Speaker 1: Also media Welcome to it could Happen Here, a podcast
Speaker 1: in which my friend Kim Kelly and I talk about
Speaker 1: the fact that Zoom recently moved to the record button,
Speaker 1: which most people will need at some point, given how
Speaker 1: prominent this is with podcasting, to replace it with an
Speaker 1: AI companion button, which I refuse to use and would
Speaker 1: would would deploy violence against anyone who tried to make me.
Speaker 1: How are you doing to day, Cam?
Speaker 2: I am good, also hating our AI soon to be overlords.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, doing my best out here in Philadelphia?
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, Philly? How is how is Philly? As the
Speaker 1: as the fall comes in.
Speaker 2: It's it's a very sunny day. It's also getting chilly.
Speaker 2: I'm into it. It's finally leather weather. I mean, I
Speaker 2: guess it's always leather weather, depending on your level of commitment,
Speaker 2: but I am, yeah, was and it's I tend to
Speaker 2: wait for, you know, the weather to tell me when
Speaker 2: it's time to break out my leather.
Speaker 1: Hell yeah, you know, I feel like all all things
Speaker 1: are fine personally. You should just assume listeners that I
Speaker 1: am always head to toe leather. But anyway, Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: Katy is on. He looks resplendent, yeah, Kim, you are
Speaker 1: a labor journalist. You published a book what was it
Speaker 1: last year, year before last, called fight Like Hell yea yeah,
Speaker 1: about about the history of the labor movement and some
Speaker 1: radical moments people ought to know more about. And you
Speaker 1: and I are talking today about labor, particularly about the
Speaker 1: possibility of a general strike. Now if you the listener
Speaker 1: have somehow missed this discourse. In short, a general strike
Speaker 1: is when instead of one union of workers from one
Speaker 1: industry striking, everybody strikes at least, you know, a very
Speaker 1: significant chunk of the labor force strikes. And this is
Speaker 1: you know, it's the kind of thing people on the
Speaker 1: left have dreamed about four years as like this is
Speaker 1: what could you know, turn things around, reduce income inequality,
Speaker 1: force action on climate change, the military industrial complex, and
Speaker 1: kind of as a result, you've had feels like every
Speaker 1: year for the last few years since people started reading
Speaker 1: about general strikes, which have occurred in a number of
Speaker 1: places and times, there's these like someone will get on
Speaker 1: Twitter and be like, we're all doing a general strike
Speaker 1: in two weeks, you know, everybody get ready, and folks
Speaker 1: will be like, that's not really how you do a
Speaker 1: general strike, and they'll go like, well, if you weren't
Speaker 1: saying it's not, it could happen.
Speaker 2: You know, you've got to believe.
Speaker 1: In it first, which is all of this is wrong.
Speaker 1: But the good news is there's an actual plan that
Speaker 1: is cohesive and potentially achievable for a general strike that's
Speaker 1: been put forward by someone who knows what he's talking about.
Speaker 1: We're going to talk about that, but first, Kim, do
Speaker 1: you want to talk about why trying to get everyone
Speaker 1: on Twitter to launch a gineral strike in eight days
Speaker 1: is a bad idea?
Speaker 2: This is such a pent peeve among well, I guess
Speaker 2: a lot of folks in the labor world who are
Speaker 2: also unfortunately on Twitter and social media that yeah, like
Speaker 2: you said, every so often there'll be a general strike
Speaker 2: hashtag or like a graphic on Twitter or on Instagram,
Speaker 2: and it's like, are you taking part of the general strike?
Speaker 2: Like are you striking on Friday or like tomorrow? Like no, what,
Speaker 2: You're not even in a union? What are you talking about?
Speaker 2: And it's like I love the energy, I love the vibe,
Speaker 2: you know, I love the idea of a general strike.
