By Mike Koetting October 22,2024
Well…I am tired of the election. I don’t think I have anything more to say about it until it actually happens. Anyone reading this knows what I think. None of us have a clue how it’s going to end. Neither do all the pundits, who at least get paid for making up the same stuff that I would. We’ll just have to see.
On the other hand, it’s hard to talk about anything else. It’s like trying to have a conversation on the side of the runway while three dozen Boeing 737s are taking off, with of course, the possibility that one will crash.
Nevertheless, I am going to talk about something else—the longshoremen’s strike that streaked across the American consciousness and is already forgotten because it turned into a non-event. Before I get into the main part of that discussion, I can’t keep myself from making one election related point: the longshoremen got a huge raise because they had a strong union and because the White House weighed in as a real, working ally. In office, Trump did everything he could to undercut unions. And, while he was full of bluster about what he would do for workers, he never delivered squat, particularly in comparison to what Biden and the Democrats have delivered. Any argument by union members for backing Trump for economic reasons are wildly suspect. I have argued elsewhere that there are real economic issues in the society and that the current economic successes don’t scratch all the valid itches. But still, if you’re a union guy and you say you support Trump for economic reasons, you’re either lying or are deluded about what can possibly be accomplished by policy. (A recent book by Lainey Newman and Theda Skocpol, who was one of my mentors in graduate school, argues that what has so badly eroded Democratic support from labor is that the weakening and dispersion of American manufacturing has not only depleted union membership but more fundamentally destroyed the sense of working-class culture that was important in creating union solidarity. This surely contributes to the confusion as to who is really on their side.)
Continue reading “The Short Happy Strike of the Longshoremen”
Between Hell and High Water 