Union power reflects class power

Moments of crises for the capitalist class always reveals (to borrow a phrase from billionaire Warren Buffet) who is wearing shorts and who is bare. Right now, this is one of the least talented cohort of corporate C suite cronies in the history of modern American capitalism. 

Every Big 3 automaker CEO called on to defend their companies on TV looked like vampires from a gothic castle hauled out into the light of day to face an angry mob of villagers. 

They were clearly not expecting to be held accountable for their lack of respect for the UAW workers and their unconscionable greed and deceit. 

X CEO Elon Musk has done a speed run to the bottom of the competency ratings to underscore that our overlords are not in the ubermensch class. They just have too much money to care what we think of them.

They are not an impressive lot. Their nemesis, UAW president Shawn Fain, is a man with moral gravity and steely commitment. He is a far more impressive human being than any of the soulless MBA money hustlers he is up against. Fain can quote scripture effortlessly and then pivot to talking macro-economics in plain English.

On the WGA/SAG-AFTRA strike front, the MPAA has agreed to a tentative contract agreement with the WGA. The motivation for this settlement is largely strategic. 

The studio executives do know that they’ve lost the PR battle. They are most likely attempting to settle with the WGA because they are the smaller and less powerful union that they can easily afford to buy off.

The MPAA is California dreaming if they think that the writers are going to scab on the much larger 140,000+ SAG-AFTRA union’s strike. Who would they be writing for? 

They both know that the Wall Street money men who run these studios regard them as theater kid losers who will do anything to be in the game. The execs assume that the competitive pressure in the American cultural DNA will drive wannabe writers, actors and actresses to prostitute themselves out or betray their friends to get in an A list film. 

These apex predators of the entertainment sector at the top of these great towers of accumulated capital take for granted that writers will do what they would do: sell out the actors for the money. They bet wrong this time. The quickest route to permanent cancellation in Hollywood is to scab out for the studio heads. 

On the local level, the Cultural Workers United union negotiations have apparently stalled out. It looks like the union-busters have advised the management to play legal rope-a-dope on a loop until all the core union members find other jobs and the whole memory evaporates. 

The most active and militant union campaign in town, UNITE-HERE Local 2 at the Fairmont Hotel, representing hotel staff has turned up the pressure by filing a request to the NLRB for a fair election process. 

I sent a copy of the last edition of Progressive Majority Coalition in which I reported on the new NLRB rules to Local 2 communications director Ted Waechter. He replied that he wanted to be clear that the local was not invoking the new Joy Silk Manufacturing case rule at the Fairmont. I responded that I was aware of that, as reflected in the text. 

I am simply invoking the freedom I have as an unpaid newspaper columnist and amateur broadcaster to make bold recommendations without having to run it by anyone for approval.

Ted Waechter has an open invitation to do a 15m phone interview segment on my KSVY program Deconstructing Media every Wednesday 3-4pm. I’ll report back on any updates. We have a lot more hope for progress now than at the beginning of Hot Labor Summer. This is a great time to be alive.