Speaker 2: I think it would be incredible if we actually pulled
Speaker 2: it off. But the biggest thing in there is the
Speaker 2: if followed by the pulled it off part. And one
Speaker 2: of the biggest misconceptions I think is that a general
Speaker 2: strike is akin to a big protest. Like you can
Speaker 2: absolutely plan a big protest in a few days if
Speaker 2: you really want to. I mean, look at the incredible
Speaker 2: work that Jewish Force for Piece has been doing in
Speaker 2: New York and other places. They're going to be doing
Speaker 2: in Philly this week. I mean, it is possible to
Speaker 2: build on existing relationships and networks to create a big
Speaker 2: fucking deal of a protest. But a general strike is
Speaker 2: a different beast. It is a specific thing. It has
Speaker 2: a definition. A general strike, as you said, is when
Speaker 2: workers across various industries go on strike at the same time,
Speaker 2: and that is not the same as filling the streets
Speaker 2: for a protest. It would be sick if we can
Speaker 2: kind of meld those movements like the radical radical organizers
Speaker 2: who are already in community, already building protests infrastructure, and
Speaker 2: people in union labor world that are kind of beholden
Speaker 2: to contracts and more legal constraints. But it's going to
Speaker 2: take a little bit of time. It's going to take
Speaker 2: some dialogue, maybe even some fruitful discourse to get on
Speaker 2: the same page. Like they're like, there are laws. We
Speaker 2: live in a society, unfortunately, and it's it's not quite
Speaker 2: as simple as just declaring a general strike when you're like,
Speaker 2: for your friends call out sick.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it's also like, I think one thing that
Speaker 1: gets lost is when you're going on strike. For a
Speaker 1: lot of people, that's not just I have to figure
Speaker 1: out what to do with money, and it's certainly not
Speaker 1: you know, while I can just go and be on
Speaker 1: unemployment or something, because you don't really get that when
Speaker 1: you're striking. You've got a lot of people with like families,
Speaker 1: and so the idea that like you get some podcaster
Speaker 1: right being like everybody should just not show up, Well,
Speaker 1: I don't know, man. There's people who got kids. They
Speaker 1: have other responsibilities than being a part of your revolution.
Speaker 1: Which is not to say that I don't think I Like, again,
Speaker 1: we're about to talk about an achievable plan for a
Speaker 1: general strike, but one of the reasons why you can't
Speaker 1: can't pull it off in a couple of days is
Speaker 1: that you have to set you have to have some
Speaker 1: sort of plan for how you're going to take care
Speaker 1: of the people striking, right, like so they don't starve
Speaker 1: and shit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that is one of the biggest things, I would say,
Speaker 2: arguably the biggest thing. But also if you're in a
Speaker 2: union and you go on strike as part of you know,
Speaker 2: broken down contract negotiations are part of the life cycle
Speaker 2: of a union contract. You have legal protections. You can't
Speaker 2: just be fired if you take part in one of
Speaker 2: these kind of impromptu hashtag general strike actions. Your boss
Speaker 2: is just gonna fire you, yeah, and then like you're done.
Speaker 2: You don't have any protections there, Like one of the
Speaker 2: reasons that and I know it's not as much fun.
Speaker 2: It's just going out and saying fuck it and bring
Speaker 2: it all down. Trust me, I would love to see
Speaker 2: that type of shit, but unfortunately, again we live constrained
Speaker 2: by laws and like logic when it comes like the
Speaker 2: reason that you see big labor strikes and big picket
Speaker 2: lines and all this cool stuff that's happening, like there
Speaker 2: is part of a process. Those unions are negotiating contracts,
Speaker 2: these legally binding documents. They're collective bargaining agreements that have
Speaker 2: expiration dates. You know, the UAW didn't just pick you
Speaker 2: didn't just say all right, right, now we're mad, we're
Speaker 2: going to go on strike. Like no, their previous agreements
Speaker 2: had expiration date. They hit the expiration date, so they
Speaker 2: start bargaining again. Bargaining didn't go well, they went on strike.
Speaker 2: That is how it works when you're in a union.
Speaker 2: That's like just part and parcel of the push and
Speaker 2: pool of leverage that workers have against the boss. And
Speaker 2: it's like a century's old system, Like there's laws, there's protections,
Speaker 2: there's a lot that goes into it. And I think
Speaker 2: we're saying before we hopped on the call officially, like
Speaker 2: I think a lot of people haven't had union jobs
Speaker 2: or didn't don't have a deep understanding of unions and
Speaker 2: how they work. So of course they wouldn't necessarily know
Speaker 2: when the expiration dating is for this contract or what
Speaker 2: goes into bargaining union contract. But there's there's a lot
Speaker 2: of moving parts.
Speaker 1: Yes might they might not know that, as we're about
Speaker 1: to talk about, you can't just have a bunch of
Speaker 1: union leaders decide we're all going to go on strike
Speaker 1: at once. Sympathy strikes are very much not legal. Now
Speaker 1: there is a way to get multiple We should just
Speaker 1: talk about like why we're doing this, which is that.
