Nelson Lichtenstein @NelsonLichtens1 Twitter profile

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

2 years

Time to retire "Fight for $15." Replace it with "Fight for $25 and a union."

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

3 years

I watched the Biden pro union video again and I was struck by his repeated attacks on employer intimidation. Not rote on his part but with emphasis! This is new, nothing like it before. Puts Obama to shame.

President Biden

@POTUS

3 years

Workers in Alabama – and all across America – are voting on whether to organize a union in their workplace. It’s a vitally important choice – one that should be made without intimidation or threats by employers. Every worker should have a free and fair choice to join a union.

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

2 years

Today a reporter asked me to name some union organizing drives NOT at Starbucks, Amazon, REI, or among graduate students and museum workers. Hospitals? Food processing? Help me out.

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

2 years

I just viewed a 20 minute segment of the Howard Schultz/Starbucks management pep talk cum anti-union directive. It takes place as Schultz once again takes over direct control of the company and the fight against unionization. Here are some takeaway points:

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

3 years

@POTUS Wow! Biden’s attack on employer intimidation was something new and bold for a president in our time. Bold, but can this be followed up with DOJ/NLRB action?

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

5 years

I have been a Warren suppprter for many months. But one thing must be asserted. From a wheelchair FDR presided over the greatest progressive transformation in American life since the Civil War. Bernie can do the same with a repaired heart.

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

4 years

I am tired of hearing both pundits and even many on the left argue that the votes are not in Congress to enact a Bernie/Warren agenda. If either wins a new dynamic will be in place. The 1964 Civil Rights Act was passed by the centrist Congress elected in 1962!

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

1 year

I am not a member of UAW local 2865, but as a labor historian I do know that such "two-tier" contracts subvert union solidarity. They are deadly and should be resisted, NOW, not in some future contact renegotiation.

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

2 years

6/For the union to win at Starbucks, more will be needed that even a string of NLRB election victories, inspiring as they may be. These wins need to be backstopped by massive public support, a set of short but disruptive work stoppages, and state action in support of the union.

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

2 years

5/Schultz is the classic example of a proprietary capitalist who sees any threat to his authority as a personal affront. He expects deference and applause which is why he has returned to take direct control of the anti-union effort.

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

1 year

The UAW has secured a large wage increase in its negotiations with UC. But the wage differential - amounting to more than $2,500 additional per year - at UCLA, Berkeley, and UCSF will create resentment and rancor for years if it is allowed to stand.

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

9 months

This strike is brilliant and deserves massive support from every progressive, in office or out,on the picket line or at the podium.

UAW

@UAW

9 months

On Strike at the Big Three. Stand Up Strike. Support the strikers. Grab a support graphic for your timeline. #StandUpUAW #OnStrike #StandUpStrike

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

4 years

Here are the demands of Riverside, CA Amazon workers in recent petition: Close warehouse for two weeks; give all workers full pay during shutdown; free testing; time and a half hazard pay; childcare subsidies; permanent sick leave; end write-ups based on productivity rates.

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

7 months

I have just read the entire Ford-UAW contract. The wage increases for temp workers are astounding. COLA will generate real wage increases. The language on unionized battery plants coming under the master Ford contract looks good but I would like to know more. In all: impressive!

soulsisterOG

@2blessed2nv

7 months

UAW FORD Hourly Contract Highlights

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

8 months

When President Biden visited striking UAW workers outside GM's Willow Run Redistribution Center in Wayne, Michigan he was talking to members of Local 174. This was the local organized by Walter Reuther and a cohort of Socialists, Communists, Social Gospel Christians 87 years ago.

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

7 months

This video is far more than an announcement of a substantial contract victory over Stellantis. It is an argument for - and demonstration of -the power of an emboldened working class to raise the living standard of millions and force corporations to reinvest in rust belt America.

UAW

@UAW

7 months

We have a tentative agreement at Stellantis. #StandUpUAW

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

2 years

1/ I published a biography of UAW leader Walter Reuther more than a quarter century ago, and it seems as if the emergence of COLA - Cost of Living Allowance - in the 1948 and subsequent UAW contracts has again become relevant. Read the biography or these quick historical notes.

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

3 years

Absolutely right ! One of the biggest New Deal mistakes was allowing states to run their own unemployment system with federal dollars. So guess who the white South screwed ?

American Unemployment Insurance Is a National Disgrace. It’s Time to Federalize It.

