Never Cross the Picket Line

38 thoughts on “Never Cross the Picket Line”

2. BB, thanks for the thread.  here’s a ‘toon for you to go along with the tune above.

   

3. UAW workers launch unprecedented strike against all Big Three automakers (msn.com)

   The United Auto Workers union is on strike against General Motors, Ford and Stellantis, the first time in its history that it has struck all three of America’s unionized automakers at the same time.
   Workers on Friday walked out of three plants – one each from the Big Three automakers – in Missouri, Michigan and Ohio. Picketers were met with cheers from sign-waving union members.
   ew approach” to walking off the job.
   “As time goes on, more locals may be called on to ‘Stand Up’ and join the strike,” the union told members. “This gives us maximum leverage and maximum flexibility in our fight to win a fair contract at each of the Big Three automakers.”
   The UAW’s strikes began at GM’s Wentzville Missouri, which has 3,600 UAW members on its staff; Ford’s Michigan Truck plant in Wayne, Michigan, which will have 3,300 strikes; and Stellantis’ Toledo Assembly complex in Ohio, where 5,800 will be be on strike.
   In all, fewer than 13,000 of the UAW’s 145,000 members walked off the job.
   “These were chosen carefully by the UAW and reflect a strategy that will ensure a large number of suppliers and dealers are affected, while reducing the number of UAW workers that, at least initially, are on strike and receiving strike pay,” said Patrick Anderson. CEO of Anderson Economic Group.
   The strike came after the automakers scoffed at the union’s ambitious demands for increased wages, benefits and job protections for its members. With all three automakers reporting record or near-record profits, the union was trying to recapture many benefits they had been forced to give up more than a decade ago when the companies were cash starved and on the brink of bankruptcy.
   […]
   The strike, while unprecedented, is less extensive than had been expected only two days ago, when it appeared that all 145,000 UAW members at the three companies could be hitting the picket lines. That would have been the nation’s largest strike of active workers in 25 years.
   Many auto industry observers had expected the union to target plants that supplied parts to multiple plants at a time. That way all of the three companies’ 25 assembly plants could have been starved of the parts they needed to operated and production could have ground to a halt with only a relative handful of plants on strike, perhaps as few as two per company.
   But the UAW’s selection of plants will allow the other 22 assembly plants to continue to turn out cars and trucks and for their workers to stay on the job.
   “This is not what I was expecting to hear tonight,” said Jeff Schuster, global head of automotive for GlobalData, an industry consultant. “It’s not the way that causes maximum pain. Maybe it’s a sign they’re getting close and they’re just trying to ramp up the pressure. This is a very unconventional way of negotiating and striking. I think he’s doing a good job of creating confusion.”
   None of the SUVs and pickup trucks built at the three plants are top sellers for the three automakers. They include the Chevrolet Colorado and GMC Canyon pickups and the Chevy Express and GMC Savana full-size vans, the Ford Ranger pickup and Ford Bronco SUV and the Jeep Wrangler, Jeep Gladiator and Jeep Wrangler 4xe EV.
   Fain told members Thursday just before the strike started that more workers may be called upon to walk off the job.
   “If we need to go all out, we will,” he told members. “We must show the companies you are ready to join the … strike at a moment’s notice. And we must show the world our fight is a righteous fight.”
   [continues]

4. on the subject of unions and unionization attempts, looks like “the last plantation” still stands

   remember when house & senate staff workplace was dubbed that and the Hill reported in 2016:

   John Glenn, the astronaut turned senator, was an American hero who dedicated his life to national service. In 1962, he became the first American to orbit the earth, when he blasted off into space in the Mercury capsule and circled the earth three times. A decade later, he made history again when he was elected to represent Ohio in the Senate. For his numerous contributions and service, President Obama awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012, the nation’s highest civilian honor. However, Glenn made history in ways that are often forgotten. In 1978, Glenn famously labeled Congress the “Last Plantation,” to highlight how the institution was exempt from federal workplace laws, making the legislature one of the last places where racial discrimination was allowable. The senator spent much of his twenty-year career on Capitol Hill working to end this congressional double standard that exempted lawmakers from the laws they passed.  

   nancy came along later and opened the house enough to let in fresh air, 

   but as of this january, here’s where they are under kevin the new overseer of the plantation according to common dreams :