Speaker 1: So there's this fella who so far has seems like
Speaker 1: a pretty pretty head out screwed on straight solid dude,
Speaker 1: Sean Fain, who is Big Sean, Yeah, Big Sean. And
Speaker 1: he's like the he's the he's the head of the
Speaker 1: u a W. Right or he's like the guy negotiating
Speaker 1: for the ua W.
Speaker 2: No, he's the president, Yeah.
Speaker 1: The president, and he is Sean Is. So he's you know,
Speaker 1: the UAW is the big one of the big otto
Speaker 1: like the largest of the auto worker like related unions,
Speaker 1: and they have been in a strike I think primarily
Speaker 1: General Motors.
Speaker 2: It's the big three General Motors, Ford as Stelanis which
Speaker 2: makes Chrysler, and a couple of other brands.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and they they have gone on a very power
Speaker 1: about six weeks or so, very significant strike. You can
Speaker 1: read stuff like Toyota recently like put out a proposal
Speaker 1: for like giving workers raises that's in line with like
Speaker 1: the union of like they are scared and it looks
Speaker 1: like like as I mean this is they haven't inked
Speaker 1: anything yet, but as of us recording this, it looks
Speaker 1: like they've won on a lot, which is great. And
Speaker 1: Sean is is not just a you know, a union man,
Speaker 1: but is very much a t talking blatantly about the
Speaker 1: class war of the rich against everybody else that's occurring
Speaker 1: in this country. And he made some statements about two
Speaker 1: days before we recorded this where he was like, I think,
Speaker 1: you know what, we need to be setting the date,
Speaker 1: the expiration date for our contract in twenty twenty eight,
Speaker 1: and I want to implore all other you know, unions
Speaker 1: that are negotiating and can do this, to set that
Speaker 1: with their next contract expiration date, so that in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty eight we have the option to do a general
Speaker 1: strike in order to redress some of this, to make
Speaker 1: inequalities as a result of this war of the billionaires
Speaker 1: against everybody else. Very much framed it in those kind
Speaker 1: of stark terms, and you know, we're going to talk
Speaker 1: about why. But I think that's a workable plan potentially.
Speaker 2: It really is. It's incredible. Honestly, this is kind of
Speaker 2: I think this is one of the ballsiest things we've
Speaker 2: heard from a mainstream labor leader since well since Sarah Nelson,
Speaker 2: the president of the Flight Attendants Union, kind of soft
Speaker 2: called for a general strike or at least brought up
Speaker 2: the idea of a general strike in twenty nineteen, and
Speaker 2: they're doing that.
Speaker 1: I've forgotten that stopped a government shutdown.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So, like, the general strike is a very powerful tool,
Speaker 2: and we've done it before, you know. I think the
Speaker 2: most recent true general strike we saw this country was
Speaker 2: like nineteen nineteen in Seattle. Yea, so it's been a minute.
Speaker 2: But the genius of this plan is the fact that
Speaker 2: it's illegal. And I mean, of course, you know, laws
Speaker 2: aren't real, but when you're doing this kind of thing
Speaker 2: and operating within these constraints, it is helpful when you're
Speaker 2: not actively breaking the law, because that helps you get
Speaker 2: more shit done. Right, So what Sean is proposing is saying, Okay,
Speaker 2: we're gonna set our contract to expire around this time,
Speaker 2: and we want a whole bunch of other big ingers
Speaker 2: to do the same thing. Now, if all of their
Speaker 2: union contracts happen to expire around the same time, and
Speaker 2: then their negotiations happen to break down and they happen
Speaker 2: to go on strike at the same time, creating an
Speaker 2: actual general strike, the government can't really do shit about it.
Speaker 2: I mean, you mentioned before the sympathy strikes, solidarity strikes.
Speaker 2: They are illegal because of this nineteen forty seven law
Speaker 2: called out the taff Hartley Act. Essentially, that means if
Speaker 2: say you're your warehouse, you're part of the teamsers, you
Speaker 2: go on strike, and then the coffee shop next door
Speaker 2: is like, oh, yeah, we support you, We're going to
Speaker 2: go on strike too. They can't do that, that's breaking
Speaker 2: the law. But in this different hypothetical, if they their
Speaker 2: contract was up at the same time as your contract,
Speaker 2: you both want to strike at the same time, that's legal,
Speaker 2: and it's also very disruptive to that little corridor you're
Speaker 2: working in. And imagine doing that on a national level.
