RevolutionZ
RevolutionZ
Ep 331 Workers, the Labor Movement, and Resistance
Episode 331 of RevolutionZ has as guest long-time labor organizer Stephen Lerner to provide strategic clarity and emotive urgency about our current situation.
Lerner describes a coordinated assault by "billionaires, the fossil fuel industry, and Silicon Valley" to "dominate every aspect of the country." Make public institutions "broke on purpose, "deliberately underfund vital services, and finally privatize them.
Lerner argues that in addition to protesting government buildings we need to target the economic interests of billionaires bankrolling authoritarianism. From pension fund divestment to strategic disruption of luxury resorts and businesses, Lerner urges imposing real costs on those who drive inequality. Seek multi union and constituency alliances.
Lerner also addresses the paralyzing fear that now prevails. As universities, law firms, and even some unions quickly cave to political pressure, Lerner emphasizes that "to be driven by fear means to give up." He calls for "heroic moments" to inspire others to move "from fear to bravery." And crucially, he warns against fighting merely to return to pre-Trump conditions. He urges the need for positive vision of better.
Trump, Musk, and their buddies? For Lerner "These are flawed, billionaire, whiny clowns, and if we get our act together, we will win something much better than the past."
Hello, my name is Michael Albert and I am the host of the podcast that's titled Revolution Z. This is our 331st consecutive episode and our guest this time is Stephen Lerner. Stephen is a labor and community organizer who has spent more than four decades organizing hundreds of thousands of janitors, farm workers, garment workers and other low-wage workers into unions, resulting in increased wages, first-time health benefits, paid sick days and other low-wage workers into unions, resulting in increased wages, first-time health benefits, paid sick days and other improvements on the job. He was the director of SEIU's Property Service Division, served on SEIU's International Executive Board and is the architect of the Justice for Janitors campaign. Stephen has published numerous articles, articles charting a path for the 21st century labor movement, able to break the stranglehold Wall Street and big banks have on our economy and democracy. Most recently, he has written about resisting Trump, and it was my seeing such an article that propelled me to invite Stephen to be with us today. So, stephen, honored to meet you and welcome to Revolution Z.
Speaker 1:Thanks, I'm looking forward to this conversation To start, before we get to what is needed from labor and in general for that matter. Can you give us a feeling for what labor, whether organized or not, has been doing so far regarding Trump, musk at all? Just a feeling, an overview when are things at in labor?
Speaker 2:Well, I think it's really mixed and it's uneven, and some of the most exciting work is what's happening with big local unions that I think we've seen in the case of federal workers. They've joined together in an organization called FUND, the Federal Unionist Network, which is taking all different federal unions and working together on how we fight back. You see, the American Association of University Professors are leading key battles at universities, both about academic freedom, but also how they shouldn't crumble on the threat of money being taken out of their budgets. Freedom, but also how they shouldn't crumble on the threat of money being taken out of their budgets. You see that AFT has been using their the American Federation of Teachers. I should stay away from all these initials. The American Association of University Professors is the AAUP, and the American Federation of Teachers has started raising the question about why are pension funds invested in Tesla when their stock is tanking, that it's a lousy investment.
Speaker 2:And then this weekend, on April 5th, there's demonstrations planned around the country. On April 17th there's higher ed. So I'd say that I think people are. One way to think about it is people are revving their motors, they're getting ready. There's not been that much dramatic, but I think we're heading into a moment where you're going to see a lot more activity, and one of the things we're building towards is big May Day demonstrations, and there's actually a call tonight at five o'clock Eastern for folks who want to get on to hear about it. So, if you so, there's a lot of stuff brewing, but not nearly enough and not nearly militant enough and not targeted enough yet.
Speaker 1:All right. Well, that does lead into just exactly the kinds of things that I think we need to talk about. Let me ask you a question, though, still about what is happening or has happened till now. I was struck, saddened, depressed, when the UAW issued its statement about Trump's tariff policies, et cetera. I understand it, but I was surprised. I thought Sean Fain would simply balk right from the start, you know, but he didn't seem to, and I wonder if you had a similar feeling about that or if you have an explanation of it that will reduce my concern.
Speaker 2:Well, I don't know you well enough to know whether I can reduce your concern. You know, I think it's really complicated in that auto workers have been so devastated over the last 20 and 30 years as other industrial workers. So I understand when somebody, when the auto workers, say you know, we should have protected the auto industry 30 years ago, and so I understand that instinct and why folks would say that. But simultaneously, you know and this is what I write about in this article caution for labor is.
Speaker 2:Fatal is that Trump is very, very skilled at trying to split people and you know he'll be good to some and not to others. So I understand why the UAW said it. I'm sympathetic, but I think, for those of us who are in the movement, we need to be clear headed about the goals of the Trump-Musk axis, and it's to destroy unions, and that's what we have to focus on in the long run. So I think there's gonna be lots of bumps in the road, but what we have to look to is a broad alignment of forces that are committed to both fighting for economic justice, democracy and challenging this whole cabal of you know high tech. I mean we really have to.