The slow, decades-long destruction of the US unemployment insurance system has resulted in more than just personal hardship for millions of workers — it has further weakened the fighting strength of...

jacobin.com

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

3 years

Did anyone see the big Amazon ad in NYTimes today bragging that they pay $15 an hour? Unionization is therefore not only a wage threat but a question of control of work regime. AMAZ rightly fears loss of managerial authoritarianism.

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

3 years

Biden's pro-union video has 1.4 million views. It needs 14 million more, for starters. It will be used in every union organizing campaign for the next four or eight years. The president's use of the phrase "anti-union propaganda" is powerful, negating so much corporate rhetoric

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

2 years

Mike Parker (1940-2022) died January 15. My friend for many decades, Mike was a founder of Labor Notes and a mentor to generations of union militants. He was a skilled worker in Detroit auto factories and later a very effective political activist in Richmond, CA.

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

3 years

When a handful of workers at Starbucks and Dollar General seek to unionize, corporate headquarters sends in top managers to stop it. The capitalists know how important a union is even if some workers do not.

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

3 years

Someone really tuned in to Alabama Amazon union struggle wrote Biden pro union statement. Emphasizes how unions are important to Black and Brown workers, the pandemic, and attacks intimidation by supervisors, not just top executives.

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

2 years

I have been reading the twitter posts on the large and spirited Labor Notes conference just concluded in Chicago. Mike Parker, who died earlier this year, helped found Labor Notes more than 40 years ago and continued to sustain it for many decades. He would be extremely pleased.

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

5 years

Amazon is now offering tours of its distribution centers. I just signed up - as tour leader - for an August 30 tour of the San Bernardino fulfillment center. Anyone who is interested, contact me. Historical analogy: touring a GM assembly plant circa 1935.

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

2 years

1/ Starbucks store managers are unreliable. The messaging was directed at these supervisors, urging them to take a vigorous role defending the company and denigrating Workers United. Such supervision is often pro-union, which is why Taft-Hartley excluded them from NLRA coverage.

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

4 years

Let’s expand post office functions: low fee banking, money transfers, e-mail service, a public social media.

Christopher W. Shaw

@chris_w_shaw

4 years

@JWMason1 . @deanbaker13 wrote this blurb: “Shaw does an impressive job documenting how the Postal Service has provided a wide range of public services, going well beyond delivering the mail, for more than two centuries. [...]

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

7 months

General Strike? Before the UAW victory at Ford and Stellantis, I would have thought this an IWW fantasy. But now…..

UAW

@UAW

7 months

We invite unions around the country to align your contract expirations with our own so that together we can begin to flex our collective muscles.

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

1 year

1/Members of the UAW - and that most definitely includes all of the UC grad students, postdocs, and academic researchers who have chosen to join - are eligible to vote for a new union president in balloting that begins January 12.

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

3 years

Re Union drive at Amazon in Birmingham: black Southern workers gave Biden the Dem nomination and won him Georgia. He should break a few norms and put the weight of his Admin. behind union, especially to stop intimidation of worker voters.

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

5 years

This is the moment the Bernie campaign should urge its own supporters and many, many others to join UAW picket lines and stop non union middle management and others from entering GM plant offices. We need to rewrite the labor law - in the streets.

Jane McAlevey

@rsgexp

5 years

I wrote a piece about the urgent need to stand with GM workers: Striking GM Workers Deserve Our Support via @thenation

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

2 years

3/Schultz outlined Starbucks strategy for defeating the union where it exists. Significant wage/benefit increases will go to all non-unionizing baristas, but where "negotiations" or union drives are taking place, no increases will be offered.

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

3 years

Yes. The most radical deunionization of any state in last decades combined with aging, white population creates conditions for big shift to right. Cultural conservatism was there since school textbook protests of 1970s. UMW and USW kept working class on left till they collapsed

Doug Henwood

@DougHenwood

3 years

Has anyone written on why West Virginia is the way is is politically?

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

2 years

2/ Starbucks wants store managers to make sure all possible workers vote. This does not reflect their democratic ethos, but is an effort to "pack" the vote role with baristas just technically working at the store and with workers otherwise marginal to the workplace.

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

4 years

David Plouffe, paid well by Uber and Facebook Foundations as PR man and lobbyist, is now on MSNBC as commentator on demonstrations. He should be disqualified until his employers agree to obey the law.

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

2 years

4/Starbucks will do neither and as it strings out negotiations with the hundred or so stores that have gone union, the company hopes the wage/benefit differential will become demoralizing to many newly unionized baristas.

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

3 years

The University of California just announced that it is adding 20,000 new students by 2030. This puts to shame Ivy League and other elite schools which have failed to expand, despite much public funding. In 85 years Harvard has merely doubled its undergrad enrollment.

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

3 years

Yes, a wave of militancy. But something so obvious it is hidden. All these strikes and mobilizations are among UNIONIZED workers. Organization is essential to manifest a public, visible, heightened consciousness. There are millions of others thinking about resistance but fearful.

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

2 years

3/This is legal and backed by NLRB and unions because otherwise employers would manipulate the union vote or bargaining through monetary bribes, but that assumes that real bargaining takes place and a real contract will be signed.

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

2 years

It is just amazing the amount of money and resources companies will spend to avoid unionization by just six workers in one store. Tells us something about the value of a union. The worker revolt comes to a Dollar General in Connecticut

The worker revolt comes to a Dollar General in Connecticut

Four Dollar General workers in Connecticut tried to unionize, setting off one of the most lopsided battles of the ongoing low-wage-worker revolt.

www.washingtonpost.com

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

3 years

This is a terrible idea. The AFL-CIO should insist that no state affiliates back such pseudo-sectoral bargaining laws.

Josh Eidelson

@josheidelson

3 years

Scoop: Gig firms & labor groups in NY are close to reaching agreement on specific legislative text of a deal to create a sectoral bargaining system without making drivers employees, according to people familiar Such compromise’s supporters now include TWU

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

4 years

Biden will win. It is not to early to start thinking about how the left can make sure there is no devastating political backlash, as in 1994 and 2010, after Democratic administrations spend two years fighting to put across their program. FDR won more HR seats in 1934!

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

2 years

I am writing a piece on all the "unionized" Starbucks that you can find in your local grocery store where the UFCW has a contract. They are franchises of Safeway etc and those employed are covered by the UFCW contract. Your assignment: ask one of these baristas what work is like.

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

3 years

The American working class is half women, multi-racial, and diverse in many other ways. That is fundamental to any use of the phrase "working-class" in contemporary U.S.

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

2 years

Workers at a Starbucks in Buffalo have voted 19-8 to form a union. Another store voted no, and at a third the vote count has not been announced. Despite the small numbers involved, and the fact that there are nearly 9,000 other Starbucks stores, this is headline news! Why?

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

5 years

Public school teachers are today the vanguard of the American working class. Here is a piece I have just put out on their fight in Los Angeles

L.A. Teachers Prepare to Strike - Dissent Magazine

LA teachers are preparing to strike this week. Here's what's at stake.

www.dissentmagazine.org

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

2 years

The AFL-CIO had a convention last week but the real meeting of the new working class is being held in Chicago at Labor Notes!

Noam Scheiber

@noamscheiber

2 years

The stage of the Labor Notes conference tonight is arguably the epicenter of the US labor movement--Chris Smalls, Michelle Eisen of Starbucks and Sean O'Brien of the Teamsters.

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

1 year

Here's my takedown of Rachael Maddow's recent political podcast: Ultra Violence via @DissentMag

Ultra Violence - Dissent Magazine

Rachel Maddow’s podcast tells the story of American Nazis in the 1940s. But the era’s real and lasting authoritarian danger came from the spectacular growth of a national security state.

www.dissentmagazine.org

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

9 months

Here Fain channels theme of Roy Rosensweig’s first book, Eight Hours for What We Will, about the struggle for leisure among industrial workers in the late 19th century. Then note the 1950s posters put out by Reuther era UAW when that union fought and won a private welfare state

Unite All Workers for Democracy (UAWD)

@UAWD_Reform

9 months

To the moon 🚀

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

3 years

The fact that Buckingham Palace has a Human Resources office, to which Meghan unsuccessfully appealed, strikes me as a decisive argument for abolishing the whole monarchical institution. Where’s the mystique and ancient romance?

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

2 years

This is remarkable. A forthright pro-union how-to on union building from the US government. And Howard Schultz was once Hillary Clinton’s choice for Secretary of Labor.

Lynn Rhinehart

@lynn_rhinehart

2 years

Look here! The first-ever Worker Organizing Resource and Knowledge Center, brought to you by the U.S. Department of Labor!

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

3 years

Re drive to unionize Amazon. In 1938 anti-chain store sentiment ran high with anti-monopoly voices calling for breakup of A&P etc. Unions and FDR liberals cut a deal: recognize unions in retail and we won’t break you up. Same deal would be good today with tough enforcement

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

4 years

I mistakenly forwarded on open letter by former leaders of SDS endorsing Biden for president. I’ll vote for Biden, but the tone and argument of that letter is all wrong. It implies that there is some infantile leftism abroad among DSA people who are reluctant to back Joe.

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

7 months

All, its in the contract, backed by the right to strike over plant closures. An historic advance for labor's capacity to guide corporate investment and disinvestment decisions.

sachi 🖤💚🤡😈

@xcorat

7 months

@NelsonLichtens1 @70sBachchan Serious question, how many of these jobs you think will still be around in 5yrs?

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

3 years

I have taken a tour. So? Wages are not the main issue, although still too low at $15 an hour. More important are shift schedules, speed-up, and authoritarian control. We need democracy at work!

Jay Carney

@JayCarney

3 years

2/2 Once again, we invite you to take a tour so you can see for yourself. And since there are 40m Americans earning less than Amazon’s starting wage, we ask you and your colleagues to please raise the federal minimum to $15 as well.

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

1 year

My piece on recent strike developments. The California academic strike is the most important in US higher education history | Nelson Lichtenstein

The California academic strike is the most important in US higher education history | Nelson...

The University of California is trying to divide and conquer the 48,000 workers on strike by acceding to the demands of some groups but not others

www.theguardian.com

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

2 years

Except for Social Security (!!), COLA hardly exists today at any company. If and when striking unions at UC win a big wage increase and combine this with a COLA agreement preventing its inflationary erosion, that would be a big victory. But COLA per se should not be fetishized.

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

5 years

I have just read a summary of the new contract won by UTLA in their historic strike. Their victory reverses decades of creeping austerity in urban America. And who led the way? A working class of heavily immigrant origins.

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

5 years

LA teachers have won their strike - more money and a limit on class size - but of even greater impact is the movement the UTLA created, both of educators and community!

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

8 months

Where are the parts distribution centers. Ontario in the LA area? Where else? I urge those of us who are student/researcher/faculty members of the UAW to join these PDC picket lines as a manifestation of our solidarity in this historic fight.

UAW Region 6

@uawregion6

8 months

Who is ready to #StandUp !? Four parts distribution centers in our Region will walk off the job at 12pm EST, 9am PST today. There is only one way we win this fight: together. #StandUpUAW #Region6StandUp

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

9 months

True...four more years for this NLRB and we'll ground in law and practice a far more pro-union set of procedures and opportunities. Not the revolution, but for unionists and progressives and even liberals who have forgotten the centrality of organized labor, something to value.

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

4 years

Join their study group.

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

5 years

Here is a New Yorker essay that summarizes recent work by Steven Greenhouse, Jake Rosenfeld, Emily Guendelsberger and myself. It is entitled State of the Unions and looks to a future of sectoral bargaining, Go here:

State of the Unions

What happened to America’s labor movement?

www.newyorker.com

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

4 years

Why do all politicians always meet and greet at these one of a kind family owned restaurants? They should be at McDonalds, Burger King etc where the working class eats and where wages and conditions are a disgrace.

The Hill

@thehill

4 years

Sen. Elizabeth Warren stops at Bertha’s Kitchen restaurant in Charleston, SC.

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

2 years

Rather the importance of the Starbucks victory is both ideological and political. First, all customer-facing retailers and chain restaurants, including Walmart, McDonalds, and Target, project an Orwellian communalism, an authoritarian work regime masked by a pseudo-populist ethos

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

4 years

The threat by Uber and Lyft to shut down operations in California has two historical precedents. The first is the "lockout" which has a long and ugly history in Anglo-American labor relations;

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

2 years

And it is likely that scores of other Starbucks shops, many in college towns, will petition the NLRB for union certification elections. Combined with all the publicity, this will shift the meaning of liberalism toward explicitly working class issues, a salutary development.

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

2 years

5/Joe Biden has many faults, but two cheers for him today. His invitation to publicly meet with union organizers in the White House is something genuinely new and may finally indicate that top Democrats know that a revived and radical union movement is essential to party success.

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

4 years

This piece really gets inside the exploitative business model of Lyft and Uber. The Future of the Gig Economy Is on the Ballot

The Future of the Gig Economy Is on the Ballot

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

www.thenation.com

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

3 years

via @NYTimes I was a TA for Charlie Sellers back in the Sixties. His “market revolution” idea was being taught to undergraduates long before he published about it. A sterling figure, not a Marxist, but an economic and social radical of the first order.

Charles Sellers, 98, Historian Who Upset the Postwar Consensus, Dies (Published 2021)

A Southerner who became a radical at Berkeley, he argued that democracy developed in America as a response to the emergence of industrial capitalism.

www.nytimes.com

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

9 months

I just watched Fain’s 37 minute presentation update on UAW negotiations. He often sounded like Bernie Sanders, but better because on September 14 Fain and the section of the working class he leads may well go on strike to make his rhetoric a reality.

UAW

@UAW

9 months

UAW President Shawn Fain Livestream Update 8-31-23

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

4 years

For years I use to show my classes a protest by white segregationist in which their signs equated integration with Comminism. But this picture is equally instructive.

David A. Bell

@DavidAvromBell

4 years

American exceptionalism.

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

8 months

UAW President Shawn Fain is an extraordinarily evocative and forceful speaker. Read what he has to say as well as that of President Biden. My President Joined a Picket Line

My President Joined a Picket Line

No matter what you think of Joe Biden, his decision to stand with UAW workers is historic. And it might just get him reelected.

www.thenation.com

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

3 years

These companion volumes from the University of Pennsylvania Press are essential reading at the dawn of the Biden era. Edited by Gary Gerstle, Romain Huret, Nelson Lichtenstein, Alice O'Connor, and Jean-Christian Vinel they offer readers 26 original essays, all radical in temper.

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

1 year

5/I am not a member of the UAW but I have studied the union for half a century. I urge a vote for Fain, whose election will help demonstrate that a new wind is blowing strong throughout the labor movement, among workers whose collars are blue, white, pink, and grey.

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

4 years

Who Should Say When a Workplace Is Safe? The Workers, That’s Who.

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

11 months

1/I briefly attended the UAW Region 6 (West Coast) summer school today. (Gave a talk on the history the region when auto and aerospace factories employed tens of thousands of UAW members, but no more)

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

3 years

Wow! Biden’s attack on employer intimidation of workers seeking to join a union is something new for a president since 30s. Needs DOJ/NLRB follow through

President Biden

@POTUS

3 years

Workers in Alabama – and all across America – are voting on whether to organize a union in their workplace. It’s a vitally important choice – one that should be made without intimidation or threats by employers. Every worker should have a free and fair choice to join a union.

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

2 years

Starbucks fired the entire Memphis organizing committee for talking to local TV reporters in their store. So SB is taking a hard line and the negative PR be damned. Can the company succeed in distinguishing its anti-unionism from racial disdain and discrimination? I doubt it.

Richard Bensinger

@RichBensinger1

2 years

Starbucks has fired the entire Memphis organizing committee for talking to local tv reporters in their store! These workers launched their campaign on MLK Day to honor his legacy! The corporation's assault on civil rights and worker rights will not prevail!

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

4 years

Doug is right! (Or rather left). Socialists should drop the redundant “democratic” because the democratization of power, property, and political participation has been at the core of the socialist project for two centuries. The Stalinists are gone.

Doug Henwood

@DougHenwood

4 years

I still can’t call myself a “democratic socialist.” Just a “socialist.” The adjective makes it sound defensive and apologetic. “I’m not a commie, really!” But what if I am?

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

3 years

My NYTimes piece on Biden and America’s anti monopoly tradition is now on line

Opinion | America’s 40-Year Experiment With Big Business Is Over (Published 2021)

President Biden's executive order restores our nation's great antimonopoly tradition.

www.nytimes.com

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

2 years

1/Microsoft president & Vice Chair Brad Smith today put out a statement on potential unionization that is somewhat different from that of other non-union companies.

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

4 years

Here is a piece that arose out of my longtime avocation as a supply chain tourist. Making History at Amazon via @DissentMag

Making History at Amazon - Dissent Magazine

If they can disrupt the supply chain, Amazon workers could transform an industry that constitutes one of the commanding heights of the twenty-first-century economy.

www.dissentmagazine.org

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

5 years

Virtually every Democrat and half the Republicans were waiting for an airport snarl/strike as an excuse to end gov shutdown. There will be no more gov shutdowns because now everyone knows that a worker sick-in would come even quicker next time.