Speaker 2: Imagine if the flight attendants, the teamsters, the UAW, Starbucks
Speaker 2: fucking the air traffic controllers, the longshoreman, like all of
Speaker 2: these incredibly important infrastructure wise jobs happened to go on
Speaker 2: strike at the same time. That would shut down the
Speaker 2: whole fucking country. Yeah, and it would be legal, which
Speaker 2: is so fun. I'd love to see it.
Speaker 1: You know. Obviously, when you are talking about radical social change,
Speaker 1: illegality is always on the table, but it's not the
Speaker 1: smartest place to start from when you're talking about something
Speaker 1: like this where you have the option to get a
Speaker 1: lot done, you know, within within the protection of the law,
Speaker 1: which makes it easier to get more people on board.
Speaker 1: It makes it easier to get critical mass. And if
Speaker 1: at a later date, you know, the state were to
Speaker 1: take a legal action that makes it impossible for you
Speaker 1: to continue legally, well, then you've got that critical mass
Speaker 1: behind you and potentially probably radicalized, you know.
Speaker 2: Right, And you have resources, you have infrastructure, because big
Speaker 2: unions have big striketh funds. Yes, this is the thing
Speaker 2: that UAW has hundreds of millions of dollars in the
Speaker 2: bank that they're saving for just this purpose when their
Speaker 2: workers go on striketh, so they can continue to pay
Speaker 2: them and cover their health insurance.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's why you pay dues, right, Like.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's literally like strike insurance. And a lot of
Speaker 2: the big unions have this set up. They have comms teams,
Speaker 2: they have legal teams, they have experience like I known
Speaker 2: as radicals, Like we tend to be perhaps a little
Speaker 2: allergic to a lot of those things, especially if they're
Speaker 2: not particularly in line with our specific vision of the few,
Speaker 2: but they're really helpful to have, you know, Like, doing
Speaker 2: crimes is fun and I support it pretty much at
Speaker 2: all times. But getting shit done is way more fun
Speaker 2: and way more satisfying.
Speaker 1: You know, it's nice to win.
Speaker 2: It's nice to win.
Speaker 1: Unions are kind of on a role right now, right there.
Speaker 1: We've all watched some really substantial gains for working people
Speaker 1: just in the last six months, and it's worth paying
Speaker 1: attention to why. And part of it is that, like,
Speaker 1: you're not relying upon people risking everything, many of whom
Speaker 1: can't write. You can't very easily ethically defend if you
Speaker 1: are like a single parent who is responsible for multiple children.
Speaker 1: You can't defend going out and busting a bunch of
Speaker 1: windows and then getting locked up super easy, because you
Speaker 1: do you have responsibilities. You've got people to care for, you.
Speaker 2: Know, right you have elders at home, if you're or
Speaker 2: if you're a disabled person, if you're meding a compromise,
Speaker 2: you you can't go out there and get involved in
Speaker 2: that type of situation.
Speaker 1: You can't risk being around that many people. Maybe, but
Speaker 1: you can strike. Yeah, yeah, this is that.
Speaker 2: You can respect a picket line, You can help support,
Speaker 2: you can help offer some of the resources we need
Speaker 2: for folks to get out there, like utilizing this existing infrastructure,
Speaker 2: in these existing resources. It just opens up the possibility
Speaker 2: for more people to get involved in a way that's
Speaker 2: less harmful to them, to the people like we want
Speaker 2: to harm the bosses, and you know the status quote,
Speaker 2: we don't want to hurt our people.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So I think there's a lot of wisdom in this. Now.
Speaker 1: The question is when we say that this is workable,
Speaker 1: does that mean that like it's a guarantee or it
Speaker 1: would be easy? Of course not. No, like you're talking
Speaker 1: you're still talking about a struggle against people who have
Speaker 1: I don't know the majority of the resources the human
Speaker 1: race has ever marshalled in like a financial form right
Speaker 1: at their beck in call. So that's you know, this
Speaker 1: is still a frightening and potentially pretty dangerous thing, but
Speaker 1: it is a workable plan that has infrastructure behind it,
Speaker 1: and that crucially, you know, the downside is that the
Speaker 1: bosses know that people are talking about this and they
Speaker 1: have time to prepare. But the nice side is that like,
Speaker 1: well so do we, and that's generally positive.