Speaker 2:We really have to I think a lot of people haven't realized yet is a lot of people view this as just a billionaire takeover. But it's more than that. It's these folks in Silicon Valley who literally publicly say they believe we need a CEO monarchy to run the country, always trying to get more money and they will. But what this is about is billionaires, the fossil fuel industry, the high tech, silicon Valley industry all joining together to try to really dominate every aspect of the country. So all of these layoffs in the public sector we all know where that's going. They're then going to turn around and say, well, we need to privatize the work. You know what they're really adopting.
Speaker 2:The Chicago Teachers Union had a really good expression that they actually started using under Rahm Emanuel and other people, which is broke on purpose. It's where you purposely break broke on purpose. It's where you purposely underfund things or do things that make them non-functioning and then you see it doesn't work. So that's what they're doing now at Social Security, at the IRS. I don't know if it's weeks or months, but at some point Elon Musk and other characters are going to say, well, just give me a contract and I'll get it done. I think what's happening at this moment is that they are trying to figure out every different way to extract wealth from workers and every different way to extract wealth from workers and every different way that they can increase their power, and so I think labor and the broader movement needs to be clear on what their goals are, and then we need to start developing plans and strategies that meet this moment, not the moment of 10 years ago.
Speaker 1:Agreed, I still was surprised by Sean Fain. Surprised by Sean Fain. And then he introduced Sanders in a gigantic Detroit rally, redeeming things some for me. But was it that he was? Is he confused? Is he or is he just so much internal pressure that he felt he had to do that and then he can move on?
Speaker 2:I'm not in the auto workers union. I'm not in the autoworkers union. I don't know the details of the deliberations. What I do understand, though, is that a lot of autoworkers have seen their standard of living be screwed. They've seen their plants shut down, and so it is tempting when somebody says, aha, I'm going to save you for people to be drawn to that.
Speaker 2:I think part of our job is to help people.
Speaker 2:You know, I was actually.
Speaker 2:I was in a meeting in Brazil a couple of years ago, and somebody in the meeting said we have industry unions meaning an auto union or a steel union to raise wages by sector, but we have a labor movement to fight for the whole working class.
Speaker 2:So I think this is going to happen a bunch of times that certain unions will make peace or do something because they see it as an opportunity. That may be right, that may be wrong, but what's important for the rest of us to do is say we have to fight for the whole working class and figure out how we do that, and there will be bumps in the road and we won't always agree, but I think one of the things we have to avoid is not getting into sort of pissing matches on our side that aren't going to improve things, and so I guess what I'd say is he's figuring out his union and what he has to do. What I'm focused on is how we work with anybody who wants to work together to figure out how we build a movement that's capable of stopping these characters.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and in your introduction not introduction, but the first question, sort of situating what was going on. It was evident because the examples you gave I'm sure there are many things that you could have mentioned, but you consistently mentioned cross I don't know what to call it larger than unit functioning alliances, and I agree with you completely. But in practice, what does it mean? So when Musk and Trump say you're fired to a few thousand employees of a particular division, one approach is for the employees to think okay, what can we just us do? And their answer appears to be pretty much leave, as compared to what can we all do? What is the correct response to being fired by a lunatic who has no rights in any sensible formulation of what's going on? Should we sit down? Should we not leave? You know, should we call upon other unions to help us? I'm not sure I'm seeing that, and yet your little introduction suggested that's already beginning to happen.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, absolutely. There is more and more connection between federal unions and other public sector unions. But I want to just go backwards a second, because I think a lot of people's instinct are we should go protest at a government building or we should do something to the government building. That's fine if you do it, but the real strategy has to be it's how do we figure out not just Musk but the whole whole grouping of billionaires behind this, and then how do we cost them money? You know so it's fine to get in front of the building and have a big rally, but that and that's good to build spirit and we should do that.
Speaker 2:But what many of us are focused on, you know Tesla stock is way down. But what many of us are focused on, you know, tesla stock is way down. Their sales are down 13%. Looking at a whole set of billionaires and let's hold them accountable.
Speaker 2:A lot of these billionaires who are behind this get money from our public employee pension plans. There's $6 trillion of workers' money in public employee pension plans, and it's insane that many of them are invested in the very people that are dedicated to defunding the public sector, and so I think we have to one of the things that we really need to think about is this is not a political. We're not going to influence Republican politicians. They're not going to be moved if we do a demonstration of them. What's going to move people is if the billionaires behind this start to feel economic and other impact. They lose money for investment. If their businesses start to hurt, then that causes a kind of cleavage between the ruling groups that allows us to do something. Or government buildings. We need to be at the businesses, at the offices, at the homes of the people who have dedicated themselves to enriching themselves by screwing the rest of us, and I think that's sort of where we need to get to.
Speaker 1:It's the tried and true approach, that you have to raise the social costs to the elites high enough so that, well, it's no longer in their interest to pursue the policies that they were pursuing, because it's hurting them too much. I agree, but what would you say to someone who says hold on, trump's going, seizing every form of authoritarian control that he can? Now, that might not be a good strategy for him, but it might be what he's doing.
