Portside

Labor still has the power to throw sand in the gears of exploitation. The next step is for all these disparate troublemakers to start seeing their workplace struggles—from defending pensions to defending refugees—as part of the same bigger movement.

The election of Donald Trump produced a rash of commentaries heralding the death of organized labor, or at minimum an existential crisis. Although these epitaphs are not new and are very overblown, it is true that organized labor prematurely backed the corporate Democrat, failed to elect the candidate it did back, and is left divided over how to deal with the presidency of Donald Trump.

The blue-collar hellscape Tesla, Blue Apron and Amazon have wrought is what laissez-faire, startup-styled late capitalism looks like.

Much has been made in the recent campaign about the alienation of working-class whites from the Democratic Party. Michael Pierce shows this is a path long traveled; Bill Clinton undermined the budding multi-racial labor coalition in 1970s Arkansas.

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