Speaker 2: This is the thing I've seen again on social media
Speaker 2: people saying like, oh, we have to wait five years,
Speaker 2: we have to wait four and a half years. That's ridiculous.
Speaker 2: Why don't we just do it now. You can do
Speaker 2: a lot of planning and a lot of building in
Speaker 2: four and a half years. You need that time to
Speaker 2: actually pull something off of this magnitude. And also, I
Speaker 2: mean a lot of unions that perhaps might be interested
Speaker 2: in this, like they have contracts of their own that
Speaker 2: we need. They need to sort of work out the
Speaker 2: timing for you know, this plan only works if we
Speaker 2: can actually maneuver away for a lot of these big
Speaker 2: contracts that big powerful unions to expire at the same time,
Speaker 2: if someone's contract, if the team SERTs, next contract expires
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty seven, like okay, I think they're not
Speaker 2: gonna be able to play ball, and you really want
Speaker 2: the teamsters if you want to play this type of game.
Speaker 2: And then another hurdle that I think it's it's unfortunate
Speaker 2: is that you know Sean Fame, Big Sean A what
Speaker 2: a man. He's very out there and very outspoken about
Speaker 2: opposing capitalism, about this being class war. He's on the level,
Speaker 2: but he is a rarity among major labor union leaders.
Speaker 2: Like there are some leaders that would be down to clown,
Speaker 2: you know, like Sarah Nelson's out here, like Mark Diamondstein
Speaker 2: with the postal workers. Like there are some very cool,
Speaker 2: very progressive, if not radical union leaders out there, but
Speaker 2: there's also a lot of conservative or just of wishy
Speaker 2: washy Democrats style union leaders too that would not want
Speaker 2: to have any part of this, and a big part
Speaker 2: of convincing them to get on the level and become
Speaker 2: involved in this kind of effort that's going to come
Speaker 2: down to what the rank and file have to say.
Speaker 2: That's going to come that that pressure is going to
Speaker 2: have to come up through the ranks. I mean, the
Speaker 2: reason we have Sean Fain and we have Sean ol
Speaker 2: brien and the Teamsters, and we have this kind of
Speaker 2: newer wave of more progressive mills that union leadership is
Speaker 2: because of what the rank and file have done, Like
Speaker 2: Teamster's for Democratic Union organized for years to get that
Speaker 2: reform slaid in, to get Sean O'Brien in there to
Speaker 2: take on ups. Sean Fayne is the first ever democratically
Speaker 2: elected union leader in uaw's history because of a lot
Speaker 2: of organizing around reform that came from the rank and
Speaker 2: file that took years to get him there. We would
Speaker 2: not have Big Sean if people had not invested years
Speaker 2: of their life towards organizing for this goal. And so
Speaker 2: now we have this four to five year span where
Speaker 2: we can push our own union leaders in that right
Speaker 2: direction to plant those seeds, to try and really build
Speaker 2: something that they can't refuse to get on board with.
Speaker 2: But that's going to take time too. I think people
Speaker 2: need to really recognize that, like, unions are not unfortunately
Speaker 2: they're all like these magical progressive silver bullets, Like there
Speaker 2: are no previ shitty people in union leadership across the country,
Speaker 2: and we got to do something about if we really
Speaker 2: want to get people on board.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's there's you know, upsides and downsides when we
Speaker 1: compare it to like sort of how radicals like to
Speaker 1: particularly the anarchist radical organizing, where you know, the downside
Speaker 1: is you do these are organizations that are hierarchical. They
Speaker 1: can be stratified. It can make it very difficult to
Speaker 1: push for change. It can make them Just as our
Speaker 1: democracy is not super responsive to what the majority people want,
Speaker 1: union leadership in a number of cases is not responsive
Speaker 1: to what people want. They've also had, especially if you
Speaker 1: go back to like you know, the mid century, last
Speaker 1: century not short history of corruption, right, that's been a
Speaker 1: problem you needs have dealt with in the past. Two
Speaker 1: These are issues you don't have as much with autonomously
Speaker 1: organized you know, small groups of activists on the street.
Speaker 1: The thing that makes them a lot stronger in many
Speaker 1: ways is the fact that they have more resources to marshall.