Speaker 2:Right, but that works because so far everybody's not really opposed it. Wall Street hasn't opposed it, big companies, because their greed is so great, but there's lots of examples throughout that they sort of get seduced by it. But stock market's down I don't know 1500 points today that you know, as demonstrations grow, as there's more civil disobedience, as there's more disruption, then that's when we have to think about, like, to some extent, you know, trump is a vehicle for people to do this. But if Trump was just on his own and all these folks abandoned him, it would be a totally different play. And so, again, what I think Trump would like, and what all of them would like, is for us to continue to say it's so unfair, let's go protest at their buildings.
Speaker 2:But we have to name and go after the billionaires. We have to and let me just give you a specific example of something we could calculate in any state how much the billionaires are going to save in tax breaks. Right, you could say in a state like Connecticut where I think I don't remember there's 25 billionaires, you could calculate how much they're going to save and we could start moving right now on a state level to say, any new income or wealth that they get from these tax cuts, while the state's budget is going to be cut, that we're going to 100 percent tax it. I mean you know that going to be cut, that we're going to 100% tax it. I mean, you know, that's the kind of thing that we need to do. We need to not be into sort of there's nothing we can do, or to do that anyway. But Well, absolutely we should do it on a state level. But there's such a sweet logic for folks who are not necessarily for taxing the rich of saying they just got hundreds of billions of dollars while we're getting less.
Speaker 2:So absolutely they're rich, but the idea of taking it back that these are, but all over the country. What's really exciting is people are starting to form things to look at much more creative ways to tax them. We have an idea that, in bargaining for common good, we've worked on, which is a digital ad tax, and Maryland's already doing it. You can tax each Microsoft Google ad at the source and raise billions in revenue. They make money off of our data. We can reclaim some of that money by taxing them.
Speaker 1:So I think one of the things we need to look at is so this is at the state level, or State level, yes.
Speaker 2:And Maryland's already passed it and most of the money's going to schools. They're suing to get the money back, but there's, I think part of what we have to free ourselves up to say is many things that seemed impossible in the past. The very aggressiveness and outrageousness of what the billionaires are doing opens a door for us to do things we couldn't do in the past, and I think that's one of the challenges how people get out of the fetal position, how people get out of oh, he's flooding the field. There's so much going on and I think you know the Wisconsin election partly shows it on the Supreme Court that there's a growing feeling that these aren't just billionaires but they're whiny, spoiled brats.
Speaker 2:It's just as extraordinary that the richest people in the world spend all their time talking about how unfairly they're treated, and I think as more damage happens to regular people, as people lose benefits, they see the attacks more and more folks are going to say it's not just unfair, but it's obscene that these guys and I'm really struck maybe it's just me, but they're whiny, they're like crybabies. Musk is out there saying, oh, poor me, why would they be mean to me? They have no sense of how they're seen. So I think you know I don't know if it's months, weeks, how long it is, but I think we're going to see more and more people not just taking to the streets but also taking to understanding how these companies make their money and saying we're going to try to stop that until we get some justice here saying we're going to try to stop that until we get some justice here.
Speaker 1:What about the fear factor? So when Trump comes down on Columbia, these aren't you know poor, powerless people who he's threatening, and the same with the giant law firm, and that two of them rolled over so quickly, that's hard to you know it's. Is it an unadmitted self-interest? I don't think so. It seems to be fear. And the same thing holds true for all the Republican senators and congresspeople. I mean lots of them.
Speaker 2:they seem to be afraid of them that's both shocking but really educational is how quickly these so-called institutions are caving and on free speech on everything, but for many years. We have to remember that higher ed has been commodified long ago. The joke is that Harvard and Columbia and all these schools are basically hedge funds and private equity funds that teach on the side that they've already made a decision. When you look at who are on the on the side that they've already made a decision. When you look at who are on the board of trustees, that these are institutions that already chose that their primary mission is to have as big as an endowment as they can and raise all this money and so one. I'm not actually that surprised, because they've sort of showed this behavior for years, that their primary goal was to sort of make the university more influential and richer, and I think it's actually useful useful for us to understand that people that we may have thought were so-called liberal and allies in fact they're just opportunists too.
Speaker 2:Why are the law firms doing it? Because they want to make money. You know they're completely unprincipled, and so you know. I think, when I look back at history, this is what often happens, which is and this is what happens in fascism Institutions cave first, and part of our job, then, is to help people get over the fear by being fearless. You know, and there's no magic to that. It's not a video. It's like we have to demonstrate, through our actions and our words, that we're fearless, and if we're fearless, that will inspire other people, and that's why, in the article, I talk about the Student Nonviolent.
Speaker 1:Coordinating Committee, because in the heart of Jim Crow's segregated South.
Speaker 2:they inspired a nation by taking incredible risks, by sitting in, by getting arrested, and I think those kind of heroic moments are how we shift the fear and get people to go from fear to bravery.