   After House Republicans passed a rules package that contains union-busting language aimed at preventing Capitol Hill staff from exercising their right to organize and collectively bargain for better wages and conditions, the Congressional Workers Union pledged Monday to keep fighting for more workplace democracy.
   “Though we are disappointed to see the GOP-passed rules package include both anti-worker and anti-union language, we are not surprised and have prepared for attacks from the very same party that claims to value America’s working class,” the CWU said in a statement.
   Underscoring the hollow nature of the GOP’s attempts to rebrand itself as pro-working class, House Republicans, led by newly elected Speaker Kevin McCarthy (Calif.), made clear last week that one of their first orders of business would be to reverse progress made last year when Democrats passed a resolution enabling congressional staffers to form unions.
   “What Kevin McCarthy and his aides fail to realize is that our organizing drive—which aims to elevate workers’ rights of staffers on both sides of the aisle—existed long before he cobbled together enough votes to win the speakership, and it will continue after,” the CWU said Monday.
   “The dozens of worker wins we secured last year were years in the making and made possible by current and former Hill staff who bravely spoke up before any resolution passed,” the union added. “We have no plans to stop our unionization drive, and this has in fact invigorated workers to want to utilize their collective power even more and cement our seat at the table so no matter what party is in control. Our right to a democratic workplace is here to stay.”

5. Haven’t followed it too closely but really didn’t think the strike would happen, that a resolution couldn’t be had. Gotta wonder if the outrageous pay for the top execs is the deal breaker in the end. I’ve noticed it’s what union leaders and members keep bringing up.

6. Listening to GM’s mouthpiece on TV this morning was maddening.    She refused to answer questions about pay increases and benefits directly, of course.

   She inserted ads for their products and talked about how pro-employee education (to move toward EVs) they are, and even defended her massive compensation increase by noting it was based on performance.

   Lady, your “performance” rests its ass on the folks actually doing the physical labor.  

   Has Corey retired?

7. https://deadline.com/2023/09/writers-strike-real-time-with-bill-maher-returns-no-writers-hbo-1235546393/

   “Bill Maher is going back to work without his writers.”

   “Maher becomes the first late-night host to return to air, although if the Strike Force Five podcast hosted by Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers and John Oliver is any indication, they will not be joining him anytime soon.”

8. https://theweek.com/culture-life/tv-radio/why-drew-barrymore-and-bill-maher-are-facing-backlash-from-writers

   “Drew Barrymore recently announced her daytime talk show will begin airing new episodes again, even though the actors and writers guilds both remain on strike.”

   “A CBS Media Ventures spokesperson also told CNN that “The Drew Barrymore Show” will “not be performing any writing work covered by the WGA strike.”

9. So far the companies have not negotiated.  This has happened before and not just with auto.  I like how the unions are just hitting a few but are refusing to say what is next.  That is a new tactic and one to keep the execs guessing.  I have one question, which may not have an answer if this strike ends within a month, how are the Southern, non-union, plants going to function if parts from union plants are not produced or shipped?

10. https://www.npr.org/2023/09/14/1199446348/writers-strike-auction-the-bear-ebay

    “For the next eight days, those with big checkbooks can vie for a trove of celebrity experiences featuring some of Hollywood’s most beloved names.”

    “The auction is hosted through eBay and organized by the Union Solidarity Coalition, which is pledging to financially support crew members who lost their health insurance as the film and television industry ground to a halt this summer.”

    Bill and Drew should take note that there are probably other ways to help their crews than to be scabs.

11. https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-features/oscar-isaac-trump-nemesis-letitia-james-sag-aftra-strike-warner-bros-discovery-new-york-city-1234825815/

    “Thousands of SAG-AFTRA and WGA members lined the sidewalks surrounding the Warner Bros. Discovery office Thursday, raising signs of union solidarity and dancing to tambourines and drum beats as leaders chanted for a just contract.”

    “In July, the Association of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) reportedly planned to pay background actors a low daily rate to take AI scans of them, according to SAG-AFTRA. In response, the AMPTP said SAG-AFTRA had “distorted the facts ” of their proposal and offered limited AI protections.”

    “New York Attorney General Letitia James, who sued former president Trump and his children for massive fraud, received thunderous applause while speaking at the podium. She says she wants AI out of the writer’s room, which she says can never replicate the emotional intelligence and experience of everyday New Yorkers. It’s about protecting human rights and maintaining the human element in the entertainment industry, she argues.”

12. More than the writer’s strike — which seems a bit esoteric to most — this auto strike could be a tipping point in public attitudes toward unions and management. Not sure yet who wins in the end, but my hunch is the eye-popping CEO salaries gets lots of attention.

13. AMPTP is kind of a Union of studios.  Some of them want to meet demands and get back to work, but some don’t. 

    Maybe it’s time for those studios that want to do the right thing to drop AMPTP membership and start a new group.