Speaker 1: They have ways of addressing grievances other than like kind
Speaker 1: of just personal conflicts that are built into the system,
Speaker 1: and ways of kind of pushing for change that if
Speaker 1: you get enough people on board with you can make
Speaker 1: And then you have the weight of this organization with
Speaker 1: a degree of power and social cachet behind it, And
Speaker 1: so I think the ability it's much harder to steer
Speaker 1: these things, but when you get them pointed in the
Speaker 1: right direction, they have more daying power than kind of
Speaker 1: small autonomous groups usually do. And I think there's a
Speaker 1: lot of potential power in that, which is why I
Speaker 1: think this is a workable plan.
Speaker 2: And this is why more anarchists and socialist and communists,
Speaker 2: everybody who wants to really get out there and cause
Speaker 2: some good trouble will say, like, you need to get
Speaker 2: involved in your union, You need to organize your workplace.
Speaker 2: If your job is not such that you can join
Speaker 2: a traditional union. You need to get involved in your
Speaker 2: local labor community anyway and try and connect with people
Speaker 2: who are part of those unions and try and kind
Speaker 2: of get them to see the light. You need to
Speaker 2: talk to people not online in person. You got to
Speaker 2: go talk to people who are different from me, who
Speaker 2: might have different politics, and try and get them to
Speaker 2: see why this is something that we could do that
Speaker 2: could help them, that could help everyone. This is something
Speaker 2: I emphasize a lot because I'm like, I'm an anarchist too,
Speaker 2: even though i know it's not like a big old
Speaker 2: Debbie downer right now talking about all this legal stuff.
Speaker 2: But I'm also practical and I've also spent a lot
Speaker 2: of time talking to union members who see the world
Speaker 2: a lot differently from me. Like I think a lot
Speaker 2: of my most recent impactful work is, you know, stuff
Speaker 2: I've been doing in the Deep South and an Appalachia,
Speaker 2: and no one there is impressed with my guillotine tattoos,
Speaker 2: but they do see the need to deal with this
Speaker 2: situation where all the rich people have all the stuff
Speaker 2: and they're getting screwed. That is a good starting point
Speaker 2: for a lot. Yeah, and it's yeah, it's easy to
Speaker 2: say join a union, Like, not everyone can do that,
Speaker 2: but everybody can find a way to talk to somebody
Speaker 2: who's connected to a union, who's part of a labor movement,
Speaker 2: part of a labor organization, Like we need everyone to
Speaker 2: get involved however they can.
Speaker 1: I want to note it's significant potential for the radicals
Speaker 1: are kind of radicals to be useful within this in
Speaker 1: a direct way. From just a recent example. Right in Portland,
Speaker 1: the teachers are going on strike. I believe that has
Speaker 1: happened today, and they had a big march not too
Speaker 1: long ago that some of my friends were at because
Speaker 1: they're teachers. And one of the things that happened on
Speaker 1: that march it was the same day as a Palestinian
Speaker 1: solidarity march. And at both of these marches that had
Speaker 1: large thousands of people, the corkers and the security were
Speaker 1: all kind of the same folks, and they were all
Speaker 1: folks that were like came out of the Portland radical scene.
Speaker 1: We're there in the twenty twenty protests a huge because corking,
Speaker 1: if you're not aware, is like going ahead of into
Speaker 1: the sides of a protest, like close traffic briefly as
Speaker 1: people walk by, so folks don't get hit by cars.
Speaker 1: It's a safety thing, right, and so people were kind
Speaker 1: of like the people who were doing that are radicals.