Speaker 1:You're seeing, you report the beginnings and even some real momentum in labor movement, as compared to individual or even single industry responses. What about on this other axis? Are you seeing I don't know how to describe it fear on the left, or you know that courageousness on the left? It's again not clear. When you're looking at things, by looking at media, even alternative media, et cetera, et cetera, you get a feeling that it may be the former.
Speaker 2:I absolutely agree that our side whether you want to call it the left, progressive sort of the liberal left, however you define it that fear has dominated a lot of what people are doing. Now, some of that, especially for immigrants and undocumented folks, is totally understandable and that's exactly why they're, you know, picking people up, because immigrant workers have been some of the most the biggest organizers and you know leading so many movements. So absolutely there's huge fear and I think there's fear of any institution, whether it be a union or a university or a foundation that has financial resources, because that's what they're going to try to do is cut off the financial resources. You know whether, in whatever way, they do that. So I see the fear and I think it's starting. What I'd say in the fear is I can feel it sort of receding a little bit, and I think it's receding for two reasons one, because people are realizing that doesn't work. It doesn't work, I mean. One is to be driven by fear means to give up.
Speaker 1:We just might as well, give up.
Speaker 2:But the other thing is, you know, as an organizer, what I see is, anytime you organize workers in a factory or janitors, you start off with fear. The employer campaign is if you join the union, you'll either get fired or close the plant or somehow punish you. And the hard work is forming a committee and then some people aren't afraid and then they stand up and that inspires other people, and so I think that's the moment we're in. I think the Tesla takedown stuff is the great example of this. You know, they've said they're going to do terrorism charges and they're going to get people, but they just keep growing around the world because people are furious. So I think part of what we need to do in the left and in the labor movement is offer people targets, places they can do things that are not just performative and you know, march in circles but have a real impact, and you know we've done that in the past. You know, in the Justice for Janitors campaign, we fought many of these same billionaires with immigrant workers and we were able, through a combination of strikes, through a combination of economic leverage, winning public support, to beat some of the biggest, winning public support to beat some of the biggest, richest people in the country with the poorest workers. So I feel totally confident, if we get over our fear, if we're able to be focused and targeted and we have both a strategy and a vision of where we want to go, that we're not just going to turn this back, but we have an opportunity and I think this is a key thing.
Speaker 2:There's many folks on the sort of I don't know if we call it more liberal side that would be happy to go back to where it was 10 years ago. That cannot be what we want. We will lose every worker in the country. If we're saying let's go back. We have to say we need to go forward to something new and better. We're not having a war with the billionaires to go back to the unacceptable level of inequality. We need to have a war with the billionaires about the kind of country we're going to have that creates opportunity and hope for lots of people, not just for the super rich.
Speaker 1:Right. I mean, I don't see how we could agree more.
Speaker 2:But if you want to fight, give me something we can disagree on.
Speaker 1:I'm trying. I'm trying.
Speaker 2:Like it's so clear it's not a fight, but you know, it is so clear.
Speaker 1:I mean, that's maybe one of the striking things. It is so clear, and yet there's the hesitance and there's the. I mean, for example, the nonprofits who are progressive. I mean there's some who aren't, but the ones who are and whose people are, you know, are committed to good things, are also running incredibly scared, I think, and the fear is exaggerated. That is to say, the other side isn't ready to take out 10,000 nonprofits. It's, you know, maybe one here, one there, but it's not. And on the other hand, the minute that one falls down, the minute that the law firm gives in that first one other law firms well, look, I can give in too. Now, I'm not the first one, I'm not the one who, you know, dropped the ball. They did, and I can protect our income, not law, not justice, not anything else our income as you described, and I'll get away with it. My kids maybe won't be sickened by their parents' behavior. It's not unreal. So I don't really know.
Speaker 1:I mean, as someone who writes a lot, it has felt to me see what you think of this, like presenting over and over how bad Trump is, or Trump and company are presenting over and over the pain and the suffering that they will induce. I mean it's not worthless, but there is so much of it already, including in the mainstream, but there is so much of it already, including in the mainstream, that the obstacle to greater civil disobedience, to greater strategic commitment, et cetera, is not ignorance of what's going on. That's not it anymore. It's a feeling that nothing better can be attained. It's exactly what you said when you said if we fight to go back where we were, we're going to lose every worker. A lot of people don't understand that, but I think it's absolutely right.
Speaker 2:You know, one of the dangers for us is I don't know if you've ever heard the burning oil platform metaphor, but if you're in the middle of the ocean on an oil platform that's burning and then you see there's a school of sharks swimming around it, what do you do? Do you burn to death or do you jump and get eaten by sharks? And I think that's often how we present things. It's so bad, it's so bad. And what I was struck in this article I wrote was how many people got back to me and said, oh, there's hope, it's not so bad. And I think that's got to be part of our job.
