Portside

Anti-union forces can taste the blood in the water, and their offensive is only getting broader. Between efforts to pass right-to-work laws at the state and local levels and legal challenges like Harris v. Quinn and Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, the legal-institutional basis of US trade unions is being dismantled. And once that’s lost, it will probably be impossible to bring unions back as they were before.

The civil rights movement inspired sanitation workers’ strikes throughout the South. Teachers in Florida and Utah pulled off statewide walkouts. Postal workers struck nationwide, in a wildcat conducted against the wishes of union leaders. Police and firefighters contracted “blue flu” and “red rashes” to demand what private sector workers already had: the right to bargain. This wave of militancy won both contracts and changes in labor law.