During the 7 week strike in 2001 the Times fired striking workers and hired scabs “permanently”. Part of the final deal was to rehire union members and let go of the scabs. But they quickly downsized in the following year, this was really the start of them utilizing syndicated reports instead of having a robust journalism team.
Actions like this do little other than make the people participating feel good. Edit: I hate that phrase, let me restate that. Actions like this do little other than diffuse revolutionary energy by wasting peoples effort with ineffective and often counter productive action. I don’t say that to take away from the energy and need to do something that people feel, but it’s constructive criticism on where that energy should be directed.
For real effective change we need to be engaging the working people at Boeing to organize within their union to enact a strike over the company’s involvement in Gaza. Actions like this and the one in the port of Tacoma refuse (don’t think?) to bring in union workers to their organizing, treating them antagonistic instead. This ends up being detrimental to the cause as it turns off fellow working class people to the goals of the protest.
Organizing tables day after day at Boeing to engage with employees is not as exciting as blocking roads and chanting, it’s hard and can lead to conversations that are difficult to navigate, but it’s the kind of approach that is much more effective in actually making progress.
Not a king. But the bully pulpit has considerable power to shape public discourse.
All I have seen from the administration is explaining how Bidenomics are a huge success, and look at these amazing numbers on a graph that don’t represent working class struggles. It’s a waste of breath when they could be pushing for policies that would make material change for working class people.
He sure as shit used the bully pulpit to explain why breaking up the railway strike was “in our best interests”.
When the average person is being told by Biden that the economy is doing great but don’t see it in housing/food/gas prices where all their money goes, you can bet people will swing back to the lunacy of the right. When you only have two options and are desperate for change what option do people feel they have?