama-at-mercedes/
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UAW Admits Digital Heavy, Organizing Committee Light Approach Failed Them in Alabama at Mercedes
Mike Elk (Payday Report)Cory Doctorow
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Cory Doctorow
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https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/10/an-injury-to-one/#is-an-injury-to-all
This is another way reversal of the post-neoliberal era. Whereas once the US exported its most rapacious corporate practices all over the world, today, global labor stands a chance of exporting workers' rights from weak territories to strong ones.
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Cory Doctorow
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Cory Doctorow
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This is a weird upside to global monopoly capitalism. It's how antitrust regulators all over the world are taking on corporations whose power rivals global superpowers like the USA and China.
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Cory Doctorow
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https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/05/big-tech-eu-drop-dead
Look, the UAW messed up in Alabama. A successful union vote is won before the first ballot is cast. If your ground game isn't strong enough to know the outcome of the vote before the ballot box opens, you need more organizing, not a vote:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/23/a-collective-bargain/
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Big Tech to EU: "Drop Dead"
Electronic Frontier FoundationCory Doctorow
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https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/21/eight-and-skate/#strike-to-rule
American workers - *especially* swing-state workers who swung for Trump and are leaning his way again - *overwhelmingly* support a pro-labor agenda.
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Cory Doctorow
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https://www.americanfamilyvoices.org/_files/ugd/d4d64f_6c3dff0c3da74098b07ed3f086705af2.pdf
They support universal healthcare, and value Medicare and Social Security, and trust the Democrats to manage both better than Republicans will. They support "abortion rights, affordable child care, and even forgiving student loans":
https://prospect.org/politics/2024-05-20-bidens-working-class-slump/
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Is Reversing Biden’s Working-Class Slump Even Possible?
Harold Meyerson (The American Prospect)Cory Doctorow
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Cory Doctorow
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Cory Doctorow
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https://www.amazon.com/Lost-Cause-Cory-Doctorow-ebook/dp/B0BQGGP2XT/
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