Between Trumka’s DAPL endorsement and the Fraternal Order of Police’s endorsement of Donald Trump for president, this week has shown a stark divide between parts of American labor and today’s social movements.
If unions find better strategic partners outside the labor movement on a particular issue, they should proceed on the basis of their analysis of what is needed, not hold back and wait for labor unity. Too often a particular union’s political stance may reflect a private employer’s growth plans, not the general good for working people.
Company agrees to add 1,300 new call center jobs on the East Coast
10.9% raise over four years
First contract for wireless retail workers
Verizon strikers are fighting against the oppression and indignity of the American workplace.
Forty thousand Verizon workers have now been on strike for a month. These days, a strike of the Verizon action’s scale and duration is exceedingly rare. That’s largely because the stakes for workers are so high. Strikers don’t just lose their pay and benefits — they risk losing their job entirely.
The actions by the Verizon workers show that it is possible to fight back against the power of employers to dictate the terms of the employment relationship. They remind us that the supremacy of big corporations, like technological changes and market forces, are not inevitable but reflect political and managerial choices. It appears workers are finally finding a way to counter the corporate strategies that have defined—and held back—the U.S. economy in recent decades.
If well organized and militant union members at Verizon—who have gone on strike against the company and its predecessors in 1983, 1986, 1989, 1998, 2000, 2004, 2011 and now—can’t stop the outsourcing and destruction of decent jobs, unorganized workers spread across the planet in industries like telecommunications will find the task insurmountable.
Corporate media coverage of the Verizon strike illustrates the fundamental asymmetry of power that still exists between multi-billion-dollar corporations and comparatively small unions. Due to the support of major Democrats like Bernie Sanders and (to a lesser extent) Hillary Clinton, the voices of strikers like those at Verizon are not entirely lost, but the deck is still heavily stacked in management's favor.
On the same day that Bernie Sanders walked the picket line with CWA and IBEW unionists on strike against Verizon, he gained the endorsement on New York's Transit Workers Union. TWU Local 100 president John Samuelsen said, "Bernie Sanders has been fighting against the 'powers that be' in this country on behalf of all American workers his entire life."
As Verizon employees raise their voices against corporate greed, it’s important that more of us stand up for an economy that works for everyone. If Verizon gets its way, we’re allowing corporate CEOs to rewrite the rules in their favor yet again, instead of ensuring that more of our friends and neighbors can hold the line for family-sustaining pay and benefits.
Spread the word