Hello, friends, we made it to September! This is a longer read, so thanks for hanging in there.
In the U.S., this weekend is extended through Monday as a result of the federal recognition of workers via Labor Day. In addition to picnics, shopping, county fairs, and last-chance vacations with kids heading back to school soon, it’s worth considering some of the stories of organized labor that made all those things possible.
The resonance of those stories in today’s economy is huge.
Since it is harvest time in much of the northern hemisphere, here’s a relevant one: the United Farm Workers’ Association, founded by Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez.
Much of our food supply grown in the U.S. is tended, harvested, and processed by folks who are on the lowest rungs of economic reward and power. From enslaved labor, through share-cropping, tenant farming, and the use of undocumented immigrants, this workforce has been subjected to some of the worst conditions imaginable. Starting in the 1960s, Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta took on the power structure in California, organizing farm workers to achieve such things as: the right to breaks in the workday, the right to clean drinking water available in the fields, and the right not to be sprayed with the poisonous pesticides used at the time. These accomplishments took years, and require ongoing fights to maintain progress.
As I watched the documentary/biographical film “Dolores” (see info after the photo), I was struck by the parallels with today’s attempts to organize workers at giant corporations like Starbucks and Amazon. Case in point: the language used by corporate PR messages today eerily echoes the words used by the growers in the 1960s and 70s about their farmworkers.
Then, growers who treated their workers as interchangeable machine parts insisted publicly that they had “good relationships,” that the workers were content and happy until “outside agitators” came along to “cause trouble.” They attacked Huerta personally, based on her status as a divorced mother of (eventually) eleven children. She could not possibly represent anything good, given her “poor character.”
Now, corporate PR from Starbucks and Amazon and other companies where workers try to organize use those same tropes. Starbucks insists it can solve problems directly with its workers, without “third parties” (https://one.starbucks.com/). Yet it stands accused of using classic (and illegal) union-busting tactics like closing stores and moving employees (see sources after the photo). Amazon follows a similar playbook, stating it “empowers employees” to solve problems directly and quickly (https://www.theverge.com/2022/4/20/23033881/amazon-ceo-andy-jassy-union-coments-elections-all-hands), while tying up union elections in an onslaught of lawsuits and calling the police on their own employees (more sources after the photo). Both companies try to make employees afraid of representation and collective bargaining by claiming that a single individual has a more effective voice than the group - which is absurd on the face of it.
Now, as then, the powerful position themselves as the caretakers of the less powerful, all while using intimidation, aggression, and even violence to ensure they keep those positions intact.
This circles us back to a theme of these writings: the world view that puts a small group of powerful people at the “top” of the social pyramid, their very wealth and power presented as a sign of their deserving status. These are the people who should be in charge of the rest of us. Whether chosen by a deity, designated by hereditary lines, race, or religion, or singled out by their ability to amass a large fortune, they consider themselves entitled to rule others. And to profit from the labor of the masses.
Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez knew this world view needed to be overturned, and they started in the fields of lettuce and grapes in California. They saw how the growers really treated those workers they claimed to care for. The folks working to organize at Starbucks and Amazon know it, too. They are part of the shift to a different view of our world and our neighbors: that value comes from labor, that each worker is a human deserving of participating in the value their labor generates, that self-determination and bodily autonomy are as essential in the fields, the warehouse floors, and the coffee bars as in the halls of power.
The work of the labor movement is the work of social justice. Unions are human organizations, and even as they have accomplished so much (40 hour work weeks, end of child labor, health insurance, unemployment support, and more), many have failed spectacularly at upholding the principles of equity, inclusion, and integrity.
But organizing workers to ensure basic health, respect, and dignity in their working conditions is an essential part of our path forward. On this Labor Day, let’s rededicate ourselves to uplifting the worker, and overturning the old-fashioned, destructive hierarchies of power that keep workers “in their place.”
As always, I am so grateful for your company.
Resources:
“Dolores” (Documentary, 2017): available on PBS https://www.pbs.org/video/dolores-jhnajm/
Info on Starbucks’ anti-labor activity:
https://www.newyorker.com/news/dispatch/the-upstart-union-challenging-starbucks
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/starbucks-asks-labor-board-to-temporarily-halt-union-votes
Info on Amazon’s anti-labor activity:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/09/01/amazon-union-victory/