14. https://www.npr.org/2023/09/13/1198938942/high-ceo-pay-inequality-labor-union-uaw-workers

    “Sky-high CEO pay is in focus as workers everywhere are demanding higher wages”

    “General Motors CEO Mary Barra, the highest-paid chief executive among the Big Three, made nearly $29 million in 2022. Securities and Exchange Commission filings show that this is 362 times the median GM employee’s paycheck. Publicly traded companies are required to disclose the ratio of their CEO’s pay to their median employee’s pay.”

    “Fain, UAW’s president, said that in comparison, a worker makes $16.50 as an hourly starting wage at Ultium Cells, GM’s joint-venture battery plant in Lordstown, Ohio.”

    “That means a newly hired Ultium worker would have to work full time for 16 years to earn what Mary Barra makes in a single week,” Fain said.

    This is the woman on TV this morning who was defending her $29 million as being performance-based compensation.

    Her “performance” is based on thousands of folks actually making the product. Granted, each job has an individual value, but hers is certainly overpaid if she’s saying workers are not underpaid.

    And, if robotics can replace workers at any pint in the process, you know that will happen.

    Hmmm, who is going to buy those pickup trucks if AI and robots take all of the jobs away, or relegate humans to a shrinking number of jobs?

15. This is a tough call for Uncle Joe…

    Vanity Fair: “A Democratic operative close to the issue tells me that [UAW pres] Fain’s forceful flexing of leverage caught the Biden team somewhat off guard. The president has tried to walk a tricky line when it comes to the auto industry: Two of his prized legislative achievements—2021’s infrastructure bill and 2022’s Inflation Reduction Act—included hefty financial incentives for companies that invest in electric-vehicle plants. That angered the auto unions because fewer workers are needed to build EVs than traditional cars, and because most of the batteries needed for EVs are manufactured either overseas or in non-union American factories.”

    https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/09/joe-biden-uaw-strike

16. Strikes hurt all supporting, non-union jobs in the community, too.   Restaurants, hair salons, entertainment venues.   
    While folks need vehicles to get from place to place (mostly to work, thanks to a lack of reliable public transportation), the arts make life worth living.  Music, theater, movies, TV,  museums and galleries, even non-fast food restaurants add more joy to life.  
    It’s almost like capitalism isn’t the point of life.  If everyone was provided housing, food and healthcare, what would all of these humans do without work?  Bake cakes, write plays, paint pictures, sing songs, dance.   By keeping housing, food and healthcare increasingly expensive, it keeps folks tied to jobs.   Unions are the only chance humans have to be treated humanely by employers.
     
    Capitalism isn’t democracy, and it certainly isn’t democratic.  

17. POTUS Joe needs to talk to Elizabeth Warren. 
     

18. The writers and actors are only the top of the pyramid of the thousands of workers who create and produce the shows we see. This strike is needed, but it is causing the loss of homes and health care for so many more people.

     

19. Boebert was being boorish again so obviously Petri needed to comment.

    Boebert and 15 others would be kicked out of a musical.

     

20. When the worker isn’t under the yoke it just creates oodles of problems for the yoke owners.   You know, smaller yachts and whatnot.   And the workers just get way too uppity if they aren’t starving.

21. Jamie – The upper-tier of Hollywood have made huge donations, and others are contributing to charity auctions to help out the writers crews.  But yes, the caterers and other support industries are hurting.   That’s what the studios are counting on; stress fractures.  

    I have one cousin who is SAG, and she was told the strike would be over by September 1st.  That date was because some studios agreed with the unions.   It’s a couple of  studios in their association that won’t budge.  By the way, she is married to a non-union actor who has been able to work (something for Lifetime). Neither of them depend on acting work, although one was a regular on soaps, episodic TV, and films.   When they had kids, acting turned into a side-hustle.    

    When big names like Barrymore and Maher create new content, it hurts everyone still on strike.

    ps -AI is coming for everyone. There’s no reason to be complicit it the demise of human beings.

22. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/tvs-top-5-podcast-justine-bateman-ai-dangers-hollywood-1235540858/

    “I wish we had the Paramount Decrees in a more substantial way where the Department of Justice said to the studios that they owned the entire pipeline: you make it, you are the exhibitors, you have the cinemas, and there’s no competition possible here. So, they made them choose. You want to own cinemas or do you want to do the work?”