Speaker 1: Our members of generally like these autonomously organized groups who
Speaker 1: are very useful in helping these because you know, people
Speaker 1: have experienced, you know, unions, there may be experience striking,
Speaker 1: but a lot of unions haven't struck in a long time, right,
Speaker 1: because it doesn't happen all that often. And even if
Speaker 1: they have, most of these guys, especially these older guys
Speaker 1: and ladies and other folks, these these older union members
Speaker 1: probably have not participated in a large march in the
Speaker 1: modern era of protests where there's dangers like getting rammed
Speaker 1: by cars and stuff. And so the people who have
Speaker 1: these the straight medics and stuff, who have that kind
Speaker 1: of experience hugely useful. Not the only thing. People who
Speaker 1: are striking often need stuff handwarmers or are always appreciated
Speaker 1: water warm food, things that like keep people's morale up,
Speaker 1: organizing like sympathy demonstrations like alongside strikers, and whatnot to
Speaker 1: help them keep their numbers up. All of that stuff
Speaker 1: can be really useful ways for these autonomously organized, kind
Speaker 1: of smaller groups of radicals to participate in a meaningful
Speaker 1: way in something like this. That's not the only degree
Speaker 1: to which that's possible, but like, those are just the
Speaker 1: examples that come to mind.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, we've talked a lot about legality, and illegality is
Speaker 2: also something that is very much a part of labor
Speaker 2: history and it's present, and I would say it's future
Speaker 2: folks who are perhaps more comfortable with getting into perhaps
Speaker 2: more confrontational moments with cops who are trying to mess
Speaker 2: with the picket line, or scabs who are trying to
Speaker 2: be violent towards striking workers, or even just like you said,
Speaker 2: like surveillance and safety and medic work like that is
Speaker 2: all that is all important too. I mean not every
Speaker 2: I've been on some pretty wild picket lines, and not
Speaker 2: everyone there is really that concerned with what the law
Speaker 2: has to say about certain things. Once things get a
Speaker 2: little heated, I mean there are points, I mean and
Speaker 2: things I've covered and we've seen this continue to happen
Speaker 2: where people try and drive into the picket line and
Speaker 2: or trying to attack people in the picket line. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that is I mean, that deserves a variety of responses,
Speaker 2: I think. And also something to note is that when
Speaker 2: when these are strikes called by union leadership, they follow
Speaker 2: They tend to follow a set of rules because predominantly,
Speaker 2: like like generally speaking, union leadership doesn't want their members
Speaker 2: to go to jail. They don't want them to get
Speaker 2: in any kind of situations like that. So they'll say,
Speaker 2: you know, okay, well you stay on the sidewalk, or
Speaker 2: oh the cops said to move, so we move, or
Speaker 2: this has to be non violent, or you know, there's
Speaker 2: there's kind of a set of circumstances there that union
Speaker 2: members are required to follow. But if you're there to
Speaker 2: support and you're not a member of that union, as
Speaker 2: long as you have the consent and support the people
Speaker 2: there you're you're there trying to stick up for, then
Speaker 2: you have a lot more leeway than someone that has,
Speaker 2: you know, a union leader to answer to. Like, there's
Speaker 2: a lot of creative ways you can get involved. And
Speaker 2: one thing that I think hasn't really been discussed as
Speaker 2: much in like the online discourse or whatever, but I
Speaker 2: think it's important to think about even if you're not
Speaker 2: a person who is able to participate in that on
Speaker 2: the street type of way, if there's a huge strike
Speaker 2: going on in your city and you're not part of
Speaker 2: a union, but you want to get involved. Sickouts have
Speaker 2: a very long, illustrious history in a labor movement. If
Speaker 2: you happen to get sick that day, what's your boss
Speaker 2: going to do? You know, assuming you have those kind
Speaker 2: of protections. If you don't, then you have to make
Speaker 2: your own you know, caveat, caveat, caveat. But if you're
Speaker 2: in a position where you can take off work that
Speaker 2: day or for a couple of days, and it just
Speaker 2: happens to coincide with that massive strike that's shut down
Speaker 2: everything else, And if you convince all your coworkers that
Speaker 2: you're a shocked to do the same thing, you're not
Speaker 2: breaking the law. You're protected, but you're also part of
Speaker 2: the shutdown effort. Like sickouts. One of the reasons that
Speaker 2: people were so spoofed around twenty nineteen when the government
Speaker 2: shutdown was looming, before Sarah Nelson really brought out the
Speaker 2: big Gs wars that we're seeing sickouts at airports and
Speaker 2: flights are being canceled in New York and I think
Speaker 2: la and that was starting to spook the people in
Speaker 2: charge because if enough people don't show up for work
Speaker 2: at the airport. Nothing's going to happen at that airport. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And there are a lot of different workplaces where all
Speaker 2: of their workers not showing up could be a potential problem.
Speaker 2: So I just encourage people to think creatively about the
Speaker 2: ways they can get involved, even if they can't necessarily
Speaker 2: like get involved on the formal union side. Like, there's
Speaker 2: so much we can do from each according to his
Speaker 2: ability to each, courting to his means. You know that,
Speaker 2: I'll chestnut.
