What Workers Can Learn From “the Largest Lockout in U.S. History”
NB: All those who had forgotten about working class movements and workers rights, may please consider this: what just happened in the US was a lock-out called by the highest executive official in the country - all to blackmail his own political system. Millions of people - workers and their families were made to pay the cost of this rascal's egotistical blackmailing tactics - and they will continue to pay, since the interest on debts will not be reimbursed by the employer. DS
An interview with Sara
Nelson, the US flight attendant union head who called this week for a general
strike. Flight attendants work
for airlines, and so they have, of course, been getting paid for the past five
weeks, setting them apart from airport colleagues like TSA screeners, air
traffic controllers, and customs agents. But it was Sara Nelson, the head of
the flight attendants’ union, who made the most forceful call for worker
solidarity in the face of the shutdown. At an award dinner on Sunday, she
called on the labor movement at large to stand up for federal workers:
Some would say the
answer is for them to walk off the job. I say, “What are you willing to do?”
Their destiny is tied up with our destiny—and they don’t even
have time to ask us for help. Don’t wait for an invitation. Get engaged, join
or plan a rally, get on a picket line, organize sit-ins at lawmakers’ offices. Nelson asked AFL-CIO
leaders to talk to their locals about a general strike - a tactic that hasn’t
been tried in the United States for more than 70 years. Then again,
it’s been longer than that (never) since the federal government was closed for
five weeks.
On Friday afternoon, I
spoke to Nelson about why she spoke up, what needs to change, and how this
dismal 35-day stretch can serve as a catalyst for a resurgent American labor
movement. Our conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Henry Grabar: I
guess the government’s up and running again, so that’s good news.
Sara Nelson: It’s good news that a million people that have
been locked out of work with no paychecks are going to get paid, back-paid, and
hopefully have a chance to put their lives back together. We’re going to be
working very hard to make sure this never happens again because they should
have never been put in the crosshairs here.
Flight attendants
have been getting paid, because you’re private-sector employees. Where does the
sense of solidarity with federal workers in aviation come from, for you or for
your members?
Our country doesn’t
run without the federal workers who make it run, and there’s no industry where
that’s more evident than the airline industry, where our private airlines work
in tandem with the federal agencies. One really doesn’t work without the other. My comments were fully
rooted in the workers that I represent. As we saw this morning, when capacity
was pulled down and planes were stuck, it’s a very quick unraveling of flight
attendant, pilot, mechanic, customer service jobs. Everyone’s jobs were on the
line and that includes the people I directly represent.
Federal workers are
not allowed to strike or participate in any kind of sickout. Did you speak to
anyone from those groups about what it was like to work without pay and be
prohibited from taking any kind of concerted labor action to protest those
conditions?
It was incredibly
frustrating. What we heard from all over the country was, “They could end this.
Why are they staying on the job? We did away with slavery with the 13th Amendment.”
There was a lot of confusion about how this could even take place. No other
country in the world would put up with this. They felt really
stuck. Don’t forget, if they struck, they were putting it all on the line. Not
only were they sacrificing potentially their health care, their pensions, the
right to ever work for the federal government again, but they could be
prosecuted for striking. That’s how fundamentally they are not able to take
action when there is such an egregious act against them. That’s outrageous and
that’s something that has to change.
Do you think the
legacy of the air traffic controllers strike under Reagan was something people
were thinking about?
Of course that’s
something people were thinking about. There were strikers in 1981 who were
indicted. There’s history here that people were
following. Reagan made that a really popular move in the private sector as
well, and that’s when the right to strike was diminished in this country, and
when labor rights and labor membership hit a steady decline. Are we better off
for it? I think what we’re seeing, with the teachers strikes, the hotel workers
who took on Marriott and won, is that people are not willing to put up with it
anymore. People are willing to do more to fight for their families because they
have been pushed so far, and there has been so much productivity put on the
backs of the American worker without any increases in wages... read more:
https://slate.com/business/2019/01/sara-nelson-flight-attendant-union-strik-tsa-shutdown.html
