Jonah Furman
@JonahFurman
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Communications Director at @UAW , and doing what I can to build a better labor movement. formerly of @labornotes , @berniesanders , @unitedteamsters , and more
Joined October 2019
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Last Seen Profiles
Chauvin is the 7th on-duty cop to be convicted of murder since 2005, out of around 15,000 police killings in that time.
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I tried the online therapy “better health” and ended up paying almost $700 and having a single “therapy” session that was the worst therapy experience of my life (I have had many). Now I keep getting ads for them, so this is me doing my part to forewarn others. Bad system!
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There it is. The Deere contract is ratified, and the strike is over.
10,000 UAW members turned down two contracts, killed a new tier, doubled their raises, improved pensions, won back COLA, and showed the country that you can still strike and win big.
What a righteous fight.
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Wow. Deere announced today that their salaried employees will be getting an across-the-board 8% wage increase.
This is what people mean when they say unions hold the line for the whole working class -- when strikers win against corporate America, everybody reaps the benefits.
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Long thread, but important: John Deere workers have reached out to me frustrated about media repeating company talking points that workers make 60-70k a year. One who's been there over a decade showed me what they made in 2020: Under $40k. So let’s talk about wages at John Deere.
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I really feel like people are not appreciating that Warren Buffet and his friends are shutting down the supply chain to force Congress to mandate 125,000 railroad workers go to work with no weekends or sick leave.
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NYC Amazon workers walk off the job after a COVID case is discovered at the warehouse.
This is how thousands fewer people get infected, this is solidarity.
Why lie
@amazon
? You canceled 9:00pm but had 10:15pm come to work! We have video. We saw it! We literally pulled people out of the warehouse for their safety and to keep you from risking the safety of our communities for your profits!
#WorldWideHazardPay
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John Deere strikers in Ottumwa, UAW Local 74, successfully convince a freight driver not to cross the picket line
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Over 22,000 US union members are now on strike:
10k @ Deere
3k @ Columbia U
2k @ Buffalo’s Mercy hospital
1.4k @ Kellogg’s
1.1k AL miners
1k WV hospital workers
800 Scranton educators
700 MA nurses
700 Kaiser engineers
500 OH steelworkers
450 WV steelworkers
300 NY Machinists
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Day 1: A non-union salaried worker just crashed a tractor inside the plant. Whoops!
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1) holy shit there's a union at Amazon
2) now is a time to listen and learn from what these workers pulled off, not just point at it and say it validates your prior take
3) the union movement needs to be trying many many many more things
4) gear up for an epic contract fight
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when
President Biden: “I’m going to create good-paying union jobs. Not $12 an hour, not $15 an hour, but $45 an hour and up with good benefits, so you can raise a family on and build the middle class out.”
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This is a type of capital strike. A court ordered Uber to recognize its drivers as employees (which confers certain basic rights), so Uber says they’re going to shut down.
We need economic democracy, not corporations exerting pressure on the state to extract concessions.
#BREAKING
Uber CEO says the company will likely shut down temporarily if a court decides to classify drivers as employees.
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huge industrial strike of 10,000 workers in the heartland at a Fortune 500 company is potentially less than 12 hours away and getting almost no national coverage
for all the fetishization of the midwestern white working class...
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Whatever else happens, it’s pretty amazing that 10,000 workers struck a Fortune 100 company and got an immediate 10% raise and saved the pension for all new hires.
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Do you guys ever think about how 100 years ago rail workers went on one of the biggest strikes in history, leading to the establishment of the Railway Labor Act to preserve labor peace and now we are staring down a national rail lockout because they won’t give workers days off
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When it’s workers striking John Deere it’s “the White House does not take sides in labor disputes”
When it’s teachers in Chicago it’s “get back to work”
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki going against
@CTULocal1
and urging in-person teaching in Chicago, claiming it’s safe.
