The Nation

A new report from Berkeley is a rare piece of good news for American labor—and a bracing reminder of what real organizing looks like.

Jane McAlevey argues that the biggest factor in the vote was the laws that give tremendous advantages to the corporate side—but the union itself made a series of tactical and strategic errors.

It’s bad news, but it doesn’t mean workers in future Amazon campaigns won’t or can’t win. They can. The results were not surprising, however, for reasons that have more to do with the approach used in the campaign itself than any other factor.

If national union leaders acquiesce to the creation of a third category of worker in exchange for sectoral bargaining, collective begging will replace collective bargaining.

Demobilizing our base is never a good idea, especially when the right wing and the Trump forces continue to mobilize.

But winning the election is like gaining recognition for a union. Now the real work starts.

Prop 22 exempts the gig companies from AB5, and instead creates a “third category” of independent contractors with a few perks. Drivers will now receive limited health benefits, but only for those who log enough hours, and an hourly pay “guarantee” that a UC Berkeley Labor Center study found to be worth $5.64.

California’s Prop 22 would make the misclassification of Uber and Lyft drivers permanent.

For Labor Day, let’s imagine it’s time to actually try winning key swing states, where, like the entire country and world, finding a good-paying job is the most urgent issue—unless you are Black, in which case not being shot by the police trumps employment.

This group of capable organizers, rooted in structure-based organizations in the workplace and in the community, composed of many groups whose leaders and members are overwhelmingly women and people of color, is now attempting the unthinkable: challenging Proposition 13, passed by California voters more than four decades ago.

“The right wing, the corporate elite understand how strategic nurses are to the labor movement,” said Jane McAlevey, a union organizer, The Nation’s strikes correspondent, and author of A Collective Bargain: Unions, Organizing, and the Fight for Democracy. “Hospital administrators try to come off as doing something good, but really they’re just taking public money and hiring union-busting thugs.”

A new report from Berkeley is a rare piece of good news for American labor—and a bracing reminder of what real organizing looks like.

Jane McAlevey argues that the biggest factor in the vote was the laws that give tremendous advantages to the corporate side—but the union itself made a series of tactical and strategic errors.

It’s bad news, but it doesn’t mean workers in future Amazon campaigns won’t or can’t win. They can. The results were not surprising, however, for reasons that have more to do with the approach used in the campaign itself than any other factor.

If national union leaders acquiesce to the creation of a third category of worker in exchange for sectoral bargaining, collective begging will replace collective bargaining.

Demobilizing our base is never a good idea, especially when the right wing and the Trump forces continue to mobilize.

But winning the election is like gaining recognition for a union. Now the real work starts.

Prop 22 exempts the gig companies from AB5, and instead creates a “third category” of independent contractors with a few perks. Drivers will now receive limited health benefits, but only for those who log enough hours, and an hourly pay “guarantee” that a UC Berkeley Labor Center study found to be worth $5.64.

California’s Prop 22 would make the misclassification of Uber and Lyft drivers permanent.

For Labor Day, let’s imagine it’s time to actually try winning key swing states, where, like the entire country and world, finding a good-paying job is the most urgent issue—unless you are Black, in which case not being shot by the police trumps employment.

This group of capable organizers, rooted in structure-based organizations in the workplace and in the community, composed of many groups whose leaders and members are overwhelmingly women and people of color, is now attempting the unthinkable: challenging Proposition 13, passed by California voters more than four decades ago.

“The right wing, the corporate elite understand how strategic nurses are to the labor movement,” said Jane McAlevey, a union organizer, The Nation’s strikes correspondent, and author of A Collective Bargain: Unions, Organizing, and the Fight for Democracy. “Hospital administrators try to come off as doing something good, but really they’re just taking public money and hiring union-busting thugs.”