Speaker 2:And I think the point you're making sort of the unending litany of like I don't even talk about Trump anymore, I don't, I rarely use his name that what we have to focus on is what we have in our control, and also this question of what, what it is we want. You know what is the world we want and what's the strategy to get there. And I I just think people are waiting for that. There's enormous energy out there that we can tap, but we have to get out of this trap that this is. You know, to me, the three things that terrify me most is the folks who say let's just focus on 20, on 26. We're going to take it all back then. Just terrifies me because you know all that strategy is is let's limit the damage.
Speaker 2:Yeah that's that. But the other thing that I think we have to accept is that, whether it's law firms, whether it's universities, whether, in some case, it's unions, institutions with lots of resources are going to be incredibly cautious, which is why I think we need to build this from the bottom. You know, we need to build it from the folks who, in some cases, have left to lose, and I'm actually sympathetic. Having, you know, been part of running a big union that has pension funds and all these assets, you feel an obligation to try to protect them from your members. I totally get it. It's not that that's wrong, it's just that it's insufficient.
Speaker 2:So, like our job is, and this is what we're starting to do around the country, you know, last year in Minnesota, a group of unions and community groups worked together to get all their contracts to expire at the same time. Thousands of people struck at the same time Community. They had demands that were created not just by unions, but unions and community groups, and they won incredible stuff, not just at the bargaining table, but for the folks who don't know Minnesota, with a one vote legislative majority passed some of the best legislation in the country and they demonstrated and this is they demonstrated that when folks do things together, when they build power, that we can win, and I think we need to start showing that, and I think a lot of people are really inspired. You know how quickly the Tesla stuff took off, and so we need to find other equivalents of Tesla that we can work on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think I don't know whether have you been aware of some of the stuff that's going on in Serbia.
Speaker 2:Have you been aware of some of the?
Speaker 1:stuff that's going on in Serbia. I mean generally, but not Well. The thing that's striking if the people I've talked to are accurate I don't know that for sure, but I think they are is that it's not seasoned leftists, it's not people who have activist experience, and yet it's stopping the whole country. Have activist experience, yet it's stopping the whole country. I don't know whether it's still going or not, but it had people on campuses marching into rural areas collectively to demonstrate that it was possible to fight, and rural communities were putting them up in their homes. Things like that were going on.
Speaker 1:And it wasn't the left. It was strange, it was partly nationalist. Take our country, serbia, back from these kleptomaniacs who are stealing it from us. It was partly resistance, but it wasn't ideological, and I have a feeling that something like that is going on in the U S, not as, not as striking as that, but that the motion right now and that the energy right now is among the sector of social Democrats, a sector of social democrats, a sector of uh, of just the population, that are getting more and more angry and and militant about it and feeling militant about it, whereas the left, you know, gets depressed well, you know.
Speaker 2:it's interesting because when you look at um, you know one thing that a lot of folks don't know is, yes, we have a lot of federal employees in the Washington DC area, but there's lots of red states that have huge percentages of public employees. I think Ogden, utah, has the highest percentage of federal employees, and then so when you look at places, that how is that?
Speaker 1:I mean, I'm just curious.
Speaker 2:Oh, I think there's like a big call center. I mean there's various things that were built there you know that.
Speaker 2:You know in the same way you know, but Huntsville, alabama, huge number of public employees, and so one of the things that's starting to happen is these places that sort of were either not that political or conservative, you know they're all of a sudden being zapped and it's not. And one of the things people are starting to argue and I think is really effective is it's not just the impact on a university when you take away half a half a billion dollars of money, but it ripples. It's like a billion and a half dollars of stimulus that is taken out of the economy. It ripples out. So I think, as these cuts start to impact communities that thought they were immune, that exactly what you said is right.
Speaker 2:People who have never been active, people who don't see themselves as activists, are, you know, they're starting off showing up at some of the Republican town halls, but now they're showing up at Tesla and more and more people are going to show up.
Speaker 2:And going back to your fear question as people show up, it gets people over their fears and so it sort of feeds off of each other.
Speaker 2:But I think you're completely right that that's why, in a crazy way, this is an opportunity to build something much bigger than we had in the past because the agenda of these billionaires is so clearly at odds with the rest of the country. And maybe you know one of the things that I've heard for years and I'm sure you've heard it, that's made you create, made me crazy is all these rich guys saying we should run the government like a business. Well, we're now running the government like a business. We're laying people off with no notice. We're actually doing to federal employees what would be illegal in the private sector because of the Warn Act. So I sort of there's a terrific irony to the same people arguing we should run it like a business. Now that they're doing that, they're going to expose how absurd it is. The government isn't a business and it does something different. And then the other thing you know, we start all a business isn't a business.
Speaker 2:Right. The other thing that's crazy on this is they all, all these guys running around about the federal deficit. Trump and all these people run their companies that huge, you know, with huge loans. That's how they operate. So you know the hope and I need to be honest for anybody listening to this who may say what, what the hell's with this guy, how can you be optimistic? So I am biogenetically, chemically optimistic. You know that is my nature, but that's how I've stayed an organizer for almost 50 years. But it's not just my biochemical thing.
Speaker 1:I've seen again and again, you know, in the Justice for.
Speaker 2:Janitors campaign when the police attacked us in 1990, and two women in LA, we were attacked and two women miscarried and one person died and people were hospitalized and everybody was like how do we survive this? And then it's like a day later it totally turned around because the whole world was shocked by what was caught on video and the Danish janitors union threatened to go on strike to support US janitors. It's the intensity of conflict that ultimately liberates people to have a different kind of view at a fight, because that conflict sort of shows which side everybody's on.
Speaker 1:As long as the conflict can't be blamed on, you know, craziness on the left, that's a strong problem, that's a you know it's a serious danger.
Speaker 2:You know it's interesting.
Speaker 2:You say that because during the Justice for Janitors campaign in DC, after years of organizing and workers being fired and strikes, and when we were under all sorts of court injunctions limiting what we could picket, we did something, which is we parked a school bus across the 14th Street Bridge and did not fully understand the impact of traffic and basically shut the district down.
Speaker 2:Supreme Court didn't open late and everybody's saying is there going to be a backlash? Is this going to backfire? But because we had spent a long time getting people to understand how terrible the conditions of janitors were and how literally the richest people in Washington were trying to maintain janitors at minimum wage, we were able to do stuff that seemed very militant and aggressive, because we laid out a bigger story about why it wasn't like we randomly disrupted and you know it's the same thing in Silicon Valley we were under court orders saying we couldn't picket any of the Silicon Valley factories, so we blocked the intersection. I mean we blocked the ramp on the highway. It had more impact than picketing but it and it was, you know, a misdemeanor, you know blocking traffic, and it had a bigger impact than if we walked in circling from it. So part of what we have to do is say how do we do things that have impact, but also that people understand why we're doing it. It's not random disruption.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there should be two criteria we're going to do an action, we want it to be impactful, we want it to raise costs for the other side, et cetera, et cetera, and we want it to grow our support Exactly and as long as grow our support is serious and in mind, then exactly what you described is what emerges a militant, civil, disobedient, disruptive act which, however, has been properly motivated and properly discussed, and so people side with it. But that doesn't always happen, and so it is important that that does happen.
Speaker 2:And there will be also.
Speaker 1:These are crazy, unprecedented times.
Speaker 2:There will be people that do things that are stupid. But let's go on. Yeah, and that's to me. We just roll with it, we don't need to get defensive. It's a big country, a lot of people. But we should also remember you know everybody's sort of now Martin Luther King is a hero, but during the height of the civil rights movement you know he was not a hero to all these folks and there was huge criticism of the civil rights movement for being too militant and aggressive. So we need to sort of weigh how we build, support and grow, but also do things that really have an impact and effective, because the thing where we'll lose people is if we're just a round of big demonstrations that don't really have a target or a purpose. People feel good and we should do it, but it's insufficient if it's not focused at the right folks in the right way.
Speaker 1:I used to say look, if we bring 100,000 people to Washington and then we do it again three weeks later, and then we do it again three weeks later, and then we do it again three weeks later, and then we do it again three weeks later, and every time it's a hundred thousand people, the cost of the government is cleaning up the area where we assembled, and that's it if we bring 20 000 and then 40 000 and then 80 000.
Speaker 1:they're looking on and the cost to them is what the fuck? Where? Where is this going? And if we add civil disobedience so that there's an edge? So you know, it's like you said earlier, it's not rocket science, it's not that complicated.
Speaker 2:And then if we add on top that we're not just going to the mall or to a building, but we're then focusing on the individuals and the corporations that are profiting. Because I think when we, you know, there's been a lot of analysis of fascism and what people say is mass demonstrations are not an effective counter to fascism, because they don't care what the majority think. What disrupts fascism is disruption. It's when the, you know, it's when the system doesn't work, when they can't deliver what they want. So I think this is really a challenge on how we get really strategic on who some of the bad guys are and then ways that we can make them feel the pain that they're making us feel.
Speaker 2:And to me, as long as they can do all this crazy stuff and then sort of be off in their luxury resorts. For know, for example, in New York City, a number of community groups have regularly gone out to Long Island, to the Hamptons. Regularly they block the airport, the golf courses, like the rich have to feel on every level that they cannot maintain what they have if this goes on. And so it's like there's both strategy and how to cost them money but also their resorts everywhere they go. They got to feel the anger of people who are losing their jobs, of an economy that's going to be in turmoil. But, more importantly, even if the economy stabilized, it's the level of inequality. The way the rich dominate is just unacceptable to both.
Speaker 1:On the one side, there's what they can gain now. They have that firmly in mind, even sometimes fictitiously, but still firmly in mind. On the other side, there's the threat of a serious wealth tax. If it appears that their actions are increasing the likelihood of a serious wealth tax, that's a reason to stop the actions. If their actions are annoying you and I, they don't give a shit, and if their actions are immoral, they don't give a shit, because they don't even know what that means.