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Marx famously advocated for 3.5 trillion dollars of social spending over 10 years
The $3.5 trillion Biden plan isn’t socialism, it’s marxism
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For those keeping track at home, John Deere has now:
- Refused to settle a fair contract
- Announced they're cutting healthcare for 10,000 strikers and families
- Withheld untold $$$ of back wages for strikers
- Gotten a bogus injunction against workers' right to picket
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On the first full day of John Deere using non-union workers to attempt to replace UAW members on the factory floor… didn’t even make it til 8am without a 911 call.
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And there it is.
10,000 UAW members at John Deere remain on strike.
Hold the line.
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Some stunning propaganda from The NY Times Daily podcast this morning.
Shorter version: asking for a raise is bad because it makes inflation worse. Taking a second job is good because it makes inflation better.
All individual choice, almost nothing on corporate profiteering
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Amazon suspends 50 workers for stopping work during a fire emergency, Starbucks fires their ~120th union leader for wearing a pin, Apple busts a union in NYC.
CEOs are openly running roughshod over federally-protected rights to form unions.
Who's going to stop them?
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The railroad companies are moving towards a LOCKOUT.
There is not a single worker on strike on the US rails right now.
There *are* CEOs shutting down rail lines and withholding goods to shock Congress into forcing a deal on 100,000 workers.
Emerging impacts of potential rail shutdown:
- Amtrak cancels long-distance trips
- Ammonia, fertilizer, ag products pulled from trains
- Price of ethanol, other products soars
- Grain shipments could stop tomorrow
“If rail shuts down, our entire agricultural system shuts down"
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there are just... *so* many potential strikes brewing:
60k film & tv workers
24k nurses at Kaiser in CA (700 building engineers are already out)
2000 telecom workers in CA
2000 nurses in Buffalo
600 group home workers in CT
Beaumont TX bus drivers
grad students in IL, NY, MA
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Next year, 300,000 Teamsters at UPS will likely strike for a fair contract.
The last time they struck, UPS begged Bill Clinton to intervene for the company. He didn’t, and workers won historic gains.
What Biden does on the railroads is a test. Millions of workers are watching.
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Full sellout from the White House for the majority of rail workers who rejected the deal the President brokered, preemptively denying them the right to strike.
This was the “which side are you on?” moment, and the White House chose the railroad bosses.
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One rail worker’s anonymous take:
“It's a garbage deal. Everyone hates it so far. It does nothing for me. I'll vote no. This has been a complete waste of time.”
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The people at the front should drive imo
An aerial view of the drivers who have been stuck on I-95 in Virginia since Monday afternoon, with complaints of little food and water
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I'm trying to confirm this (as are many Deere workers), but it sounds like Deere is planning to NOT pay out quarterly "CIPP" payments to workers on strike.
These aren't bonuses, they're deferred wages for work already performed. If true, it's wage theft on the scale of millions.
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A Deere strike captain sent me this photo, with the caption:
"This is how Deere's security has been transporting people in and out"
Presumably this is because people are scared to show their face while undermining the strike. Dystopian.
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10,000 John Deere UAW workers set to strike tonight at midnight.
60,000 film and TV IATSE workers set to strike on Monday
37,000 Kaiser workers have authorized, close behind.
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Members are telling me that a UAW Deere striker was killed by a vehicle on the picket line this morning in Milan, IL.
Will share more details when I have them, and any fund to support the family.
RIP.
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The truckers' strike that Tucker Carlson isn't going to put on his TV show!
NEW: Striking concrete workers in Seattle have shut down the city’s $23 billion construction industry.
The
@teamsters
are fighting for higher wages & better health benefits for retirees.
34 workers walked out in November. Now 300+ workers at 6 companies are on a general strike.
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For anyone just catching up on the 10,000 worker UAW strike at John Deere -- the largest strike in the US in two years -- here's how you can get up to speed, based on what I've written for
@labornotes
:
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Remember how we said it would *appear* to be extremely close on election night --
but there would be enough late-counting ballots to solidify the Dem lead --
but the GOP strategy would hinge on somehow stopping the late count?
that is what's happening. you are ready for this.