    “Fin-syn rules were the same thing that we had for TV. The FCC said you can’t own the whole pipeline and could either make the show or have a network, which do you want to do? And when the fin-syn rules went away in 1993, you had NBC making an NBC show and then putting the reruns on Bravo, which NBC owns.”

    “The WGA has different needs for its members than the DGA and SAG. There are some overlaps, but I think in three years, [the AMPTP will] just go, “We’re not really sure we need to meet with you guys. We’re not really sure we need to be signatories anymore.” It depends on what they get. I’d like to know if the legal departments from any of the streamers or the studios have gone to any of these large generative AI companies and asked to see a list of what films have been fed in. Have they gone to them and said, “I want to see if any of our films are on there and if so, you’re going to delete this entire training set.” Because you can’t unwind something like that. But my hunch is that they’re not.”

    “The studios are the same companies that would get the FBI to descend on your house and get you arrested for illegally downloading one of their films. It’s the most massive copyright violation in the history of the U.S. These same companies are now hoping that feeding in 100 years of filmmaking and series into generative AI models spins wildly out of control by third parties so they can continue to come to the guilds as they have been and saying, “But everyone else is doing it, you gotta let us do it.” Why else would you just let these companies do whatever they want with all of your copyrighted material?”

    “If you give away your consent and compensation, if you want to participate in it — I personally as a filmmaker have no interest in it whatsoever — but if you don’t put that as the default for writers and actors in particular, you’ve just given them the keys to the whole house. If they can use 100 years of active performances to train their generative AI models and create their little Frankenstein characters or “actors” you’re over. There’s a lot of other elements — corporate greed is just out of control — but that’s the big difference between then and now.”

    AI is just the newest and best tool to feed corporate greed.

23. They hated the piano players.  Insufferable weisenheimers, always wanting more.  If only there was a piano which would play itself.  

24. WH: Biden to speak “soon” on the strike

25. Romney went out taking shots at Biden.  That was bollshit, and to what end?
    Is Mitt going to ride in at the last minute and “save the party”?
     

26. For todays tawdry news, the intertubes are reporting that Gov Kristi Noem and sfb advisor Corey Lewendowski have a long term affair.  Hmmm. 
     
    Those ol’ family values always remind me of one of my campaign managers.  One family in one city, another family in another city.  Yeah, he stopped being my manager once his wife (the one I know) found out what was going on, except he is a hard core Dem. Strange things happen when the zipper is broken.

27. 

    today’s meme…   also applies to union workers…
     
     

28. Biden urges carmakers to give UAW workers more in strike talks (msn.com)

    WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Joe Biden on Friday said “no one wants a strike” but that car companies have enjoyed record profits in recent years without sharing them fairly with workers, hours after the United Auto Workers began strikes at Detroit’s three biggest automakers.
    The UAW strike at three factories owned by General Motors, Ford and Chrysler-owner Stellantis on Friday, kicked off the most ambitious U.S. industrial labor action in decades.
    Biden said “record corporate profits” should lead to “record contracts” for the UAW, but that the profits have not been shared fairly with workers.
    “No one wants a strike, but I respect workers’ right to use their options under the collective bargaining” system, Biden said. “I understand their frustration.”
    So far in the strike negotiations, “the companies have made some significant offers,” Biden said. “But I believe they should go further to ensure record corporate profits mean record contracts for the UAW.”
    Biden said he has been in touch with both sides in the negotiations, and will dispatch two members of his team, Gene Sperling and Labor Secretary Julie Su, to Detroit to ensure the administration’s involvement in the talks and a “win-win agreement.”
    [continues]

29. wasn’t biden involved with more than just helping obama resolve the 2008-10 auto industry crisis? 
    if so, he would feel personally even more determined to see the auto execs make concessions since labor did back then and saved their CEO hides.

30. Pat, I think it is fair to say Biden was more than involved in the auto bailout, he was instrumental. But like passing Obamacare he never really got the full credit he deserved

