mirror He is a local author, professor at San Diego City College, and 1931 vice president of the American Federation of Teachers. He lives in Golden Hill.
The past few months have been very positive for American labor unions, with great contracts for airline pilots, big pay raises for UPS drivers, and strike victories for health care workers, nurses, educators, screenwriters, and more. Ta. This current alarming wave of strikes appears to be shifting the balance of power between employees and employers unlike anything seen in the United States since the mid-20th century. Rather than settle for less money, as American workers have done for decades, many now appear ready to stand up and fight the corporate sector.
Former U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich said a new labor movement would create “a virtuous cycle in which more workers join unions and more unions join forces to demand higher wages.” He pointed out that it was helpful. Of course, the biggest recent victory was the United Auto Workers strike. Unions ignored corporate cries of poverty and job losses and achieved 25% wage increases, job security, factory restarts and a path to electric car production. Future stuff for vehicles including solid union jobs.
This victory came under the leadership of Sean Fein, who rejected the corrupt corporate unionism of his predecessors and embraced the militant spirit of the mid-20th century Congress of Industrial Organizations. In a New York Times profile, Mr. Fein made it clear that he was no friend of corporate greed, saying, “‘In my opinion, billionaires have no right to exist.'” , as labor historian Nelson Lichtenstein pointed out, Fein is learning from the past to help American workers in their struggle for a better future. “The 1940s,” he said. “The idea of mutual accommodation with companies has disappeared.”
With more class consciousness and forceful rhetoric, Fein is also clearly returning to his United Auto Workers roots. The historic victory in the great Flint sit-in strike of the 1930s was the driving force behind a wave of union activity that increased union density. It reached its highest level in American history, helped shape the American middle class, and ultimately focused on economic justice as a central part of the unfulfilled promise of American democracy. As labor writer Harold Meyerson recently observed: The great disparity between the wealthy and the rest, so evident in pre-New Deal America and so politically salient during the New Deal, is once again at issue. ”
But most of all, the success of the United Auto Workers reminded American workers of their power: what working people can accomplish when they come together. Robert Kuttner said in the American Prospect: “Fein delivered more than a victory for autoworkers. The United Auto Workers union is demonstrating what workers in all walks of life can accomplish by combining militant union leadership with popular democracy and solidarity. proved to a wide public.”
What’s also important about the United Auto Workers’ victory is that the union sees it not as the end, but as the beginning of a long struggle that will include organizing nonunion factories in the United States and building international solidarity with workers in other countries. This means that Countries need to support trade unions in their fight against outsourcing of good jobs. And while some have tried to pit industrial workers against climate change activists fighting for a sustainable future, the United Auto Workers union has not taken the bait and instead has focused on pitting industrial workers against climate change activists fighting for a sustainable future. attempted to join the labor union.
By learning from the past and looking toward a green economic future, we can avoid the worst consequences of climate change. In this way, the United Auto Workers is deftly addressing the intersecting issues of economic inequality and impending climate change. In contrast to the fossil fuel industry, which is doubling down on oil rather than investing in the transition to a zero-carbon economy, the United Auto Workers union is leading the way towards a more just and sustainable future for us all. Are standing.
This new social justice unionism, guided by a greater sense of solidarity, serves as a beacon of hope in our current darkness.