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Wow. Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont is calling in the National Guard to break strikes among 5,000 group home and nursing home workers. Unbelievable.
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From a salary worker @ Deere:
"The Deere "strikebreakers" are currently ~650 salary employees pulled from engineering & mgmt positions across Deere. Note: I say "Strikebreakers" because I can guarantee that with our lack of skill and numbers, we will not be breaking the strike."
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Assuming this 14% holds across the whole Kroger workforce, that's around 65,000 people working at the fourth-largest private employer in the US -- ranked 17th on the Fortune 500 -- who've been homeless while keeping the country's grocery stores running, in a pandemic.
this new survey of Kroger workers is brutal: 14% of respondents have been homeless in the past year, 34% say they skip or reduce meals, 36% say they're worried about getting evicted
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What Congress just did is make a rail strike illegal. They didn't make it impossible. From what I've seen, I wouldn't bet on a wildcat, but I wouldn't have bet on an illegal statewide West Virginia teachers sparking a national strike wave in 2018, either.
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Probably the hardest working class meme I’ve ever seen. God willing, there will come a day when the people who’ve been treated this way will have their reckoning.
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I lost my sons croc on a 1 mile walk in the Forest Glen area of Silver Spring MD yesterday. He demands its return. I’m envisioning a viral tweet thing where somehow we find it. Thank you
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Wow. Deere just announced a 180:
They will be providing earned wages under the CIPP quota pay system
And they will continue to provide healthcare to striking workers, reversing a move to cut folks off on October 27th.
I guess they're feeling the pressure!
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John Deere is cutting off 10,000 workers (and their families') health insurance on October 27th. They could just as easily *not* do this, but they want to break the strike.
Also: Congress let COBRA subsidies expire on October 1, putting workers on the hook for thousands of $$$.
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Absolutely massive. Thousands of grocery workers in Columbus, Ohio have authorized a strike after rejecting two consecutive tentative agreements.
If they walk, it’ll be their first strike in decades.
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the elephant in the room re Sinema is that a primary is insufficient leverage over her. when politicians have a corporate golden parachute once they're out, strictly political pressure isn't enough. political democracy without economic democracy has its limits, and we've hit one.
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This is insane. UPS has drivers delivering packages in a mandatory hurricane evacuation zone in Florida.
These workers should be given time to prepare for the storm and get out of town, not delivering boxes that are going to get washed away.
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DSA won 28 of 37 national races, 8 of 9 major ballot initiatives ranging— on rent control, living wage, tax the rich, carbon emissions, supporting schools—all written and organized by chapters. We now have democratic socialist caucuses in 14 statehouses including Montana.
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Wow. The United Mine Workers of America are coming out in favor of a just transition program.
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In the event of a pandemic-triggered recession, do you want:
Donald Trump [*lies about crisis, funnels $ to Wall St*]
Joe Biden [*speechifies about crisis, funnels $ to Wall St*]
Bernie Sanders [*implements universal healthcare and paid sick leave*]
This is real. Choose.
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If you want a taste of how rail members are reacting to the news of a deal, here’s the BMWE Facebook comments section
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What’s that? General Motors, Stellantis, AND Ford have just posted huge, record-breaking profits?? And 150,000 autoworkers are still living like it’s the Great Recession??? Seems messed up! I wonder if there’s some kind of major deadline coming up in 7 weeks to address this
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Just thinking about the judge’s injunction against the UAW picketing at the Deere plant in Davenport, Iowa says:
“The injuries to Deere outweigh the relative hardship to the Union and members"
With judges like these, who needs greedy CEOs?
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All I would ask is that people wait until rail workers have seen details of the deal before praising the administration.
A PR cycle saying “it’s over, workers won!” Is not helpful if rail workers can’t live with the actual agreement, reject it, and want to strike.
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So why does our healthcare system?
