WEBVTT - The Union Makes Us Strong, Part 1 0:00:10.200 --> 0:00:13.480 Welcome to It could Happen Here a podcast about things 0:00:13.520 --> 0:00:16.360 falling apart and occasionally also about what you can do 0:00:16.400 --> 0:00:19.560 about it. And today we're doing We're We're going, We're 0:00:19.560 --> 0:00:21.680 we're going completely full into it what you can do 0:00:21.720 --> 0:00:26.239 about an episode and specifically we're gonna be talking about unions, 0:00:26.280 --> 0:00:29.720 union organizing, the basics of what they are and also 0:00:29.760 --> 0:00:31.600 some of the history of it and to to talk 0:00:31.640 --> 0:00:35.360 with us about this. I have brought. I brought my 0:00:35.400 --> 0:00:38.600 good friend John Horonomus, who is a nurse steward with 0:00:38.680 --> 0:00:41.479 National Nurses United in Chicago. Hi, John, how are you? 0:00:41.479 --> 0:00:44.600 How are you doing? I'm doing good. Yesterday was my 0:00:44.640 --> 0:00:46.960 first full day back at work after being out on 0:00:47.040 --> 0:00:50.760 light duty from having covid UH for this last year. 0:00:51.479 --> 0:00:55.200 And so I got home yesterday and was pretty tired 0:00:55.240 --> 0:00:59.080 because I haven't walked that much in a day. It's fine, 0:00:59.200 --> 0:01:01.080 but I mean it was a good day. I got 0:01:01.120 --> 0:01:03.880 lots of plugs from my coworkers. I didn't I didn't 0:01:03.880 --> 0:01:08.080 forget anyone's name, which I was terrified of um, and 0:01:08.600 --> 0:01:11.760 didn't suck anything up um. And then when I got 0:01:12.080 --> 0:01:15.000 when I got home, I hopped on after I got 0:01:15.080 --> 0:01:17.880 my kids from school, I hopped on a union organizing 0:01:17.920 --> 0:01:22.360 call with twenty nurses from a hospital in the South. 0:01:22.840 --> 0:01:26.319 We're very excited about so um I was it was 0:01:26.520 --> 0:01:32.160 it was a big day that that rules. Oh yeah, yeah, 0:01:32.160 --> 0:01:36.040 I guess that should also do a do a very 0:01:36.160 --> 0:01:39.840 very brief long COVID check in, because this is an 0:01:39.840 --> 0:01:41.480 everything that I think people are talking about that is 0:01:41.520 --> 0:01:46.560 also like a huge labor issue, which is that Yeah, 0:01:46.680 --> 0:01:51.080 like long COVID fucking sucks and like I like I know, 0:01:51.160 --> 0:01:53.280 like like like one of my cousins had it, and 0:01:54.040 --> 0:01:56.040 you know, they they've been in bad shape for a 0:01:56.040 --> 0:01:58.160 long time, like they still can't taste properly, and like 0:01:58.200 --> 0:02:01.560 they I think you got from from what I remember, 0:02:02.520 --> 0:02:06.320 like pretty bad, like in terms of yeah, sorry if 0:02:06.360 --> 0:02:09.040 you don't, we don't want to, but oh I don't care. 0:02:09.240 --> 0:02:11.639 I mean I think people should like know that this 0:02:11.720 --> 0:02:15.560 is still going on, like the pandemic is still happening. Um, 0:02:15.639 --> 0:02:18.520 people are still getting sick and some are still dying, 0:02:18.760 --> 0:02:22.160 which really sucks. And the long COVID thing is real. 0:02:22.639 --> 0:02:28.160 Um they I didn't get sick in the sense of 0:02:28.200 --> 0:02:30.120 showing up having to be in like a hospital or 0:02:30.160 --> 0:02:32.280 I see you or anything like that. Mine book. I 0:02:32.320 --> 0:02:37.880 got sick, and um, the recovery, like the the year 0:02:38.040 --> 0:02:40.320 or the month or so after I got sick was 0:02:40.480 --> 0:02:44.359 when things actually got bad because something happened with my 0:02:45.280 --> 0:02:49.000 um my nerves and my neuro I had a neuromuscular 0:02:50.040 --> 0:02:54.480 variant of like the long COVID symptoms, and that led 0:02:54.560 --> 0:02:57.680 me to having all its kinds of issues with basically 0:02:57.720 --> 0:03:00.440 just being exhausted from basic things. Anything more than just 0:03:00.440 --> 0:03:02.400 getting up and walking around. I would have to like 0:03:02.480 --> 0:03:06.040 lay in bed afterwards. And it would add multiple episodes 0:03:06.040 --> 0:03:09.399 of the past year where I would cross some invisible 0:03:09.440 --> 0:03:11.960 line in terms of like endurance and then be stuck 0:03:12.000 --> 0:03:14.560 in bed for a week. And so it's been a 0:03:14.600 --> 0:03:17.919 long thing. But I've been slowly getting better, And people 0:03:17.960 --> 0:03:21.080 who fall into that neuromuscular thing do slowly get better. 0:03:21.160 --> 0:03:25.840 I think that's the upshot. People with heart problems, those 0:03:25.880 --> 0:03:30.359 tend to be permanent and aren't getting better, which sucks, um, 0:03:30.560 --> 0:03:34.640 But yeah, I mean it's just like I think that 0:03:34.720 --> 0:03:37.920 a lot of people. It's a very weird, surreal thing 0:03:37.960 --> 0:03:41.800 to watch what is effectively like a like a a 0:03:43.000 --> 0:03:47.800 global public health catastrophe get politicized the way it has 0:03:47.880 --> 0:03:51.320 and treated the way it has been by everybody involved. 0:03:51.520 --> 0:03:55.600 So Um, anyway, I just I'm doing better with that, 0:03:55.760 --> 0:03:58.960 and it's shaped me over the last year, and it's 0:03:58.960 --> 0:04:04.360 shaped union organizing. And UM, I'm glad that I would 0:04:04.360 --> 0:04:06.160 say this to people who are thinking about unions. I'm 0:04:06.160 --> 0:04:09.520 glad that I had the union kind of backing me up, um, 0:04:09.520 --> 0:04:10.880 even when I had to pull them a little bit 0:04:10.880 --> 0:04:13.400 in the direct the right direction. Uh, it's much better 0:04:13.440 --> 0:04:17.040 to have that kind of collective power behind you when 0:04:17.040 --> 0:04:21.360 you're dealing with those kind of problems. So that's actually 0:04:21.400 --> 0:04:26.120 a good way into looking at just sort of in 0:04:26.200 --> 0:04:30.520 general what a union is, because I think there's there's 0:04:30.279 --> 0:04:33.640 there's two things here. There is what a union is 0:04:33.880 --> 0:04:38.080 legally and what a union actually is in terms of 0:04:38.120 --> 0:04:40.080 just the people in it and the sort of power 0:04:40.120 --> 0:04:43.080 behind it. And so I was wondering if you could, well, one, 0:04:43.120 --> 0:04:46.560 I mean, just on an incredibly basic level, explain what 0:04:46.760 --> 0:04:50.120 a union is like legally, like what is legally defined 0:04:50.120 --> 0:04:52.320 as doing, because I feel like that's also something that 0:04:52.480 --> 0:04:55.920 is not as well understood as it should be. Yeah, 0:04:56.080 --> 0:04:59.719 for sure. So in the United States, there's a series 0:04:59.760 --> 0:05:03.039 of is it kind of regulate um, you know, the 0:05:03.120 --> 0:05:09.960 kind of collective UM bargaining UM and collective organization of 0:05:10.000 --> 0:05:15.080 workers at work UM. An important thing to understand is 0:05:15.160 --> 0:05:21.920 that UM, those laws are mostly designed to constrain workers 0:05:22.120 --> 0:05:29.040 power to affect their their you know, working conditions. UM. 0:05:29.120 --> 0:05:32.279 And so when you look at what a union legally 0:05:32.400 --> 0:05:38.719 is UM, unions are, for the most part, UM, they're 0:05:40.960 --> 0:05:44.240 legal organizations that kind of like operate on a dues basis. 0:05:44.320 --> 0:05:46.920 So if you're in a union, you're paying dues out 0:05:46.960 --> 0:05:51.200 of your paycheck. UM. If you work at a unionized workplace, 0:05:51.360 --> 0:05:55.560 those dudes will get subtracted out regardless of your membership 0:05:55.600 --> 0:05:59.039 or activity within the union. UM. One thing that people 0:05:59.040 --> 0:06:02.920 don't understand is that you can if you don't want 0:06:03.360 --> 0:06:08.040 your dues to go to anything besides supporting organizing your 0:06:08.080 --> 0:06:13.919 particular workplace, you can request unions are legally required to 0:06:14.640 --> 0:06:18.240 offer you that as an option UM. And then those 0:06:18.320 --> 0:06:21.039 dudes get taken out of your paycheck and they get 0:06:21.120 --> 0:06:26.479 used to do things like rent a union hall, UM, 0:06:26.640 --> 0:06:32.200 pay staffers to help you with your organizing. UM. They 0:06:32.240 --> 0:06:37.760 get taken to do lobbying, various types of political activity. 0:06:37.880 --> 0:06:42.239 And so for a lot of people, unions will feel 0:06:42.279 --> 0:06:45.760 like a professional association that lobbies on their behalf rather 0:06:45.800 --> 0:06:51.159 than a collective expression of the will of workers in 0:06:51.160 --> 0:06:56.760 a particular workplace. But UM, or it'll feel like patronage 0:06:56.800 --> 0:07:01.760 machine for you know, Democratic party, that sort of stuff. UM. 0:07:01.800 --> 0:07:06.039 But that being said, UM, unions all have by laws, 0:07:06.040 --> 0:07:10.200 they all have mechanisms by which there you know, theoretically 0:07:10.200 --> 0:07:17.080 democratically accountable to the membership UM. And there are oftentimes 0:07:17.520 --> 0:07:23.840 UM campaigns by workers to change how unions operate and UM. 0:07:23.880 --> 0:07:26.160 And then also you know, when you're setting up a union, 0:07:26.200 --> 0:07:27.600 if you're in a new if you're in a place 0:07:27.600 --> 0:07:29.640 that doesn't have a union and you're looking to get 0:07:29.640 --> 0:07:34.480 a union because you're fed up with not having any 0:07:34.560 --> 0:07:37.280 kind of power over your workplace, or you feel like 0:07:37.280 --> 0:07:40.880 people are getting discriminity against or bullied, UM, you feel 0:07:40.880 --> 0:07:43.880 like you haven't gotten a raise, UM, those sorts of things. 0:07:44.520 --> 0:07:47.000 You can pick the union that you decide if you 0:07:47.040 --> 0:07:49.840 want to get up a collective bargaining agreement, which is 0:07:49.840 --> 0:07:53.680 a legal contract kind of like dictating how your workplace 0:07:53.720 --> 0:07:57.480 operates in a uniform way. You can pick the union 0:07:57.600 --> 0:08:00.120 that you want to organize with in their union that 0:08:00.160 --> 0:08:02.600 are better to organize with, that are more democratic and 0:08:02.600 --> 0:08:07.120 more collectively accountable. There are unions that are more organized 0:08:07.200 --> 0:08:10.480 or more focused on actually building the union power and 0:08:10.720 --> 0:08:14.960 organizing new workplaces. And then there are unions that are 0:08:15.000 --> 0:08:18.600 kind of like there, you know, and I'm gonna say 0:08:18.640 --> 0:08:21.000 that kind of blur. In the US, there's like a 0:08:21.000 --> 0:08:24.920 blurry line between rank and file unions and business unions 0:08:24.960 --> 0:08:27.480 because even rank and file unions are kind of constrained 0:08:27.480 --> 0:08:32.480 by the same pressures that business unions operate under. And 0:08:32.520 --> 0:08:36.760 I'll explain the difference. I'll sell any difference in a second, 0:08:36.760 --> 0:08:38.720 but I just want to say that, like when you're 0:08:39.040 --> 0:08:42.160 when you're getting a new union, it's really important for 0:08:42.160 --> 0:08:45.240 you to critically look at what your options are and 0:08:45.320 --> 0:08:48.640 you're set and who you're organizing with, because unions have 0:08:48.800 --> 0:08:53.840 different cultures and different amounts of um, different kinds of politics, 0:08:54.120 --> 0:08:57.040 and you should be aware of that before you and 0:08:57.080 --> 0:09:00.960 your coworkers decide to commit to work with one union 0:09:00.960 --> 0:09:04.760 while you're getting an or a union organized um. And 0:09:04.760 --> 0:09:06.679 then I can explain that next part if you want 0:09:06.720 --> 0:09:12.800 me to. All right, so yeah, so, and you know, 0:09:12.840 --> 0:09:17.120 if you get deep into union history and deep into 0:09:17.200 --> 0:09:21.080 organizing and figuring out like what unions are and what 0:09:21.120 --> 0:09:23.040 they do and how they've worked kind of in the past. 0:09:23.960 --> 0:09:27.800 You'll find that there's different types of unions. So American 0:09:27.880 --> 0:09:33.400 unions started as like kind of like craft guilds, where 0:09:33.440 --> 0:09:35.840 basically you would have a factory that might have like 0:09:36.240 --> 0:09:42.320 twenty different unions of each individual group of people UM 0:09:42.400 --> 0:09:45.120 in each individual skill set would be underneath the union, 0:09:45.160 --> 0:09:46.480 and it was used as a way to kind of 0:09:46.520 --> 0:09:50.880 control UM who was able to do the work and 0:09:50.960 --> 0:09:53.680 who was getting hired in to do the work. And 0:09:54.679 --> 0:09:56.480 a lot of times that would end up in the 0:09:56.559 --> 0:10:03.040 United States UM being segregated UM and there would be 0:10:03.400 --> 0:10:07.120 these called union scabbing where you would go in and 0:10:07.160 --> 0:10:11.600 do work against people who are striking because your union 0:10:11.679 --> 0:10:14.040 was fine and you were cool with your boss and 0:10:14.080 --> 0:10:16.360 these other people whatever their problem is, you're just going 0:10:16.400 --> 0:10:18.640 to keep doing. The boss will offer you more money 0:10:18.640 --> 0:10:21.520 and you'll do the work right. So, and a lot 0:10:21.520 --> 0:10:24.400 of that has kind of carried into we called trade 0:10:24.480 --> 0:10:28.720 unions in the US a specific and trade unionism is 0:10:28.960 --> 0:10:37.319 particularly UM prominent in UH in construction. So you'll have 0:10:37.400 --> 0:10:40.679 carpenters and you'll have you know, Mason's, and you'll have 0:10:40.960 --> 0:10:44.280 you know, pipe fitters and iron workers and all these 0:10:44.360 --> 0:10:46.440 different guys and they all kind of come together and 0:10:46.440 --> 0:10:49.320 work as a crew for like a construction company, and 0:10:49.360 --> 0:10:54.560 oftentimes their union operates more like a contractor than like 0:10:54.640 --> 0:10:59.320 a collective like expression of the power of those workers. 0:11:00.360 --> 0:11:03.640 So um, then there are more there are unions that 0:11:03.679 --> 0:11:07.720 are would be considered like industrial unions, So industrial unions. 0:11:08.320 --> 0:11:12.319 Industrial unionism was invented by a union a hundred years 0:11:12.360 --> 0:11:16.000 ago called the Industrial Workers of the World, and they 0:11:16.040 --> 0:11:18.880 were like, what if we got took all of the 0:11:18.920 --> 0:11:23.640 workers in an industry and got them into one big union, right, 0:11:24.160 --> 0:11:26.840 and then what if all those workers in those different 0:11:27.040 --> 0:11:30.920 industries were talking to each other and building their their power. 0:11:30.960 --> 0:11:33.680 And the goal would be that you would become so 0:11:33.760 --> 0:11:37.640 powerful that you could basically take over industries as workers 0:11:38.679 --> 0:11:41.120 and run them on a democratic basis so that you 0:11:41.160 --> 0:11:46.400 wouldn't have you kind of liquidate capital and want to 0:11:46.400 --> 0:11:48.880 I want to say that this briefly awesome, Like yeah, 0:11:48.920 --> 0:11:52.440 so the bosses did not like this. I mean the MW, 0:11:52.480 --> 0:11:55.439 Like the MW was so feared that like like there's 0:11:55.440 --> 0:11:57.760 only the Everett massacre where it's like it got to 0:11:57.760 --> 0:12:00.040 a point in the early en hundreds, where just a 0:12:00.040 --> 0:12:02.680 group of IWW people showing up to a place was 0:12:02.800 --> 0:12:06.040 enough to get like the the the the entire like 0:12:06.160 --> 0:12:09.080 the entire city police force and like rounding up literally 0:12:09.120 --> 0:12:11.000 every right winger they could do and deputizing them and 0:12:11.040 --> 0:12:14.080 then just opening fire like into the crowd because like 0:12:14.200 --> 0:12:16.920 the IWW had showed up on a boat like this 0:12:17.000 --> 0:12:20.280 was these people were tired, like people were terrified of them. 0:12:20.320 --> 0:12:21.800 And I think that the other thing I think is 0:12:21.840 --> 0:12:26.240 really interesting about the early AWWS history is that is 0:12:26.280 --> 0:12:27.840 the so you know, part of the response to them 0:12:27.880 --> 0:12:29.840 is like they are just massive, and this is what 0:12:29.880 --> 0:12:31.600 the first red scare was, basically it was an anti 0:12:31.640 --> 0:12:35.680 IWW thing. And also you know, they shot people, they 0:12:35.760 --> 0:12:40.120 arrested people, they like they deported people. And but they 0:12:40.200 --> 0:12:42.120 also you know a lot of the things that I 0:12:42.160 --> 0:12:44.800 think we we have this tendency to look at as 0:12:44.800 --> 0:12:47.920 like a socialist reform where for example, like putting workers 0:12:47.920 --> 0:12:51.040 on corporate boards, right, or like like in internal democratic 0:12:51.040 --> 0:12:52.839 self management, but that's like, you know, that's still still 0:12:52.880 --> 0:12:54.679 sort of boss controlled, right, It's like, wow, okay, you 0:12:54.679 --> 0:12:56.880 have like a council of people who can make recommendations 0:12:56.960 --> 0:12:59.800 or like even even down to you know, we're going 0:12:59.840 --> 0:13:02.520 to have our own internal like corporate unions, like set 0:13:02.600 --> 0:13:03.880 up by the company. But you know that the corporate 0:13:03.920 --> 0:13:05.520 union gives you a workers council, and the council can 0:13:05.559 --> 0:13:08.120 sort of control production, but you know, it's it's still 0:13:08.160 --> 0:13:09.880 it's still run by the bosses. Like all of these 0:13:09.920 --> 0:13:12.959 things were stuff that like the Rockefellers set up or 0:13:12.960 --> 0:13:15.160 like even even the earlier levels would set the stuff 0:13:15.200 --> 0:13:18.080 up because they were they were so scared of people, 0:13:18.760 --> 0:13:21.839 Like they were so scared if people just taking over 0:13:21.880 --> 0:13:25.760 stuff democratically, just running it just literally through the union 0:13:26.120 --> 0:13:28.000 that they were like, we will we will literally give 0:13:28.040 --> 0:13:30.679 you democracy in the workplace. We will give you like 0:13:30.880 --> 0:13:33.760 we will give you like workers on corporate boards literally 0:13:33.880 --> 0:13:38.960 just so long as you don't like take everything over. Yeah, 0:13:39.160 --> 0:13:43.200 I think that it's it's hard for people to imagine 0:13:43.520 --> 0:13:49.959 how intense like the struggle for getting any kind of 0:13:50.160 --> 0:13:53.000 rights in the workplace. I've been in the United States 0:13:53.600 --> 0:13:55.959 in particular. I think a lot of people think that, 0:13:57.320 --> 0:14:01.360 you know, uh, maybe not so much anymore, But when 0:14:01.400 --> 0:14:03.680 I was younger, you know, twenty years ago, people would 0:14:03.679 --> 0:14:05.640 be like, oh, you know, we're in America. We've got 0:14:05.760 --> 0:14:08.320 you know, like we've got all these things, like we've got, 0:14:08.400 --> 0:14:10.080 you know, an eight hour work day, and we've got 0:14:10.160 --> 0:14:12.679 like a weekend and all. And the thing is is 0:14:12.760 --> 0:14:15.840 that literally people were murdered to win those things, right, 0:14:16.040 --> 0:14:18.760 like if you like. The reason why we have an 0:14:18.840 --> 0:14:22.200 eight hour work day is because there was in Chicago 0:14:23.440 --> 0:14:28.840 a famous, uh, a famous strike that um ended up 0:14:28.920 --> 0:14:33.600 with a massacre of UM. It was like a police riot, 0:14:34.200 --> 0:14:37.560 and then they rounded up a bunch of union organizers, 0:14:38.200 --> 0:14:42.160 socialists and anarchists who were like involved in the labor 0:14:42.240 --> 0:14:45.760 movement at that time, and then the state of Illinois 0:14:45.880 --> 0:14:50.480 hung them. UM. And so the wife of one of them, 0:14:51.480 --> 0:14:55.400 of one of those people who was murdered at the 0:14:55.480 --> 0:15:00.400 Haymarket or they called them the Haymarket murders, h Albert 0:15:00.440 --> 0:15:04.640 Parsons was one of them. Her or his wife, Lucy Parsons, 0:15:05.240 --> 0:15:08.840 who was I had a very veritable kind of like 0:15:09.000 --> 0:15:11.960 not quite sure what her background was, but we do 0:15:12.120 --> 0:15:16.480 know that she was probably a former slave. Uh. Albert 0:15:16.680 --> 0:15:19.840 Parsons was a former Confederate. They got married in the South, 0:15:19.960 --> 0:15:24.840 became Southern Republicans, trying to like participate in radical reconstruction, 0:15:25.480 --> 0:15:27.520 and then they basically had to flee because they were 0:15:28.080 --> 0:15:31.720 um with their lives to the north. And uh. But 0:15:31.880 --> 0:15:35.360 after that whole trial and all that shook out, Lucy 0:15:35.480 --> 0:15:41.200 Parsons became a labor agitator across the United States fighting 0:15:41.280 --> 0:15:45.720 for the eight hour day and uh. And they memorialized 0:15:46.160 --> 0:15:49.600 the Haymarket Martyrs and something that I think some of 0:15:49.680 --> 0:15:52.080 your listeners will know about. Maybe they won't, but you know, 0:15:52.200 --> 0:15:54.560 made a made a a lot of people is like, oh, 0:15:54.680 --> 0:15:57.840 that's Russian or some foreign sort of thing. Now, that 0:15:58.040 --> 0:16:02.000 is an American labor addition that like started here, and 0:16:02.120 --> 0:16:05.840 it was because of a specific like the the labor 0:16:05.960 --> 0:16:07.600 movement in the movement for the eight hour day in 0:16:07.600 --> 0:16:11.080 the United States. So um, and that's kind of like 0:16:12.000 --> 0:16:14.680 once you go from the IWW and industrial unions as 0:16:14.680 --> 0:16:17.960 an idea, it got crushed in the twenties because it 0:16:18.080 --> 0:16:21.800 was so terrifying. There's a really good, uh, a really 0:16:21.840 --> 0:16:24.400 good essay on all that called The stop Watch and 0:16:24.440 --> 0:16:27.080 the Wooden Shoe by a guy named Mike Davis, who 0:16:27.200 --> 0:16:30.200 kind of explains how it is that IWW as the 0:16:30.280 --> 0:16:35.000 first union too not only um try and build workers organization, 0:16:35.040 --> 0:16:40.360 but to challenge workplace organization and to make those push 0:16:40.400 --> 0:16:43.840 back on how production was happening and fight something called 0:16:43.880 --> 0:16:46.360 the speed up where I think a lot of people 0:16:46.400 --> 0:16:48.640 who have worked have experienced this time where a boss 0:16:48.680 --> 0:16:50.640 will come in and say we're going to do things differently, 0:16:51.040 --> 0:16:54.600 and they'll either get rid of a worker and put 0:16:54.640 --> 0:16:58.080 all the extra work onto people who remain, or they'll 0:16:58.200 --> 0:17:01.040 change things so you're doing more with the same amount 0:17:01.040 --> 0:17:07.199 of time. Um, they got you know, they provoked a backlash. Um. 0:17:07.320 --> 0:17:12.240 There were like spectacular like general strikes. The first general 0:17:12.280 --> 0:17:16.320 strike in America in Seattle. There were i w W 0:17:17.040 --> 0:17:21.119 members who are key members of the Seattle Labor Council, 0:17:21.240 --> 0:17:25.399 which took craft unions and got their radicals together and 0:17:25.520 --> 0:17:28.520 coordinated a general strike, which is where there's a lot 0:17:28.520 --> 0:17:30.840 of tweets about general strikes, but general strikes require a 0:17:30.880 --> 0:17:34.760 lot of organization and coordination. We can talk about that 0:17:34.880 --> 0:17:37.600 later if we want to, but key thing is the 0:17:37.640 --> 0:17:42.440 i w W was always pushing for the organization necessary 0:17:42.520 --> 0:17:44.840 to pull off a general strike, and they did it. 0:17:46.080 --> 0:17:50.320 And so amongst those different things and their mind wars 0:17:50.400 --> 0:17:56.280 in Colorado, mine wars in Virginia, West Virginia. UM, they 0:17:56.280 --> 0:18:01.600 were the first union that was explicitly anti racist. Um. 0:18:01.680 --> 0:18:07.600 They they weren't perfect, but they were. But they organized 0:18:07.680 --> 0:18:13.159 multi racial unions in UM Philadelphia, the Docks, and various 0:18:13.160 --> 0:18:15.639 other places. They were one of the few unions that 0:18:15.760 --> 0:18:19.720 really took the first steps into organizing in the South 0:18:20.000 --> 0:18:22.680 in the way that um a lot of unions have 0:18:22.800 --> 0:18:25.480 kind of failed too since. And because they were so 0:18:25.600 --> 0:18:28.520 effective and so frightening, they got crushed. Yeah. I mean, also, 0:18:29.080 --> 0:18:30.400 what every thing I want I want to say about 0:18:30.400 --> 0:18:33.600 them is that like, like the WW fought in the 0:18:33.640 --> 0:18:36.360 Mexican Revolution because you know a lot of the WW 0:18:36.640 --> 0:18:40.440 members in California particular were like a lot of a 0:18:40.480 --> 0:18:42.320 lot of indigenous people, a lot of sort of voted 0:18:42.359 --> 0:18:44.560 Mexican immigrants. So yeah, they had these huge gives and 0:18:44.600 --> 0:18:46.639 like the they like they I think, I think to 0:18:46.800 --> 0:18:50.240 this day this is still true outside of Puerto Rico, 0:18:50.400 --> 0:18:52.239 Like they are the only leftist movement that has ever 0:18:52.359 --> 0:18:55.399 like taking control of an American city, like they took 0:18:55.440 --> 0:18:57.359 to Lexico and Mexicality and like a bunch of the 0:18:57.440 --> 0:19:01.000 sort of the border area. Yeah. That that's that, that's 0:19:01.400 --> 0:19:06.440 you know, part of why it just escalates to everyone 0:19:06.520 --> 0:19:10.000 starts shooting them because well and and they were truly 0:19:10.040 --> 0:19:13.080 an international union because they were they focused on like 0:19:13.760 --> 0:19:17.359 longshoremen and organizing and docks, that sort of thing. There 0:19:17.440 --> 0:19:22.640 were members of the i w W organizing basically everywhere 0:19:22.680 --> 0:19:25.800 in the world, and they were considered part of like 0:19:26.040 --> 0:19:30.320 what was like a global movement. And we call them syndicalists, 0:19:30.560 --> 0:19:34.000 which is kind of like a an Italian term or 0:19:34.080 --> 0:19:37.920 French term um, which is this the you know, like 0:19:38.160 --> 0:19:43.040 like the Latin version of union of syndicate and um. 0:19:43.400 --> 0:19:47.399 There were similar unions across the world up through the 0:19:47.560 --> 0:19:52.000 early twentieth century until right about the time when the Russians, 0:19:52.560 --> 0:19:57.879 the Russian Revolution happened, and then there were subsequent crackdowns. 0:19:58.480 --> 0:20:03.200 And because these people were who oh I mean, the 0:20:03.280 --> 0:20:09.440 IWW was a mix of native native born Americans and immigrants, 0:20:10.160 --> 0:20:13.399 and they were painted as this foreign sort of force. 0:20:14.160 --> 0:20:16.800 They were un American. That was like the whole nexus 0:20:16.880 --> 0:20:21.160 of un Americanism as like an idea, and the US 0:20:21.240 --> 0:20:24.520 state was able to mobilize after World War One to 0:20:24.640 --> 0:20:29.919 really put that down and so so there's a lot 0:20:30.000 --> 0:20:34.159 of history there in that, but the idea of the 0:20:34.200 --> 0:20:38.359 industrial union didn't go away, right The union, the IWW 0:20:38.960 --> 0:20:43.320 was effectively dismembered and scattered. But a lot of people 0:20:43.400 --> 0:20:47.600 who had experienced as IWW members who had been in 0:20:47.680 --> 0:20:51.719 those strikes, UM didn't like just disappear. They didn't all 0:20:51.840 --> 0:20:55.160 get deported or sent away. UM. A lot of them 0:20:55.280 --> 0:20:59.160 kind of tucked their heads down and went back to work, 0:20:59.600 --> 0:21:04.480 you know. And in the nineteirties we saw the rise 0:21:04.560 --> 0:21:09.840 of another industrial the next step towards industrial unionism. So 0:21:09.920 --> 0:21:11.960 it's called the c i O, which is the Congress 0:21:12.000 --> 0:21:17.359 of Industrial Organizations. Now there were multiple at that point. 