Speaker 1: I love. It's so important to bring up airline workers
Speaker 1: because one of the things they the things that they
Speaker 1: have that other people don't, is they can't be replaced
Speaker 1: in the same way. Right you can if all you, Maurice,
Speaker 1: is go on strike, you can potentially bring in whoever
Speaker 1: and they will not be nearly as good at it, right,
Speaker 1: the company will not make nearly as much money. But
Speaker 1: legally there's nothing stack them from doing that. If you
Speaker 1: have a bunch of ground workers call in, right, or
Speaker 1: a bunch of stewardesses, you have to replace them with
Speaker 1: people who are qualified groundworkers. Like there's a whole process,
Speaker 1: there's like a serial Like there's a lot that they
Speaker 1: have to know how to do, a lot of compliance
Speaker 1: that has to be done because thousands and thousands of
Speaker 1: lives are at stake, right, same thing with medical workers.
Speaker 1: Right when when you've got a job where like they
Speaker 1: can't if like a bunch of nurses go on strike,
Speaker 1: well you have to replace them with nurses, right, And
Speaker 1: there's a very limited supply, so there's a lot of
Speaker 1: leverage that these organizations have.
Speaker 2: The airline industry is incredibly densely unionized too, so if
Speaker 2: all of the union flight antendants aren't available, then no
Speaker 2: one's going to be available. Yeah, it's one of the
Speaker 2: plus sizes of having a very densely organized industry, which
Speaker 2: is why we need to keep organizing too in these
Speaker 2: next four and a half years.
Speaker 1: Well, Kim, I think that's most of what I had
Speaker 1: to say. Do you have anything else you wanted to
Speaker 1: get into on this topic before we roll out?
Speaker 2: Hmmm, I think we've covered most things. I do want
Speaker 2: to emphasize, Like I don't want to be a wet
Speaker 2: blanket on people who are excited. I'm not so excited
Speaker 2: and so heartened to see the amount of interest and
Speaker 2: energy we're seeing around this general strike idea, because like
Speaker 2: five years ago that would have I mean that would
Speaker 2: not have escaped containment, right, we would have just been
Speaker 2: talking amongst ourselves about it. But to have the head
Speaker 2: of a union who has four hundred thousand members, who
Speaker 2: just whipped the shit out of the Big three automakers,
Speaker 2: who's getting all these headlines to talk about a general
Speaker 2: strike in a meaningful way like, yes, maybe he's not
Speaker 2: out here throwing Molotov cocktails the way we perhaps would
Speaker 2: want to see someone doing that, But it still a
Speaker 2: huge deal. And even if you know, the mainstream organized
Speaker 2: labor movement isn't as radical as a lot of us
Speaker 2: within it would like to see it, we have a
Speaker 2: lot of time now to try and pull things in direction.
Speaker 2: I feel like a damn has burst in a way.
Speaker 2: And if anything, this is a moment of opportunity and
Speaker 2: of working together and trying to see different perspectives in
Speaker 2: a way that gets us all closer to the point
Speaker 2: we really need to be. Absolutely we take all this
Speaker 2: shit down, all right?
Speaker 1: I am in agreement, Kim. People should look up your
Speaker 1: book Fight like, hell.
Speaker 2: Yeah, at the untold history of American labor?
Speaker 1: Absolutely, and what else should they look up? R e U.
Speaker 2: I'm still unfortunately on Twitter, so I'm there, grim Kim.
Speaker 2: I know, I'm a freelancer. I read a lot for
Speaker 2: in these times. I have a column at teen Vogue,
Speaker 2: I write for a fast company, and I'm kind of
Speaker 2: all over the place so and I do a lot
Speaker 2: of book talks and stuff. So I'm I'm around. If
Speaker 2: you want to talk to your friendly neighborhood anarchist labor reporter,
Speaker 2: just to google me. But don't believe everything you read,
Speaker 2: because you know.
Speaker 1: She didn't kill that guy. He was dead when she
Speaker 1: got there. Anyway, Kim, thank you so much.
Speaker 2: Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, thanks for being here, for showing up, and
Speaker 1: thank you all for listening until next time. Uh, I
Speaker 1: don't know. Yeah, yeah, that's that's a good that's a
Speaker 1: good one. It could happen here as a production of
Speaker 1: cool Zone Media.
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Speaker 1: You can find sources for It could Happen Here, updated
Speaker 1: monthly at cool zonemedia dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening,