0:00

I'm the American Shipbuilding Company

0:02

petitioner versus

0:04

National Labor Relations Board.

0:08

Hey, everyone.

0:11

This is Leon from Fiasco and Prologue

0:13

Projects. On this episode of 5 to 4,

0:16

the hosts are talking about American Shipbuilding

0:19

Company, the National Labor Relations

0:21

Board. At issue in this 1965

0:24

case was weather management's decision to

0:26

temporarily shut down operations and

0:28

lay off employees in order to pressure the union,

0:31

infringed on the union's federally protected

0:33

right to strike. The union argued

0:36

that the maneuver was illegal under the National

0:38

Labor Relations Act. Well, I think one

0:40

of the basic purposes of

0:41

the act was to equalize

0:44

the bargaining power of employees and

0:47

employers. And one of the

0:50

basic ways in which Congress sought

0:52

to do that was to safeguard

0:55

the right to strike. Now, what I'd like to

0:57

show is the very

0:59

serious consequences

1:01

that a bargaining lockout

1:04

has on the right of employees

1:07

to strike. The court responded with a

1:09

decision that marked the beginning of a steady

1:11

erosion of

1:11

union protections in the US. This

1:14

is 5 to 4, a podcast about how

1:17

much the Supreme

1:17

Court sucks. Welcome to 5

1:20

to 4, where we dissect and analyze the

1:23

Supreme Court cases that are destroying our rights like a middle-aged

1:25

man in Oakley's destroying a pride display at Target.

1:27

Mm-hmm. Peter,

1:30

I'm here with Rhiannon. Hey, you know,

1:32

the accessories, they got to be tactical

1:34

because I'm rolling up in

1:35

the Target and I'm taking down some babies' t-shirts.

1:39

That's right. Got to stay frosty. Watch

1:41

your six.

1:43

Tactical and tactical. Watch

1:45

your six. Tactical

1:48

entry into Target before

1:51

I knock over a rainbow-colored

1:53

piece of cardboard. Yeah, and yell at a

1:56

17-year-old employee. You have

1:58

to have the right gear. Absolutely. Absolutely.

2:00

Michael, not with us today.

2:02

He's at a wedding in Alaska?

2:05

Yeah,

2:06

gallivanting. Absolute bullshit. Gallivanting

2:09

around the country. Oh, I'm going to go whale

2:11

watching and go to a wedding. Unacceptable.

2:14

We don't like it. We don't like it. We don't

2:16

support it. He will not be paid for this episode.

2:20

Yeah, we should have brought in a scab. Speaking

2:24

of getting paid. Speaking

2:27

of getting paid, we've decided to move

2:31

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2:33

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2:35

slash five four pod up to the top of

2:37

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2:38

We used to put it in the bottom, which we thought made

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us seem a little less grubby, but

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who cares? No, I think we just want

2:46

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support. You can link

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subscription options at Apple

3:13

and Spotify.

3:13

Yeah, we got some good

3:16

shit coming up. Episode on the illegal landscape

3:19

of trans rights about to drop in

3:20

a couple of days. Yeah. With

3:23

Aaron Reid. All right. Today's

3:26

case, American Shipbuilding

3:28

v. National Labor Relations Board. This

3:31

is a case from 1965 about

3:35

unions and specifically about

3:37

what employers are allowed to

3:39

do to break or

3:41

preempt strikes. Yeah.

3:43

American Shipbuilding Company was

3:46

engaged in negotiations for a new contract

3:48

with its unions and they were at

3:50

an impasse.

3:52

And so they used a time

3:54

honored strike thwarting

3:56

tactic, the lockout.

3:59

They temporarily shut down. down operations

4:01

and laid off employees in

4:03

some of their locations. So

4:06

just to give a little bit of clarity on what exactly

4:09

a lockout is and how it functions

4:11

in practice. You can think

4:13

of a lockout as a reverse strike,

4:16

right? It's a work stoppage just like a strike

4:18

is, but it's being implemented

4:21

by the employer,

4:23

which sort of leads to the question of like, well,

4:25

why is this a big deal for

4:27

the union, especially if they were maybe going

4:29

to strike anyway? And I think

4:32

the answer to that is a little bit

4:34

nuanced, but basically when unions

4:36

strike,

4:38

they prepare for it. Part

4:40

of that preparation means timing

4:42

the strike for when it would be advantageous

4:45

for the union and a little bit harder

4:47

on the employer. And another part

4:49

of it is that they prepare their workers. Workers

4:52

will decide whether they want to strike.

4:55

And that means whether they can financially

4:57

withstand a strike, right? A

5:00

strike for most workers is going to mean

5:02

that you are not getting paid. And

5:05

that means that it's a serious decision

5:08

for any given worker.

5:10

And what lockouts allow

5:12

employers to do is

5:14

play that to their advantage. They

5:17

get to take the choice away from employees.

5:20

They get to take the choice away

5:22

from the union and lock them

5:24

out

5:25

when the union and the workers are unprepared,

5:28

right? And so that's sort of the difference.

5:30

It's at the end of the day, very

5:32

similar in broad strokes,

5:34

but the function of it is an attack on

5:37

the union, just like the function of the

5:39

strike is an economic attack on

5:41

the employer. That's right.

5:43

And the reason that lockouts

5:45

are so controversial, even though

5:48

they are

5:49

essentially similar to a strike

5:51

at the end of the day, is because

5:53

there's this power imbalance between

5:56

workers and management. Every

5:58

day of law enforcement,

5:59

wages is super meaningful

6:02

to a worker who is literally putting

6:04

food on the table. Right? That is almost

6:07

never the case when we're talking about

6:09

management who's just missing out

6:11

on profit. So what a lockout

6:14

is doing is taking the imbalance of power

6:16

between management and labor and

6:18

weaponizing it against the workers.

6:20

There is no dispute that the only

6:23

reason they did this was as a

6:25

bargaining tactic to apply pressure

6:27

to the union.

6:28

And so the unions brought an action

6:31

under the National Labor Relations Act claiming

6:33

that this was an unfair labor

6:35

practice. Right. But

6:37

the Supreme Court

6:38

in a unanimous decision says

6:41

that it's not. Oh, super,

6:46

super fun stuff.

6:49

Definitely, we should say this is the 1960s, mid 1960s, and

6:53

just a really good kind of benchpost,

6:56

like marker of the Supreme

6:58

Court starting

7:00

a series, a pattern of

7:03

anti-labor decisions. So

7:05

we're doing this case because it is an integral part

7:08

of the Supreme Court's lengthy

7:11

effort to return

7:14

power to employers, to

7:17

take power away from unions and

7:20

deliver it to management, which

7:22

has

7:23

undoubtedly been a massive contributor

7:25

to the decline of unions in this country. You

7:28

know, you have this moment in our country after

7:30

industrialization where labor

7:33

and management are consistently

7:36

at odds and management is

7:38

taking advantage of the power imbalance,

7:40

right? The sort of

7:41

relative power that they have over

7:43

workers.

7:44

The NLRA and similar

7:47

labor laws get passed in order

7:49

to correct that imbalance, to

7:52

deliver some power to workers

7:54

who did not have a lot of power before

7:57

and who were therefore working for

7:59

a lot of people.

7:59

low wages in terrible conditions.

8:03

This case is

8:05

one of the most important in a

8:07

string of Supreme Court cases

8:10

spanning a

8:11

half century or more that

8:14

sort of seek to return power

8:17

to employers. And

8:19

I think that it's crucial to

8:21

understand given the

8:23

decline of union power in this country,

8:25

just how great

8:27

a role the Supreme Court played. So

8:29

there's a lot of background here. I think we really should

8:31

talk about the NLRA, the National Labor

8:33

Relations Act, how that was passed,

8:36

what it protects, right? So that

8:38

means we're starting kind of early 1900s. The

8:42

NLRA is the federal law that

8:44

protects private sector employees' rights

8:47

to organize into unions, you know, engage

8:49

in collective bargaining, and basically

8:52

take collective action, including

8:54

going on strike.

8:56

So we're going to talk a little bit later in the episode about

8:58

the labor practices and kind of the state

9:00

of labor relations that necessitated

9:03

the passage of the NLRA. But

9:05

generally speaking,

9:06

workers at the turn of the century

9:09

essentially had no workplace protections.

9:11

Terms of employment, hours, wages, everything

9:14

was in the complete control of employers.

9:17

Companies would force workers to sign yellow

9:19

dog contracts, which would prohibit workers

9:21

from joining unions. These

9:23

kinds of employer practices make

9:25

the employee basically helpless,

9:28

right, in demanding better conditions

9:30

because you're banned from building

9:33

that collective power.

9:34

So every person would

9:37

essentially be required to present any grievance

9:39

they have totally on their own.

9:41

But particularly after the Great Depression, there

9:44

was a growing understanding in the country

9:46

that that set up

9:48

single employee versus company

9:51

versus management. That set up

9:53

was unfair. You know, it's not an equal

9:55

playing field. This is not balanced

9:58

negotiation when you have a ban. on

10:00

collective action, you know, each

10:02

person having to individually complain

10:05

or advocate for themselves against the power of an entire

10:07

company. Right. So first

10:10

in 1932, Congress passed the NLGA,

10:12

that's the Norris LaGuardia Act, which

10:14

basically tries to outlaw yellow dog

10:16

contracts, but it does so kind of indirectly.

10:19

The NLGA states that since, quote,

10:21

the individual unorganized worker

10:24

is commonly helpless to exercise

10:26

actual liberty of contract and to protect

10:29

his freedom of labor, it is necessary to

10:31

have full freedom of association, self-organization,

10:34

and designation of representative of

10:37

one's own choosing, and that the worker

10:39

shall be free from the interference, restraint,

10:41

or coercion of employers in

10:43

those activities. But

10:46

the NLGA didn't outright ban

10:48

coercive employer practices, it

10:50

just said that federal courts couldn't enforce

10:53

those yellow dog contracts.

10:55

So a few years later in 1935, Congress passed another

10:57

law. This

11:00

is the big one, the NLRA, the National

11:02

Labor Relations Act. There are

11:04

three significant things the NLRA

11:06

does.

11:07

One is that it legally guarantees

11:10

the right to self-organization for

11:12

workers.

11:13

These rights were not legally protected

11:15

before. That's not a right that's in the Constitution,

11:18

right? The NLRA is the

11:20

law that says workers have the right

11:22

to strike. And it's not just the right to

11:24

strike. The NLRA guarantees the right

11:27

to form or join a labor organization.

11:30

It protects the right to bargain collectively,

11:32

and it protects the rights of workers to engage

11:35

in other activities with

11:37

the purpose of collective bargaining or

11:39

mutual aid. So that's the first thing

11:41

the NLRA does, is codify those rights

11:44

in law.

11:45

The second big thing in the NLRA is that

11:47

it prohibits employers from interfering

11:50

with any of those rights, right? If an employer

11:52

interferes with the right to collective bargaining

11:55

under the NLRA, that's called an unfair

11:57

labor practice, and that's illegal. Finally,

12:00

the third thing the NLRA does is

12:02

it created the NLRB, the National Labor

12:04

Relations Board, and that's

12:07

the federal agency that enforces

12:09

these provisions of the law. This is like

12:11

the enforcement mechanism of

12:13

the NLRA. Complaints

12:16

about unfair labor practices go to the NLRB,

12:18

and the NLRB has a role

12:20

in deciding whether employers have

12:22

infringed on those workers' rights

12:25

in collective bargaining. I'll

12:28

dig in a little more to the history of

12:30

the NLRA and the sort of labor movement

12:32

in general later, but I do want to point

12:34

out that in one of the original drafts of

12:36

the NLRA, lockouts were

12:39

expressly banned. That's right. But

12:41

business interests freaked out at

12:43

the language, and there was some

12:45

wrangling, and they got it struck.

12:47

Yeah, that's right. So moving

12:50

to this case, the question

12:52

is whether the

12:53

following actions that I'm about to describe

12:56

amount to an unfair labor practice

12:58

under the NLRA. That's what the court

13:00

is deciding. So American

13:02

Shipbuilding Company operated four

13:05

shipyards on the Great Lakes, where the company

13:07

primarily did

13:08

ship repair. So American

13:11

Shipbuilding had engaged in collective

13:13

bargaining with unions before. In fact,

13:15

eight unions bargained with the company from 1952

13:18

until this case, and the unions and

13:22

the company had agreed to new contracts

13:25

in that time period five times. Each

13:27

new contract had been preceded by

13:29

a strike where union members

13:32

refused to work for the company until they

13:34

were met in good faith negotiations and

13:36

desired provisions in those

13:38

new contracts. So

13:41

in May of 1961, the unions

13:43

notified American Shipbuilding that they

13:45

intended to seek a modified

13:48

contract. The current contract was set to expire on

13:50

August 1st. So over the course of the summer,

13:53

the unions met with the company and they specified

13:55

their demands for the new contract, namely

13:58

they wanted a 20 cent an hour contract.

13:59

hour wage increase and also

14:02

increased benefits. The company

14:04

repeatedly said it could not compensate

14:07

workers any more than it already was.

14:10

In July, the unions proposed

14:12

extending the current contract by six

14:14

months while they continued negotiations.

14:17

But the company, American Shipbuilding, rejected

14:19

the extension proposal because they said that

14:22

would mean the contract would then expire

14:24

during the peak business season in the winter.

14:26

Right, so

14:28

just to sort of drill down on what the

14:30

company is doing here, they're afraid

14:33

that the contract is going

14:35

to expire at a time

14:38

when the union is going to have a lot of leverage. Exactly.

14:40

Because it's peak business season, which

14:42

means that the company is going to really

14:44

need the workers to get back to work, which

14:47

gives them a ton of leverage

14:49

if they choose to strike. So what the company

14:52

is doing

14:53

is trying to preempt that situation

14:56

by just locking them out now and

14:58

forcing them into negotiations by

15:01

essentially trying to starve

15:03

them out, which is what fucking lockouts are. Exactly.

15:06

So the August 1st deadline on the current contract

15:08

is coming up. And the company is not budging.

15:11

There's no new contract under which workers will

15:13

work

15:14

after August 1st.

15:16

On July 31st, the night before the

15:18

contract is set to expire, the union

15:20

kind of makes a last ditch effort. They again

15:23

make their proposal for a wage

15:25

increase and better benefits. And again,

15:27

they propose that the current contract be

15:29

extended. This time, they said it

15:32

could be extended indefinitely, doesn't

15:34

need to be six months and end in the middle of the busy

15:36

season. That's fine. As long as when

15:38

they did reach an agreement for the new contract,

15:41

the terms of the new contract would be made retroactive

15:44

to August 1st. Want

15:46

to say also that the current contract

15:48

that they were working under that was set to

15:51

expire on August 1st, but that they were offering

15:53

to extend, that contract had a no

15:55

strike clause. And the union is offering

15:58

to extend that contract individually.

15:59

Definitely, right? They're saying we won't

16:02

strike. We want to keep working. We

16:04

want to keep negotiating And once we have

16:06

new terms in the contract

16:08

like that wage increase Then we just

16:10

want that to count retroactively to when this

16:12

contract would have expired had

16:14

we not offered to extend it That

16:17

extension proposal on the eve of the expiration

16:20

was rejected by the company They

16:22

made a counter offer which the unions then

16:24

rejected and so no agreement

16:26

was reached about a new contract and the old contract

16:29

just expired

16:30

So American shipbuilding starts to worry

16:33

they say about a strike Especially

16:35

with the upcoming busy season in the winter time

16:38

and so to pressure the workers to

16:40

reach an agreement and to avoid a

16:42

strike They

16:43

decide to lay everyone off in

16:46

labor negotiations and labor law. This is called

16:48

a lockout, right? Employees are

16:51

laid off. They're basically fired They are locked out

16:53

of their jobs in order to pressure them

16:55

to reach an agreement and get back to work

16:57

Under the conditions and proposals that

16:59

the employer makes

17:01

So on August 11th employees of American

17:03

shipbuilding received a notice from the company

17:05

that said quote because of the labor dispute

17:07

Which has been unresolved since August 1st.

17:10

You are laid off until further notice All

17:13

but two employees were laid off immediately

17:16

at two of the shipyards and another

17:18

of the shipyards employees were laid off kind of Gradually

17:21

as different projects got completed the whole

17:24

time The company is saying they're afraid the workers

17:26

are going to strike while they're negotiating So

17:29

that's the reason they're locking them out

17:31

the unions kept on negotiating with

17:33

the company over the course of the lockout and

17:36

in late October a new two-year

17:38

contract was agreed upon and

17:40

Workers went back to work the next day

17:42

so the unions file a complaint with the NLRB

17:45

and The board agrees

17:47

with them that the only reason the company locked

17:49

out workers was to bring economic

17:51

pressure in order

17:53

To come to a quicker settlement on the contract

17:56

with terms that would be favorable of course to

17:58

the company, right? the

17:59

NLRB said in its decision

18:02

that, quote,

18:03

an employer may not, during bargaining

18:05

negotiations, threaten to lock

18:07

out or lock out employees in

18:09

aid of its bargaining position.

18:11

Such conduct infringes upon the collective

18:13

bargaining rights of employees in violation

18:16

of the NLRA and amounts to discrimination

18:18

within the meaning of the NLRA.

18:21

So Americanship Building appeals

18:23

this decision by the NLRB through

18:25

the federal court system up to the Supreme Court.

18:28

And the question that the court is deciding is

18:30

not just is a lockout legal, but

18:32

is a lockout legal when the

18:35

sole purpose is for the company

18:37

to inflict economic pressure on workers

18:40

to reach a quicker agreement, right?

18:42

Right. There used to be a distinction between

18:44

offensive lockouts and defensive

18:47

lockouts. Yeah. And that was sort of like

18:50

up in the air here. We don't need to get into that.

18:52

The only real question is, does this qualify

18:55

as an unfair labor practice

18:58

under the NLRA, the National Labor

19:00

Relations Act? And again,

19:02

like Ree saying, everyone in this case

19:04

agrees that the only reason the company locked the union

19:06

out is as a weapon in

19:09

negotiations, right, to thwart a

19:11

strike. Totally. So the

19:13

question is whether that's legal. Because

19:15

obviously, there are valid reasons to shut down a plant,

19:18

to conduct layoffs. If you want

19:20

to do those things for purely business

19:22

reasons, that's, of course, perfectly legal. If you

19:24

want to shut down operations temporarily

19:26

or otherwise for most business

19:29

reasons, that's going to be perfectly legal. The

19:31

only question is whether you can do it as

19:33

a weapon in negotiations in

19:35

collective bargaining, or whether that is

19:38

an unfair labor practice. So

19:40

what is the definition of an unfair labor

19:42

practice? Well, it includes a bunch of things.

19:45

But for our purposes, it's anything that

19:47

interferes with or restrains the

19:49

ability of the union members to exercise

19:52

their right to strike or their right to collectively

19:54

bargain generally. So

19:57

let's boil this case down.

19:59

what I think is its simplest question.

20:03

Does this interfere with the

20:05

right of the workers to strike?

20:08

Right. You know, and we should say maybe,

20:10

you know, this isn't a decision under the Constitution,

20:13

right? These are not constitutional rights,

20:15

but you can think about them kind of similarly,

20:18

right? You have the right to freedom

20:20

of speech in this country, right? And

20:22

so is a certain government restriction on

20:25

speech, does that violate your right to freedom

20:27

of speech, right? It's the same thing. The NLRA,

20:30

this piece of legislation from the 1930s,

20:33

protected, created essentially

20:35

in the law and protected

20:37

workers' right to strike. So

20:40

it's a similar legal question, right? Did

20:43

Americanship building

20:44

commit an unfair labor practice

20:47

that infringed on these workers' right

20:49

to strike?

20:50

Right. So the court's response

20:52

to the question is a

20:54

little bit weird. They say that

20:56

lockouts don't interfere with

20:58

the right to strike. The

21:00

right to strike is just the right to stop

21:03

working, but that doesn't mean

21:05

the employer can't stop the work

21:07

as well,

21:08

right? They expand on this by saying that this is just

21:10

management using the tools available

21:13

to them in negotiations. Yeah. Economic

21:16

pressure by both sides is part of collective

21:18

bargaining. It's part of the negotiation process

21:20

in the court's view. And that's

21:23

an idea that traces back to the turn of the last

21:25

century. Courts used to hold that lockouts

21:28

were the equivalent of strikes, right?

21:30

Unions can halt work by striking. Employers

21:33

can halt work by locking

21:35

the union out. So it's sort of like two sides

21:37

of the same coin. And that

21:40

basic idea is something you can trace back

21:42

to the turn of the last century. Courts

21:44

used to hold that lockouts were sort of the equivalent

21:47

of strikes. You know, unions can

21:50

halt work by striking. Employers

21:52

can halt work by locking the union out. Two

21:55

sides of the same coin, right?

21:57

But like, wait a minute here. We

22:00

have this federal law that protects

22:03

unions' rights. It doesn't

22:05

expressly protect the right to a lockout.

22:08

So the question is,

22:11

is this interfering with

22:13

the right to strike?

22:14

Did the lockout interfere

22:17

with the union's right to strike that

22:19

is contained within the NLRA?

22:22

The actual analysis here should be

22:24

relatively simple. Why

22:26

did management engage in a lockout?

22:29

Well, because negotiations were

22:31

at an impasse, prior impasses

22:33

had led to strikes. Management

22:36

was trying to avoid the disadvantage they would be at

22:38

if a future strike took place.

22:40

So the entire purpose was to

22:43

thwart a strike, or

22:45

at the very least undermine the union's

22:47

ability to collectively bargain. So

22:51

how can the employer engage in a behavior

22:54

that is designed to undermine

22:56

a strike

22:57

and yet not be interfering with

22:59

the right to strike?

23:00

It almost feels

23:03

like the rich and poor have the right. It's

23:08

this sort of cutesy reasoning. It's

23:10

like, well, you still have the right to

23:12

strike. You just can't

23:14

meaningfully do it anymore. Yeah,

23:16

exactly. And we'll talk a little bit later,

23:18

but this is exactly this kind of

23:21

obfuscation of a foundational

23:23

principle of the NLRA that

23:26

when workers engage with

23:28

management, engage with their employers, they're

23:30

not on a level playing field. That's

23:33

why the workers have to have these rights

23:35

protected in collective action and collective

23:38

bargaining. And so you can't just say

23:40

that, whoa, well, this other

23:42

tool that an employer, a company

23:45

has, that's equivalent

23:46

to what workers can do. And so

23:48

that makes it fine. It just doesn't

23:50

fucking make sense. No, it's a very

23:53

hollow understanding of what a right is,

23:55

right? Certainly if you've taken away

23:58

their meaningful ability.

23:59

to strike, which you have, then

24:02

you've interfered with the right to

24:04

strike. I just don't see any way around

24:06

that. It just fundamentally doesn't make sense.

24:08

Yeah, it doesn't make sense. It's really weird

24:11

to frame legal rights as something held

24:13

by people, but also held by

24:16

businesses, which is what this opinion does. Like

24:18

at this time, we're definitely not yet in

24:20

the modern era of corporate

24:23

personhood in the law, but this whole

24:25

opinion has

24:26

repeated references all the way through

24:28

to

24:29

equalizing the rights, references

24:32

throughout the opinion to

24:34

business anxieties, to the worries

24:36

of the employers. The company was

24:38

apprehensive of a strike. The company

24:41

was afraid of a strike. There's reference

24:43

to the business having to resist

24:46

unfairness. All of this language, all

24:48

of these words that they're using,

24:50

where they're talking about a corporation like

24:52

it's a damn person, right? The

24:55

way the opinion reads, it's like the

24:57

NLRA gave rights to people, and

24:59

now we need to make sure businesses have equal

25:01

rights to that, right? It's completely

25:04

inverted. That's not how this is supposed to work.

25:06

Right.

25:07

It's very bizarre that interpreting a law

25:10

that

25:11

is primarily about

25:13

giving labor rights and protections,

25:16

the court has sort of found

25:19

a right and protection for employers.

25:22

Yeah.

25:22

And before we move on from

25:24

the opinion, one point

25:26

the court consistently makes is that there

25:29

is a difference between management

25:31

doing a lockout as

25:34

leverage in negotiations versus

25:36

doing a lockout out of like anti-union

25:40

sentiment. Right. Right. In other

25:42

words, the court says companies can't

25:45

lock employees out just

25:47

because of anti-union

25:49

spite, but they could lock

25:51

employees out in order to apply

25:54

economic pressure to the workers. But

25:56

part of what makes this opinion so awkward

25:59

is that that's not like a a real line you can draw.

26:01

Right. Right. Like management hates

26:03

unions for economic reasons.

26:06

Exactly. You can't say like, oh, you

26:08

can't do it

26:09

because you hate unions, but you can do it

26:12

to pressure the union. Right.

26:15

That just doesn't make sense. Right. Why

26:17

do companies hate unions? Because of

26:19

the economics, right? When companies do

26:21

union busting tactics, they're doing it

26:24

for economic reasons. They want more

26:26

money for themselves. There's no line

26:28

between anti-union sentiment and

26:30

the economics of the situation. It's

26:33

all one thing. But a lot

26:35

of the opinion is predicated on

26:37

the idea that this line is real,

26:39

that you can sort of draw that line very clearly.

26:42

And I just think that you can.

26:43

Yeah. Yeah. A lot of the opinion assumes

26:45

that the companies are acting in good faith.

26:48

Right. Right. Or that good faith even

26:50

exists in this situation. Right. Right. Right. What's

26:52

the difference between

26:55

locking them out because you

26:57

hate the unions in like a spiritual

27:00

way? Right. Right. And locking

27:02

them out because you're trying to reduce the leverage

27:04

of the union and negotiations. Exactly. It's the

27:06

same thing. Right. It's just a nonsense

27:09

line to draw.

27:09

Yeah, exactly. I think it

27:11

is time for a quick break.

27:15

All right. We are back. You know, we should

27:17

talk about the concurrences because they're

27:19

both kind of fucking weird. I'm going to talk mostly

27:22

about one of them. Yeah. Both of these concurrences,

27:25

one is by Justice Goldberg,

27:27

one is by Justice White.

27:29

Both of them only agree

27:32

like in the narrowest possible

27:34

sense with the ultimate

27:36

disposition of the majority,

27:39

which is that American shipbuilding

27:41

had not committed an unfair

27:43

labor practice. Right. Right. But the thing

27:46

is, I'm going to talk mostly about Justice White's

27:48

concurrence because it's clearly

27:50

angry at the majority. Yeah. He says

27:53

that what American shipbuilding

27:55

did

27:56

was not actually a lockout.

27:58

He says that lockout

27:59

can be a violation of the NLRA, but

28:02

what the company did in this situation wasn't

28:04

a lockout, because what they did was

28:07

lay off employees, according

28:09

to Justice White, when there was a lack

28:11

of work. Essentially, he runs

28:13

through the facts of the case, and he says, like, what

28:15

the company actually did was they told

28:18

their customers that they anticipated a strike.

28:21

They did that to protect their commercial relationships.

28:24

Customers, understandably, did not

28:26

bring their ships to American shipbuilding

28:28

for repair, and so there was no work

28:30

left.

28:31

When there was no work left, American shipbuilding

28:34

laid off its employees.

28:36

All of this activity, Justice White says,

28:38

is not a violation of the NLRA, because

28:40

it didn't, to him, technically discourage

28:43

a strike or collective bargaining, and

28:45

that's not an unfair lockout, right? A

28:47

true lockout, he says, would be an

28:50

employer laying off its employees when

28:52

there is available work to be done. I

28:55

think this is stupid.

28:56

It's a little too cute. Yeah, exactly.

28:58

And it also sort of ignores what

29:00

we know about the company's motivations

29:03

and what their admitted motivations

29:05

were. Yes,

29:05

exactly.

29:07

So it's dumb, but also throughout

29:09

this concurrence, he's really mad

29:12

at what the court does say about

29:14

lockouts. And it's like, okay,

29:16

why didn't you dissent? He

29:18

says, like, about the court's interpretation

29:21

of the NLRA in this decision, he

29:23

says, quote, if the court means what it says today,

29:26

an employer may not only lockout

29:28

after impasse, but also replace

29:30

his locked out employees with temporary

29:33

help or perhaps permanent replacements and

29:35

also lockout long before an impasse

29:37

is reached. And like, what

29:39

is this? If the court means what it says today, of

29:41

course they fucking mean what they say. What

29:43

are you talking about, right? Like, if

29:45

this is the result of the holding, it's

29:48

what you're saying. Like, the result of

29:50

the holding is that an employer can

29:52

lockout after impasse, which seems like an unfair

29:54

labor practice, and then they would also be able

29:56

to replace their locked out employees with

29:59

temporary help or. permanent replacements,

30:01

and they would also be able to lock out long

30:03

before an impasse is even reached.

30:06

If you think that's the result of the holding, then

30:08

you don't agree with the holding, man. Like,

30:10

dissent, right? It's very

30:12

strange.

30:13

He's like, you must let them off on this

30:15

weird technicality I created. Right. Exactly. It's bizarre.

30:18

Yeah.

30:18

Justice Goldberg, he also sort of narrowly,

30:20

technically agrees with the ruling that American

30:23

shipbuilding had not committed an unfair labor

30:25

practice. And he just kind of goes through

30:27

the facts and talks about how he thinks this

30:30

is purely a business decision,

30:32

right? That the lockout, call it

30:34

a lockout, call it whatever you want, it's

30:36

completely crystal clear,

30:39

above board, nowhere near

30:41

an unfair

30:41

labor practice. Right. I want

30:43

to do a little

30:45

dive into labor history because

30:48

I think it's relevant to understanding the

30:50

case and also because it kind of rules. Yeah.

30:53

I love labor history.

30:54

It's good. You want drama? You

30:56

want unrest? Go to American

30:58

labor history, for sure. Absolutely.

31:01

So some of the most prominent

31:03

labor disputes of all time involved

31:06

lockouts. And I

31:07

think understanding the role

31:09

they played in suppressing labor

31:12

throughout the years will put this case into

31:14

focus a little bit. Yeah. The most famous lockout

31:17

in American history, probably

31:20

the Homestead Steel Dispute

31:23

in 1892. Homestead Steel

31:25

was a plant near Pittsburgh belonging

31:27

to Andrew Carnegie and run

31:30

by Henry Clay Frick,

31:32

both notorious crazed

31:35

union busters. For sure. In an effort to

31:37

break the Iron and Steel Workers Union, management

31:40

there refused negotiations and

31:43

locked the union out of the plant.

31:45

Other unions, both within the

31:47

plant and nearby, struck

31:50

in response.

31:52

Management brings in the Pinkertons,

31:55

who are the famous strike

31:57

breaking private security outfit.

31:59

Yep.

31:59

to protect scab workers

32:02

and confront the strikers. The plan

32:04

was to bring the

32:06

Pinkertons to the plant in

32:08

the middle of the night on barges.

32:11

Word gets out in the town workers

32:13

and their families, like women and children,

32:16

rush to the shores

32:18

to prevent the Pinkertons from

32:20

landing. There's gunfire,

32:24

there are attempts to

32:26

burn the ships and shit like that. It

32:29

ends with several people dead and the Pinkertons

32:32

surrendering. But

32:35

the governor, who has ties to Carnegie,

32:38

sent in the state militia a

32:40

few days later to secure the plant and

32:42

ultimately break the strike.

32:45

So you could see from the incident,

32:47

a, how powerful labor could be, b,

32:50

how the state aligns with

32:52

capital, and c,

32:54

how much potential there was for

32:57

violence in labor disputes.

32:58

Yeah, not to mention a little paramilitary

33:01

organization designed to protect

33:04

business, protect management, protect property.

33:06

And by the way, the Pinkertons still

33:09

exist today for some reason I can't

33:12

possibly fucking fathom. It was

33:14

very cool killing dozens of them

33:16

in Red Dead Redemption too.

33:18

A

33:19

couple of years later in 1894, maybe 95, you

33:23

get the Pullman strike where railroad

33:26

workers led by Eugene V. Debs

33:28

shut down

33:29

many, if not most of the country's railways.

33:33

This

33:34

whole era was like deeply

33:36

disconcerting to powerful interests.

33:39

And part of the response

33:41

to that was a legal regime

33:43

that was distinctly anti-union.

33:46

Yeah, this was concerning to politicians. This

33:48

was deeply concerning to justices

33:50

on the Supreme Court. Right. I mean, this is the Gilded

33:53

Age, right? We're dealing with

33:55

an ascendant and hyper-powerful

33:57

elite and a massive amount of-

33:59

of inequality almost as much as there is

34:02

today. So courts are holding that management

34:04

has the right to

34:08

lock out unions as a matter of like property

34:11

rights. And strikes

34:13

meanwhile

34:14

are often being treated as antitrust

34:17

violations because the Sherman Antitrust

34:19

Act gets passed in 1890. And

34:22

sometimes strikes are even treated as criminal

34:25

conspiracies. Debs himself of

34:27

course famously imprisoned over the Pullman

34:29

strike because the federal government claimed

34:31

that the strike was unlawfully obstructing

34:34

the mail.

34:34

Yeah, and that wouldn't be the last time that

34:36

Debs went to prison for his labor

34:39

organizing. It also wouldn't be the last time

34:41

that kind of ridiculous federal

34:43

law, you know, here the post office

34:46

stuff later on it would be sedition. A

34:48

ridiculous federal law would be used

34:50

to convict Debs of activity

34:53

connected to labor organizing. He

34:55

also famously ran for president five

34:57

times. The most votes he got,

34:59

he won like 6% of the vote one time.

35:02

The last time he ran for president, he did that in 1920. He

35:04

was actually in prison at that time. He

35:07

still got something like a million votes. Yeah,

35:09

and Donald Trump's about to do the same thing

35:12

and get 80 million. Ha ha ha

35:14

ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Sad.

35:20

How like perfect of an arc for a nation is it

35:22

that Eugene V Debs runs

35:24

for president from prison and loses and 100 years

35:27

later, Trump does it and wins.

35:32

Imagine

35:34

his strut out of federal prison after he self

35:36

pardons. Oh my God. The

35:40

guards will be like, sir, anything you need.

35:42

Right. Sir, we got the muscle

35:44

relax and discontinued in 1988. Here

35:48

for you. Unreal.

35:51

So the Supreme Court is also

35:53

in the mix at this time, right? The Lochner era

35:56

sees them not just prioritizing

35:58

corporate rights, but in shrines.

35:59

in the Constitution. In 1917,

36:02

there's a case called Hichman Cole, where

36:04

the court upholds

36:07

Yellow Dog contracts, the contracts re-mentioned

36:10

earlier, where you

36:11

have to agree that you won't join a

36:13

union if you want a job. Right. And,

36:15

yeah, it's only when the Great Depression

36:17

hits that the tide of public opinion

36:19

shifts because, you know, naturally

36:21

at a time when people are out of work,

36:24

you see a lot more sympathy for labor. And

36:27

so you get the Norris LaGuardia Act, and then a few years

36:30

later you get the NLRA. By the time

36:32

this case comes

36:34

around, 30 years after that, maybe

36:37

the political and social context

36:40

that brought us here had faded so much

36:43

that the court sort of loses the plot. Right.

36:47

The entire purpose of

36:49

the Labor Acts of the 1930s was to accrue power

36:52

to labor. The NLRA

36:54

protects the right to strike

36:56

because labor is at

36:57

an inherent disadvantage because workers

37:00

need their wages to survive.

37:03

Right. Yep. So

37:05

the court's reasoning that the company's right

37:07

to lock workers out doesn't interfere

37:09

with the worker's right to strike isn't just specious.

37:12

It completely undermines the purpose

37:14

and function of these laws by manufacturing

37:17

an equivalence between management

37:20

and worker power when the whole function

37:22

of the laws was to

37:23

correct a pre-existing imbalance.

37:26

Exactly. To the extent that there

37:28

is a balance, it's because of

37:30

the NLRA and the way the NLRA works.

37:33

Right. So chipping away at the protections, the provisions

37:35

of the NLRA doesn't do anything to support

37:39

that balance that they're saying is

37:41

there. Right.

37:43

And I just want to talk about in the

37:45

years after this, I said at the

37:47

beginning of the episode, this case, Americanship

37:49

Building versus NLRB is

37:52

sort of this like initial stance,

37:54

right? Like this line drawn in the sand by

37:57

the Supreme Court that all of this

38:00

they're starting to look skeptically

38:02

at these cases, at

38:04

union activity and union complaints

38:07

and allegations of unfair labor practices

38:10

that are brought under the NLRA. So

38:13

the Supreme Court continues the legacy from this case

38:15

just a few years later in a case called

38:17

HK Porter, the NLRB. That

38:20

case held that the NLRB could no

38:22

longer force companies to make specific

38:25

contract provisions during negotiations.

38:27

So for example, the NLRB could no

38:29

longer say, yeah, this labor practice,

38:32

this negotiation tactic is

38:34

unfair. We're gonna make you offer

38:36

health insurance, right? They couldn't do

38:38

that anymore.

38:39

And to put that in perspective, the

38:41

point of that wasn't just to like force

38:43

companies to agree with what the union

38:46

wanted. The point of it was that

38:48

the NLRB would sometimes determine

38:50

that the employer was not

38:53

engaging in good faith. That's right. It

38:55

would make a judgment about that and

38:57

push the contract forward

39:00

in order to avoid

39:02

companies and unions at times from

39:05

sort of manufacturing an impasse.

39:07

Yeah, that's exactly right. And so since

39:09

HK Porter, it means that if

39:11

there's a stalemate in negotiations, the

39:14

NLRB can only say like,

39:16

okay, go back to the negotiating table, right?

39:18

It makes the NLRB a sort of like witness

39:21

to the negotiation process, but they're no

39:23

longer involved in sort of pushing the negotiations

39:26

forward.

39:27

Bringing the Supreme Court jurisprudence forward

39:29

to the Roberts Court in Epic Systems

39:32

v. Lewis, that's a 2017 case,

39:34

we've done an episode on it. The

39:36

Roberts Court held that employers

39:38

can force workers to use individual

39:41

arbitration to settle their disputes. So

39:43

there's no right to collective arbitration,

39:46

no class action lawsuits,

39:48

if that's what the arbitration agreement in the employment

39:51

contract says.

39:52

Again, the whole heart of the NLRA is

39:54

protecting collective action, right?

39:57

And then in this term, and we

39:59

will...