.
@JoeBiden
- “The coronavirus does not discriminate based on national origin, race, gender, or zip code”
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If no agreement is reached by Wednesday at 11:59pm, 10,000 John Deere workers will be on strike, says the UAW.
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It is exceedingly rare in the US for the White House to have direct control over union negotiations. This one was a layup. Put forward a bill to include paid sick days. Costs the rail carriers a fraction of their insane profits. Improves freight rail service. And Biden refuses.
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OK I already retweeted this but you have to watch it. These are real fucking people, in the fight for their lives, holding the line for everybody who works for a living. Watch it. And do what you can to help them hold the line.
NEW: Striking John Deere workers are furious about the company’s contract offer which would give them only a $2-3 raise over 3 years.
Deere’s CEO made $15.6 million in 2020 — a 160% raise.
“John Deere made billions and threw us peanut shells...We’re supposed to scoop them up?”
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For context on just how rapidly these Starbucks stores are unionizing, the most actively organizing sector in 2021 was cannabis workers in Illinois: 13 IL weed workplaces filed for a vote in 2021.
Meanwhile, 6 Starbucks stores have filed for elections in the past two weeks.
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fuck it, go see if 30% of your coworkers will sign a piece of paper saying they want a union and then fill out this form
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Multiple people have now told me they think Deere has altered the stoplights in Ankeny, IA to make it harder for picketers.
This is exactly what Amazon did in Alabama, and is a really gross example of corporations using local governments as their personal fiefdoms.
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Employees at marketing firm
@postcardmania
in Clearwater, Florida are not only being asked to work through the hurricane, but are being told to *bring their kids and pets to stay at work overnight* so as to "continue to service our National clients."
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They’re not just thinking about doing it, they’ve already started doing it. Norfolk Southern has already announced planned “embargos” on intermodal and automotive cargo even though it’s supposed to be a “cooling off period”
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FOLKS, we got the croc.
Major shout out to Walter for the find, and for recognizing it from his MSN home page (?)
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Don't miss the forest for the trees. These workers make about $20 an hour for a CEO that makes $7,000 an hour, building machines that sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars, for a company that's profiting close to $6 billion *this year*. Deere can afford it, & workers need it.
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Trader Joe's workers just voted 55-5 to unionize in Minneapolis, the second of the chain's 530 stores to vote to do so.
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Cannot possibly overemphasize the impact the PRO Act would have. It could double union membership in a matter of years. That means millions more workers organized to fight back.
*that’s* how you win Medicare for all, win the Green New Deal, tax the rich, and build real power
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"Three dozen" workers showed up to a protest at Boeing in Auburn, WA. The company employs over 5,000 workers at that location.
But I guess that's what counts for a rebellion these days?
Meanwhile, 15,000 workers are on strike across the country for wages and working conditions.
From Boeing to Mercedes, a U.S. worker rebellion swells over vaccine mandates
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The opposite of a just transition.
General Motors just told the UAW local in Spring Hill, TN that as they switch to building electric cars at the plant, they plan to move all engine assembly work to a subcontractor, w/ lower wages and benefits.
Greenwashing union busting.
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For the second presidential election in a row, Bernie Sanders appears to be campaigning for the Democratic nominee harder than the Democratic nominee appears to be campaigning for the Democratic nominee.
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This! This is the most damning thing. The entire rail union strategy was “wait til the Democrats are in charge, they’ll get us a good deal.” And then the Democrats came up with a deal that 80% of rail workers can’t live with. And now there’s nowhere left to go but the picket line
A lot of people calling on the Biden admin to step in, but needs to be stated that Biden already stepped in 2 months ago by appointing a Presidential Emergency Board, which totally dropped the ball, issuing recommendations more beneficial to the rail carriers than to the unions.
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Deere and the UAW leaders said 5% and no new pensions was acceptable? And the members overwhelmingly said it was not.
And then they struck and doubled the offer. If workers fight back together, you can win a battle against corporate America.