Speaker 2:I think we can't even use the word immoral or amoral. And there's actually I don't know if you've read this this fascinating brain research about how the brains of the super rich get rewired and they lose empathy. There was even a study done on people who win the lottery and they soon convinced themselves they won the lottery because they deserve to win it.
Speaker 2:Of course I'm with you, and so the ability of the human mind to rationalize the most outrageous behavior. And they're not. As you said earlier, they're not going to change because we go tut, tut tut. You're unfair, you're immoral. They're going to change because it materially impacts them, because all the things they care about are impacted. That's what changes them.
Speaker 1:I'm not sure I have it right that it was Musk, but one of them said the problem that we're trying to deal with and overcome, the problem that is wrecking America, blah, blah, blah is empathy.
Speaker 2:Yes, I think Musk has said it, but the whole set of right-wing trolls have sort of taken this up and it's almost like a Saturday Night Live skit.
Speaker 1:It's incredible, you can't satirize them Exactly.
Speaker 2:No, that's exactly right. If we had run a campaign saying rich people feel no empathy, they would have said oh, there goes the radical left. But then they haven't because empathy does mean that you care when you do something horrible, and so they are. You know they can send. I don't know if you're following this case in Maryland of the guy who was deported into El Salvador. It's now been proven that the administration's admitted and they say well, tough luck.
Speaker 2:You know, I mean, that's not just empathy, that's not just immoral, that's like craven and disgusting. That's not just empathy, that's not just immoral.
Speaker 1:That's like craven and disgusting. But you know what, when the administration at Columbia says okay and kneels, I don't think it's important that it makes me angrier, but in a very real sense it does. It's because they haven't been that way for years and years and years. Not that bad They've been. You know who they are. But the extreme it's like a profile in hypocrisy and cowardice, right, instead of a profile in courage. And I don't know whether people are seeing it or not, but it's really incredible.
Speaker 2:One of the things to help people see it that we're starting to work on is doing a deep dive of who are trustees or regents on major universities and which ones of them, either through political contributions or their businesses, are sort of part of the Trump-Musk defund universities, and we want to run campaigns that say it's a violation of fiduciary duty. You should not be allowed to be a trustee of a university if you're advocating policies that defund it, and then we should look at what businesses they own and we should go to those businesses and say you know, like we need to keep connecting the dots because this is about money for them, like we need to keep connecting the dots because this is about we pay for them.
Speaker 1:We did that like 50 or 60 years ago too. But I think if you do that, you're going to see a change at the universities. Whether or not it's true of all kinds of other institutions I'm not sure, but at universities you're going to see. What you said earlier was the outcome of the change. The outcome that you said was well, the universities basically are, you know, gatherings to make money and to have power and influence in society, and as a kind of a means to that end, they do some teaching, mostly teaching how to be a rich person and be a schmuck at the elite schools. All right, but how did that happen?
Speaker 1:From 1969 to now, the response to the support for Palestine from the authorities on campuses was much worse than the response to us opposing the Vietnam War. It was much more aggressive and we were actually more militant. So it was, you know, on both sides. You'd expect the administration to be more militant then, but it wasn't, and they did have an inkling of wait. This is a university, we have to have knowledge produced at this instant, and that's changed. And I think what you'll see is I have no. You know, this is pure hypothesis. You will see that the staffing of the administrative levels is far more corporate than it was, and likewise of the trustees.
Speaker 2:That's absolutely true, because we've looked at the trustees before. The who's who of millionaires and billionaires in a place like New York, it's real estate folks. And the few other voices are gone, right, the few that were, more or less, you know, caring people they're out, been a defunding of higher education in this country, especially in the public sector, and it's not just been about saving money. Reagan and other people were clear that they wanted college students to have to work, so they couldn't protest all the time.
Speaker 2:So there is a history going back to the 60s, of the right wing, seeing universities as you know what he calls citadels that produce activists, and so the original defunding which then led universities. Oh, we don't have as much money, so now we need to raise money, now we need corporate but that was part of the purpose to raise the tuition, to change the composition of the student body.
Speaker 2:Exactly, and then if you're a student, right. So to me this is like I'm so glad you brought up, you know sort of what happened in the sixties. This is the through line that started there, which is how and and and. So it's sort of extraordinary when you look at who the boards of most of these schools are, and you know any one of these schools, between its endowment and between the rich people on their board, could have said you know what our mission is, you know it's learning, it's higher education, blah, blah, blah, however they define it, and we'll pay for it out of the endowment or we're going to raise the money, but we're not going to be intimidated.
Speaker 2:And it hasn't happened, but I think what it will do is. I actually think it's going to help many of us be more clear-headed going forward about who allies are and aren't, and that's important to do that. And you know at what point. You know, today, at Columbia, a number of students chain themselves to the fence Jewish and Palestinian students that you do start to see the seeds of people reacting to sort of what's going on in Palestine as being so over the top. Even people that are not necessarily, you're seeing, in the Jewish community, even people that are not necessarily sympathetic to Palestinians which is a whole separate story are now saying the biggest. There was a great speech by a rabbi that said I don't want to be a pawn anti-Semitism, to be a pawn of Trumpism, you know.