31. I recommend this book. 

    https://www.booksamillion.com/p/Dear-Denise/Lisa-McNair/9780817321352

    Poignant, honest, and heartfelt letters to a sister who perished in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing Lisa McNair was born in 1964, one year after her older sister, Denise, was murdered in the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. Dear Denise is a collection of forty letters from Lisa addressed to the sister she never knew, but in whose shadow of sacrifice and lost youth she was raised. These letters offer an intimate look into the life of a family touched by one of the most heinous tragedies of the Civil Rights Movement.Written in a genuine, accessible, familiar, and easy-to-read voice, Lisa’s letters apprise her late sister of all that has come to pass in the years since her death. Lisa considers her own challenges and accomplishments as a student in remarkably different–and very racially complex–schools; the birth of their baby sister, Kim; their father’s election to the Alabama legislature; her evolving sense of faith and place, and sometimes lack thereof, within the Black church; her college experiences; and her own sense of self as she’s matured into adulthood. She reveals some of the family’s difficulties and health challenges, and shares some of their joys and celebrations. The letters are accompanied by 29 black-and-white photographs, most of them from the McNair family collection, many of them taken by her father, a professional photographer who documented the Civil Rights Movement in Alabama both before and after Denise’s murder. An unswervingly candid, gentle, and nuanced book, Dear Denise is a testament to one singular life lived bravely and truthfully (if sometimes confusedly or awkwardly), during decades of bewildering social change and in the shadow of one life never fully lived.

32. “U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman on the nation’s highest court, spoke Friday at the 60th anniversary memorial service at the site of a 1963 bombing that killed four girls and became a turning point for the civil rights movement.

    Born on Sept. 14, 1970, Jackson, 53, noted that she came of age after the civil right movement had moved obstacles to allow her to pursue a career in law and ultimately take a seat last year as an associate justice on the nation’s highest court.”

    This week marked her first trip to the state. “I felt in my spirit that I had to come,” she said.

    https://www.al.com/news/2023/09/i-felt-in-my-spirit-i-had-to-come-justice-ketanji-brown-jackson-speaks-at-16th-street-baptist-church.html?e=87003e1eb754f9d40574ce526134d300&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Newsletter_birmingham_today%202023-09-15&utm_term=Newsletter_birmingham_today

33. L’shanah tovah

    (Doesn’t matter how you spell it in English because it’s not English.)

34. Roll the tape
     
     
    https://www.9news.com/article/news/local/local-politics/lauren-boebert-vaping-beetlejuice/73-92c1dd6d-714d-4989-b734-08b67ec87817?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Friday%20September%2015&utm_content=Friday%20September%2015+CID_d019023d02ee8c53cb51c43c3e25f867&utm_source=tegna%20email%20newsletter&utm_term=READ%20MORE

35. Ford has axed several hundred jobs.  Necessary?  Nah.  This was a strong-arm tactic meant to send a message.  

    Riddle me this:  If the big-wigs are threatened workers with the loss of jobs, perhaps even the end of automobile manufacturing in the US, as the world transitions to EVs, wouldn’t the higher-ups also be out of a job?    

    This is what the ultra-wealthy don’t understand. If workers don’t make money, they can’t spend money.   Eventually, there will be nobody to buy your products and services.  

    Also, as the Fed wants to cool the economy, and like the sound of lost jobs and depressed wages, are they in cahoots with the CEOs to play hardball with unions?   

    If only our tax dollars actually went to pay for healthcare and education and job-retraining (like they do in first-world countries in Scandinavia), instead of for corporate welfare, and if only folks had decent, affordable housing.   There’s a reason workers need more money and it’s not greed. It’s survival.

36. https://www.bbc.com/news/business-66803279

    “The gym-owner-turned-real-estate-mogul claimed that shift is hitting productivity in the sector…”

    “He proposed the country’s current unemployment rate of 3.7% should rise by 40-50% to reduce “arrogance in the employment market”.

    “There’s been a systematic change where employees feel the employer is extremely lucky to have them,” Mr Gurner said.

    “We need to remind people they work for the employer, not the other way around.”

    He just said it out loud. Now, he’s sort of apologizing, but it’s sorry-not-sorry, PR BS.

    “Mr Gurner is the chief executive and founder of Gurner Group and has an estimated worth of A$929 million (£479m; $598m).”

    “He has previously spoken about how loans from his grandfather and former boss helped him get his start as a business owner.”

    Construction. Family money to get started. Arse-hole. He ticks all of the boxes.

37. https://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/chrysler/2023/09/11/stellantis-uaw-talks-avoid-strike/70821950007/

    Dividends and share buybacks, meanwhile, have been a target of criticism from the union during its contract campaign. The union has proposed a new profit-sharing proposal that would provide each worker $2 for every $1 million spent on share buybacks, dividends and increases to regular dividends.

    “Instead of rewarding the workers who spent long hours wrecking their bodies on the line to make these profits possible,” Fain said during a Facebook livestream last month, “the Big Three have funneled billions into stock buybacks schemes that artificially inflate the value of company shares, and further enrich company executives and the top 1%. That’s billions of dollars that have been robbed from the workers who made these profits possible.”

    Financial engineering has destroyed the middle class.

38. NEW THREAD by Fearless Leader

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