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

4 years

Sorry, but I think the co-op idea, while well intentioned, is today a diversion of energy from the fight against the main enemy: giant corporations, big banks. The main task: double union membership and organize the commanding heights of economy, ie Amazon, Google, Walmart etc.

Joe Segal

@joesegal

4 years

@BernieSanders Yes and worker owned cooperatives are another way to raise wages and standards of living! It's everyone in the company being a partner and having a voice in their workplace. Thank you for supporting Unions all your life Bernie!

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

4 years

Some good news: Virginia, which historically had one of the lowest voting turnouts, for both black and white, has made Election Day a state holiday, rescinded many barriers to voting, and eliminated Lee-Jackson Day as holiday. Next step: get rid of right-to-work.

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

4 years

Not so. And nothing wrong with seeking to build an independent left formation that comes late to making a decision during the general election. Indeed, in this era of social upheaval the endorsement of Biden is not a high priority.

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

1 year

History is hardly a conservative discipline. Imagining a distant past gives one the tools to imagine a revolutionary future.

James Vernon

@James11Vernon

1 year

remarkable that among the most conservative of disciplines historians are often at the forefront of faculty activism in support of #UAWonStrike for #FairUCNow with great work by many including @sdfahrenthold @MuriamDavis @WendyMatsumura @NelsonLichtens1 @Simeon_Man @TobiasHigbie

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

2 years

At Walmart this often has a Christian flavor, at Starbucks something more collegiate hip. But the existence of a union of workers subverts this ideology by offering a contrary voice legitimized by the majority vote of the workers themselves.

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

4 years

In this Markey ad, note the subtle but tough attack on the Kennedy mystique at very end of ad: "With all due respect, ask what your country can do for you."

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

2 years

5/Most important, the Microsoft statement says that the company does "not believe that our employees or the company's other stakeholders benefit by resisting lawful employee efforts to participate in protected activities, including forming or joining a union."

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

7 months

UAW President Shawn Fain announcing the successful conclusion of the 45 day “stand-up strike.” “We learn from history, but we also make history!”

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

4 years

While you are awaiting election news here is something entirely different. On Saturday, while biking along a beautiful bike path I stupidly hit a pedestrian. He is Ok, but I broke two ribs and spent next two days in hospital because of collapsed lung. Out now and recovering well.

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

1 year

The rationale for the differential is shifting here. Yesterday it was all about the “top offs” at UCLA and UCB. Now it is cost of living. And from out of whose budget does UCSC $2.5k come?

UAW 4811

@uaw_4811

1 year

UCSF, UCLA, & UC Berkeley will see a $2,500/year higher base wage & UCSC will retain its $2,500 housing stipend. Given the higher cost of living at these campuses higher base pay creates greater equity in take home pay for workers.

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

2 years

They decisively won that ideological battle, so that today, as a new generation of working-class militants seek to organize, these unionists can make crystal clear that their fight is for true worker empowerment, not some management oriented version of shop/office cooperation.

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

4 years

To protect supply chain/retail workers here is what we need: Immediate half day shutdown of all stores and distribution centers in state or nation. Then thorough cleaning and distribution of PPE. Then election of health and safety committees with power to shut worksite if unsafe.

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

3 years

As Labor Day Approaches by Nelson Lichtenstein Marx once said that war is the locomotive of history, pushing forward at an accelerating rate social and economic trends already in the making. We might say the same thing about the war against COVID during the last 18 months.

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

2 years

1/Some people, among them the late Victor Reuther, thought or currently think that Walter Reuther, UAW President, 1946-70, was assassinated when he died in a fiery plane crash in May 1970.

Rob McKenzie @rbenmac.bsky.social

@rbenmac

2 years

A memo dated May 10, 1970, to the FBI Director Hoover from the Detroit FBI office concerning Walter Reuther is redacted in its entirety. Reuther died in a mysterious plane crash on May 10, 1970.

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

4 years

In France Amazon is conducting a “capital strike” after a judge, at a union’s urging, required the company to deliver only food and medical supplies in the interest of worker safety. Amazon shut down all of its French distribution centers. This puts nationalization on agenda.

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Nelson Lichtenstein

@NelsonLichtens1

2 years

More on Mike Parker: I knew him for 50 years, ever since he explained to me the meaning of the labor movement and how a new generation of workers - and students who became auto workers, or teamsters, or steel workers, or telephone people - could transform it.

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