0:21:17.560 --> 0:21:21.320 There was the Communist part of USA, the Socialist Party 0:21:22.480 --> 0:21:26.600 of America, and UM, former members of the i w 0:21:26.880 --> 0:21:32.280 W and various like anarchists who were participants in kind 0:21:32.320 --> 0:21:37.520 of the organization of the c i O. And the 0:21:37.720 --> 0:21:40.679 thing about c i O was was that when they 0:21:40.760 --> 0:21:45.200 came together, UM, it was in the Great Depression had 0:21:45.240 --> 0:21:47.840 really kind of kicked off, and they were able to 0:21:48.280 --> 0:21:53.760 organize like really explosively across all these new industries. So 0:21:54.080 --> 0:21:58.119 they like the u a W United Auto Workers was 0:21:58.240 --> 0:22:00.760 like part of the c i OH, and they would 0:22:00.960 --> 0:22:05.520 they pioneered forms of strikes called sit down strike, which 0:22:05.600 --> 0:22:09.320 was basically a factory seizure. All the workers would just say, 0:22:09.520 --> 0:22:11.960 we're not going to walk out, We're going to lock 0:22:12.040 --> 0:22:14.920 ourselves in and we're going to sit down, and it's 0:22:14.920 --> 0:22:17.680 our factory now, and now you're going to have to 0:22:17.760 --> 0:22:23.840 negotiate with And it became this thing where it was 0:22:23.880 --> 0:22:27.359 like millions of people were in Like the I w 0:22:27.640 --> 0:22:31.720 W at any one time was like hundreds of thousands 0:22:31.760 --> 0:22:34.959 of people, and the c I O became a thing 0:22:35.080 --> 0:22:40.199 where it was millions of people and UM and at 0:22:40.280 --> 0:22:43.679 least at the beginning when they had there, when they 0:22:43.720 --> 0:22:48.480 had we're at the peak of their like power and militancy. UM, 0:22:49.240 --> 0:22:52.520 they were able to mobilize workers to take over factories, 0:22:53.760 --> 0:22:56.679 take over factories from some of the most powerful corporations 0:22:56.760 --> 0:23:00.720 on the earth on Earth. And you know, at the 0:23:00.760 --> 0:23:06.960 same time, UM, while they're doing this, the police and 0:23:07.800 --> 0:23:12.919 UH company, UM company security and vigilantes which had never 0:23:13.000 --> 0:23:15.320 gone away from like the IWW we're doing the same 0:23:15.400 --> 0:23:20.480 sorts of things. So they would regularly beat strikers. They 0:23:20.480 --> 0:23:24.240 would regularly there would be you know, regular labor massacres, 0:23:25.320 --> 0:23:31.920 um disappearances of various um of labor organizers or labor 0:23:32.040 --> 0:23:35.120 leaders or even just random workers that they thought were like, oh, 0:23:35.200 --> 0:23:38.320 you're a unionist. Um, you know, get in the back 0:23:38.359 --> 0:23:40.560 of this h get in the back of this truck. 0:23:40.800 --> 0:23:44.600 And then they were never seen again. Um. And then 0:23:45.040 --> 0:23:48.680 laws started to be enacted, I believe, out of fear 0:23:49.480 --> 0:23:54.440 that if this, if this movement didn't get somehow put 0:23:54.560 --> 0:23:58.119 under brought in under control, that there would be a 0:23:58.160 --> 0:24:03.760 revolution and so h. So that's when we started to 0:24:03.800 --> 0:24:07.640 see the enactment of laws like the National Labor Relations Act, 0:24:08.280 --> 0:24:11.440 which made having a union like that was the first 0:24:11.520 --> 0:24:14.240 time when being any union was considered legal at the 0:24:14.280 --> 0:24:19.840 federal level. And that Uh, the FDR and the New 0:24:19.880 --> 0:24:24.840 Deal Democrats basically attempted to broker something called labor Piece 0:24:26.000 --> 0:24:28.720 where they would say, we're no longer going to mobilize 0:24:29.240 --> 0:24:33.160 the state against workers in the way that we have previously. 0:24:33.240 --> 0:24:36.440 Now local police would still side with bosses, that sort 0:24:36.480 --> 0:24:39.840 of thing. But uh, and those sorts of massacres and 0:24:40.720 --> 0:24:42.960 that sort of stuff didn't really go away until like 0:24:43.119 --> 0:24:48.480 the forties. Um. But um, that was the beginning of 0:24:48.600 --> 0:24:51.080 because what you do see is unions get channeled into 0:24:52.080 --> 0:24:54.080 Once you have like a million people in the union, 0:24:54.520 --> 0:24:59.400 you have just enormous amounts of resources, all these dues 0:24:59.480 --> 0:25:04.040 coming in, you have the beginning of the labor bureaucracy, 0:25:04.280 --> 0:25:06.639 whereas before it would be you know, there would be 0:25:06.760 --> 0:25:09.760 hired you know, paid labor organizers, but they were always 0:25:09.760 --> 0:25:13.080