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First reactions via text from rail workers:
“He’s a dick head”
“Fucking loser”
“RIP Democrats”
And the Dems wonder why they’re losing the white working class
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Something we hinted at here but didn’t fully articulate:
The rejection of two-tier contracts across industries — Deere, Kellogg’s, Kaiser — is a sign that the US union movement may finally be moving out of its neoliberal-era defensive crouch.
The John Deere strike shows the tight labor market is ready to pop by
@JonahFurman
,
@gabrielwinant
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First of all, the pandemic caused layoffs, for which workers were not paid by Deere. Layoffs even in normal times are not uncommon. Deere’s “$60k/year” figure is based on working 2200 hours; that’s over 42 hours per week for 52 weeks in a year.
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All I can say is the night of November 3rd is going to be pure chaos. Trump & Pete both claiming victory before midnight... we need to be ready for this.
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0) it's not real
1) we tried and failed
2) we have formed a committee
3) it's your fault
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Wow. The BMWE, the third-largest rail union, has rejected the railroad companies tentative agreement by 56%, and set an earliest possible strike date of November 19th. Huge.
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It’s wild to see eugenicism and basic “gene pool over liberal human rights” proto-Nazism get Silicon Valley rebranded as “longtermism.”
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People need to understand that we’ve reached this point in rail bargaining because of a failed union strategy to rely entirely on Democratic Party leadership to get a deal, and to avoid anything that could threaten that strategy, from progressive legislation to going on strike
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“Words cannot express how fucking livid I am at this administration… Biden prides himself on how he cared for his family after tragedy. I could never do that because the people in power, LIKE HIM, would rather screw workers than stand up to fucking robber barons.”
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If you're a reporter with access to the White House or Press Secretary Jen Psaki, now is a great time to ask why *specifically* the administration says they won't weigh in on strikes when it's in the public interest to reduce income inequality and corporate overreach.
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8.5% inflation throws a serious wrench in union negotiations. A pretty standard demand is a 3% raise; when Deere workers won 10% in the first year, it seemed monumental. If anything less than 8.5% is a pay cut, shit is about to get a lot more contentious at the bargaining table.
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Tons of people have asked me how they can contribute financially to the Deere strike. Just spoke to a local leader who basically said the most useful thing you can do is order meals and supplies directly to the picket lines.
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Another anonymous railroad worker’s take:
“The PEB screwed us… those were Biden’s guys. He had the ability to appoint whoever…and he chose the 70 year old men who have no idea what the rank and file go through”
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17 million views on TikTok.
There are 14 million union members in the US.
Starbucks fired an
@SBWorkersUnited
union leader in Buffalo.
The whole store walked out in protest.
This video has over 17 million views on TikTok.
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Thinking about how my great grandfather, a Jewish socialist from Berlin, moved to the US after the Holocaust and then *moved back to Germany* a few years later because this country was too fucked up
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I've heard that multiple Deere locals are planning a massive show of force tomorrow, with hundreds of picketers showing up all at once (as opposed to the smaller shifts of pickets that keep the line going 24/7).
Would be a beautiful thing to see, a picket line of thousands.
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how do i get people to appreciate the fact that despite a lot of headlines to the contrary, we are 8 days from a potential national rail strike
Considering September 29th is in 8 days, it is worth appreciating that the Machinists *do not* have a new tentative agreement and their September 29th potential strike date is still in effect.
The last national rail shutdown started with a Machinists strike at CSX in 1992...
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Holy shit. Local 600, the largest UAW Local, voted 69% in favor of "one member, one vote."
A "slap in the face" from "ground zero of the Administration Caucus," (who campaigned against one member, one vote) according to one activist I spoke to.
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"If, God forbid, this strike goes on long enough for the next build cycle of combines to start (November 1 or 15, can't remember) it will be a horror show. All of the skilled welder, machinists, and assemblers who normally make these half-million dollar machines will be gone..."
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