39:59

for sure do an episode on

40:02

this case that just dropped like

40:03

a week, not even two weeks ago. It's

40:06

a case called Glacier Northwest versus

40:08

Teamsters. The court ruled

40:11

eight to one that a company could

40:13

sue a union for the economic

40:16

damages the company incurred

40:18

when the union went on strike.

40:20

The sole dissenter in that case is Justice

40:22

Katonji Brown Jackson. She said,

40:25

quote,

40:25

the right to strike is fundamental to

40:27

American labor law. Workers are not

40:30

indentured servants bound to continue

40:32

laboring until any planned work

40:34

stoppage would be as painless as possible

40:37

for their master.

40:38

So again, solely dissenting on

40:40

her own here, but a recognition in

40:42

that dissent that without the power to

40:45

strike

40:45

and not be punished for striking, right,

40:48

there is not equal power. Workers

40:51

are just effectively indentured servants.

40:53

And I want to remind

40:55

everyone when we did our KBJ

41:00

episode back in the day, we

41:02

addressed the critiques coming from

41:05

some casual dipshits mostly

41:07

on like social media that she was going

41:09

to be bad

41:10

on labor issues. That's right.

41:13

Oh, shit, I forgot that. And

41:16

we are never wrong. Never

41:20

wrong. Learn, recognize. But just

41:23

learn to respect us. Sit

41:26

down and listen.

41:28

Calm fucking correct when you listen

41:30

to five four. Okay, we're right. We're

41:32

not wrong. Committed to

41:35

memory. That's right. I

41:37

want to expand on like the court's

41:40

role in labor decline because I think if you're

41:42

like if you're a listener, you're probably vaguely

41:44

familiar at the very least with the fact

41:47

of the decline of American

41:49

labor power over the last 60, 70 years.

41:53

American shipbuilding. This

41:56

is in 1965, so you

41:58

might be clocking it as like.

41:59

right before union membership starts

42:02

to plummet. I think at the time of this case, we're

42:04

looking at about a third of the workforce

42:07

in a union. Contracts are

42:09

being struck more frequently. There

42:11

are more consistent union elections, et

42:13

cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Right

42:15

now, union membership covers around 10%, maybe

42:18

a little lower even. There are

42:20

a ton of reasons for this decline.

42:23

Probably the foremost is the

42:25

passage in 1947 of

42:27

the Taft-Hartley Act, which

42:29

was designed from bottom

42:32

to top to limit union power.

42:34

There were like a wave of post-World

42:37

War II strikes, and a Republican

42:39

Congress wants to limit union

42:42

activity.

42:43

They get it past Truman's veto, and

42:46

the law made an assortment

42:48

of union activity illegal, including

42:51

certain types of strikes. That's why like wildcat

42:53

strikes, for example, are not legal, and

42:56

paved the way for right-to-work

42:58

laws. Fun bit of trivia,

43:01

also forced union leaders to sign affidavits

43:03

saying that they weren't communists. So great

43:05

piece of legislation, yeah. Yeah. And

43:09

then also contributing to the

43:11

decline of labor, I think you also have the

43:13

sort of like rhetorical power

43:16

of the Cold War, right? Where

43:18

management was able to associate

43:21

American labor

43:23

with like Soviet communism in a

43:25

way, and dissuade people from

43:28

joining unions and sort of

43:30

negatively impact the public perception of unions

43:32

generally.

43:33

Right, right. We're saying that being a member of a

43:35

union is a characteristic of you being

43:37

a communist, right? Right, but the

43:39

Supreme Court's role in all of this really

43:42

cannot be overstated, and

43:44

it predates this case, and it goes

43:47

into the present day.

43:48

In 1938, you have NLRB

43:50

v. Mackey Radio, where the court

43:52

allows for employers to hire scabs during

43:55

strikes. In 56, you have

43:57

NLRB v. Mackey.

43:59

and Wilcox, which held

44:02

that employers generally aren't required

44:04

to give union organizers access to

44:06

parking lots to talk with employees.

44:09

In 1965 you have this case, in 70

44:11

you have H.K. Porter, which you mentioned,

44:15

and in like 74, maybe 75, the

44:18

court says employers don't have to recognize

44:21

card check elections, which are union elections

44:23

where like the majority of employees sign an authorization

44:26

form. Instead they have to

44:28

go through the formal NLRB

44:31

election process, and that's just

44:33

you know through the mid 70s you get to

44:35

the Reagan NLRB and things

44:38

get a lot worse. The last 15

44:40

years of Supreme Court decisions have

44:42

been terrible for labor.

44:45

So I think it's safe to say

44:47

that like the story of the

44:49

decline of American labor, it's

44:52

multifaceted, there are a ton of factors,

44:54

but you cannot tell that story without

44:56

the Supreme Court. Absolutely. And you

44:59

know we've sort of touched on this,

45:01

but

45:02

the Supreme Court

45:03

functionally oversees the NLRB.

45:05

Yes. Right? You know the NLRB has a panel of folks

45:07

who make decisions about what the NLRA

45:10

means, but federal courts have

45:12

oversight,

45:13

so if someone wants to challenge it

45:15

they can run it into the federal courts and

45:17

run it up to the Supreme Court, which means it

45:19

doesn't really matter

45:21

who's at the NLRB at any given

45:23

time. Sam Alito is

45:26

going to be deciding what the interpretation

45:28

of the NLRA

45:29

is. Yeah, and note the skepticism,

45:32

the lack of deference to this

45:35

agency, right? That's like been over

45:37

the course of decades. Like we can say now

45:39

that the modern court is certainly sort

45:41

of against the administrative

45:44

state, right? Doesn't want other agencies

45:47

to have the deference and discretion

45:49

to make decisions

45:51

on their own areas of expertise,

45:54

on their own mandates to them given by

45:56

Congress, right? We can say that certainly

45:59

is a sort of

45:59

conservative value in the

46:02

law now, certainly of the Roberts

46:04

Court, but we're talking pure

46:06

American history, right? From

46:08

the very fucking beginning of the Supreme

46:11

Court

46:12

striking down

46:14

decisions of the NLRB over

46:17

and over and over again, no matter who

46:19

is on the court, right?

46:21

At one point I wanted to make just thinking

46:23

kind of like social movements, taking

46:26

a step back from this case and maybe taking just

46:29

one small step back from the labor

46:31

movement in general.

46:33

This case kind of represents a

46:36

tool the Supreme Court

46:38

is able to utilize

46:40

in breaking social movements.

46:43

You could maybe characterize it as like death

46:45

by a thousand cuts, but what I'm thinking

46:48

about is the result of cases

46:50

like this

46:51

which only further kind of silo

46:54

are different causes, right? So,

46:57

you know, at a time in the 1960s here

47:01

when the civil rights movement is certainly fully

47:03

underway, when this case

47:06

comes out, we're a few years from Dr.

47:08

King explicitly making

47:11

connections between the racial justice

47:13

movement and the labor justice

47:15

movement, making connections between the

47:17

racial justice movement and the

47:19

fight against American imperialism around

47:22

the world, right? Cases like

47:24

this cut away

47:26

at

47:27

the strength and power of collective

47:29

action across movements, right?

47:32

They're gonna do it this way by interpreting the NLRA

47:35

on labor movement cases. They're

47:37

gonna do it by interpreting the Voting Rights

47:39

Act the way that they do on racial justice

47:41

cases. They're going to do it all

47:43

sorts of ways by interpreting

47:46

the power of the EPA in the

47:48

environmental justice movement, right? But

47:50

the Supreme Court in the way that it operates

47:53

and the way that it piece by piece

47:55

cuts away

47:56

at the power of the collective,

47:59

the power of the EPA. of a movement, right?

48:02

Separates all of us,

48:04

creates obstacles and

48:06

separations and rifts in our communities,

48:09

in our movements. And ultimately, we're

48:11

talking about disempowered people, right?

48:13

We're talking about a disempowered collective

48:16

and the Supreme Court

48:17

being the most powerful political

48:20

institution we have. Yeah. And I want

48:22

to point out, without taking

48:25

blame away from the capitalists

48:27

and management, it's very clear

48:30

that part of the failure

48:33

of the labor movement of the early

48:37

1900s

48:37

was its failure to include black

48:40

labor in its vision, right? Unions

48:43

at the turn of the last century were

48:46

largely racist organizations. They

48:48

were designed for white

48:50

men. That's not true of every single one in

48:53

every single instance, but broadly speaking,

48:55

that allowed management,

48:58

allowed capitalists to hit

49:01

black and white laborers against each other, to

49:03

use black laborers who were desperate for work

49:06

as strikebreakers at a time in

49:08

American history where it wasn't easy

49:10

for them to get work.

49:11

Yeah, unions kind of explicitly

49:13

at this time, anti-black, also anti-immigrant,

49:17

so divisions between quote

49:18

unquote, who was white back then, and immigrant

49:22

populations even from Europe, right?

49:24

Those divisions are sort of emphasized,

49:26

get deeper from the American labor

49:29

movement.

49:29

You mentioned MLK talking about solidarity

49:32

across the labor movement. W.E.B. Du

49:34

Bois wrote about this, the black man

49:36

in the unions he wrote in, I want to say 1917,

49:40

1918. I think you can look at the

49:43

failure of the labor movement

49:45

of that era to overcome its obstacles

49:48

partially as a failure of solidarity,

49:51

right? A failure to understand

49:54

the common struggle

49:56

and unite together for a common

49:58

cause. Yeah.

49:59

And we're in the new Gilded

50:02

Age as we speak, right?

50:04

A time of distinct inequality,

50:07

just like we were back then. And

50:09

it's

50:10

also a time when we

50:12

are seeing light but still

50:15

renewed, especially among young people, interest

50:19

in

50:20

collective bargaining, right? We have the writer

50:22

strike. We're seeing strikes

50:24

at the airlines. Over the last couple of

50:26

years, we've seen Starbucks organized

50:29

across the country. Amazon

50:31

organizing has picked up massive steam over

50:33

the last few years. Media workers

50:36

generally have been organizing aggressively.

50:39

And it's crucial, especially

50:41

at a time where we have

50:44

conservative interests trying

50:47

to define politics

50:49

as us versus them, right?

50:52

Othering LGBT people, othering

50:55

people of color, othering women,

50:58

it's an era that will be, at

51:00

the end of the day, one way or the other, defined

51:03

by our solidarity with one another, defined

51:06

by our ability to sort of reach

51:08

across these artificial divides

51:11

and stand together and organize

51:14

and move together

51:17

for our own collective wellbeing. There

51:19

were failures 100 years ago, but

51:22

we are

51:23

in a different country now. And I'm

51:26

relatively optimistic

51:28

that things will be better this time around.

51:29

Yeah. You know, we talked about Debs.

51:31

Eugene Debs himself made progress

51:33

on this personally over the course of his life. He

51:36

started making these connections and calling for

51:38

solidarity among white and black workers

51:41

as he ascended as a leader in the labor

51:43

movement. In 1904,

51:45

he wrote in the international socialist review, foolish

51:49

and vain indeed is the working man who

51:51

makes the color of his skin, the stepping

51:53

stone to his imaginary superiority.

51:56

He also says later in that same article,

51:59

to arouse prejudice among working men

52:02

is not their friend. He who advises

52:04

the white wage worker to look down upon

52:07

the black wage worker is the enemy of both.

52:10

Side note, just wanna say that the biography

52:13

of Eugene Debs by Ray Ginger, it's called

52:15

The Bending Cross, it's really, really good, it's excellent.

52:17

I highly recommend people read it. But yeah,

52:19

the American labor movement at large,

52:22

at this time, fails to realize

52:24

and act on that foundational

52:26

truth, that across all of these

52:28

groups and communities and movements

52:30

for liberation, that's where the solidarity

52:33

is. That's where the people power is, that

52:36

the labor movement is talking about, right? And

52:38

so the police hack away at this and divide

52:40

us, the capitalist business owners divide

52:42

us, the Supreme Court hacks away at

52:44

this and divides us. But I think the point is,

52:47

now we know better. The Supreme

52:49

Court can continue to hack away at

52:51

the legal vestiges of labor protections

52:54

in this country, but we know better and

52:56

we know that the power is actually in

52:58

the collective, across all of our differences,

53:01

across all of our communities. The labor

53:03

movement truly is the movement that unites

53:05

all

53:05

of us. Preach. So

53:08

as we wrap up, we know actually

53:10

of some media friends, unions

53:12

who have taken some heavy hits just today

53:15

in media news. Shout out to

53:17

the Parcast and Gimlet unions.

53:19

Yeah, WGA. Shout out to

53:21

WGA and Gannett who are

53:24

doing direct action as

53:26

we speak. Stay strong, everybody. Keep fighting. Thank

53:28

you so much for the work that you do.

53:35

Next week, a premium episode

53:37

about trans rights. We talked

53:39

to

53:40

our friend, Aaron Reid, about

53:42

the laws being

53:44

brought to attack trans people

53:46

across the country and the legal

53:49

challenges to those laws. Very cool

53:51

conversation.

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