Speaker 1:So I think all of this is going to play out, but you're going to see, I'm hoping that sort of, as you know, as students come back before the end of the year, but as they come back next year, that we're going to see a level of activity among students that will be critical of the movement going forward. See now, you said you were biologically and constitutionally optimist right, I did say that.
Speaker 1:Yes, I think it's going to happen now, in the next few weeks. I think students on lots of campuses are probably talking in dorms and in dining halls and whatever. What do we do now? And we're going to see what they come up with, and I think it's going to be large and militant. I certainly hope so. I can't explain in my mind why it wouldn't be.
Speaker 2:But you know, the other interesting thing to look at is how much students have organized into union student workers. So there is already at UCLA and many of these schools that there already is our unions of student workers, of graduate students. You know, and we, you know, last year there was a strike at Rutgers, which was the first strike that I know of at a university that included the full-time tenured professors and you know, the graduate students and part-time lecturers, you know. So I definitely think that one of the key places we're going to see this fight play out is in higher ed, and what's really exciting is especially a union like the American Association of University Professors. They elected new leadership and they are on the front edge of both defending students and Palestinian students and challenging all of this. So there's unlikely things develop in crises that you wouldn't necessarily think would happen.
Speaker 1:I have what may be an uncomfortable or a hard question. I don't know, if you look at labor and the labor movement, would you agree with me that nurses, public school teachers and campuses, along with the occasional union inspired by some sort of leadership like, say, sean Fain or something, are where it's at for the moment? And if so, why is that?
Speaker 2:And if so, why is that? Well, so you know, having just come back from a big meeting in Chicago last week where we had hundreds of people, there's no doubt that teachers, nurses, a set of those kind of workers on the forefront, and I think there's a really I mean one that's a result of really good organizing. Over the last 10 years, teachers have really organized, and a lot of it through something we call bargaining for common good, which is pushing the question back.
Speaker 1:Why were they the ones to organize? Really well, right, it's the same thing there's.
Speaker 2:Partly part of the reason is is the attempts to defund the public sector and all of that incentive, and what's really been good, though, is that what teacher unions have done all over the country is, instead of what they used to say, which is we're going to lose our jobs or we need more money for our pay, what they've thought about, what the Chicago teachers and other unions have thought about is is what we call bargaining for common good Bargaining, and striking over questions of how do we get more housing for people, how do we have community schools, how do we do all those things. There's like 10, 15 years of work laying out that teachers have really made themselves the advocates for the poorest and most disadvantaged students, but I definitely and the reality in the labor movement. If we do the numbers in 1958 or 55, depending, if you ask 35% of workers in this country were in unions, almost all in the private sector. We are now down to 6% of the private sector being organized and down to 10% of the workforce, so the private sector is a smaller and smaller part of the labor movement being organized, and down to 10% of the workforce. So the private sector is a smaller and smaller part of the labor movement and this is also by design that there was an attempt that was largely successful, starting in the 70s, to destroy private sector unions and to eliminate their pensions. And then, when you eliminate the pensions for private sector workers, you then say, well, why do those greedy public sector workers get pensions? So a lot of this are things that were set in motion and by design. But you know you also are seeing a lot of activity among you know, among logistics workers, you know Amazon workers, you're seeing lots of activity among other workers.
Speaker 2:But that has to be one of our jobs, that this cannot just be a teacher and nurses movement. So, for example, we have a campaign called Tennessee for All in Tennessee. That is about both organizing in rural areas, doing the prep work to help workers join unions in the new factories, but on top of that, we have a vision of what the state should look like. That's different and this isn't necessarily glamorous work. But you raised rural stuff earlier. If we don't organize in rural areas, we can't win.
Speaker 2:So I think there's, in some ways, we need to think about two things that may seem like the polar opposite, but they're the same. One is what a dramatic inspiring things that get people over their fear, and then also what is the nitty gritty, deep work we have to do to build our movement. You know, what are the places where there's huge cuts and there is no organization, and how do we go and how do we build on that. So I think it's like there's no secret here, there's no sort of gimmick that's going to win, but so we need to both look at what we're doing that inspires folks and starts to put the heat on the bad guys, and then we need to dig in on what that unions have really not tried to organize in the private sector for years. They've given up, and so all of those things have to happen at the same time.
Speaker 1:The kinds of things that you're saying need to be heard. It was interesting when you were talking about the schools. There's another upshot of the 60s were you know it had its virtues but it didn't win, and you don't want, when it's all said and done, they take it out and try to prevent it next time. And for a little bit of what you've been describing the attack on private sector unions, the attack on higher education, et cetera, et cetera they all were basically the other side, trying to avoid another 60s and worse.
Speaker 1:From their point of view, and the impact of that is Asian, european. The amount of people from the United States there has declined drastically, and when you ask why, the teachers will tell you the American students who are applying are not prepared. They can't cut it, and so we take the students who can. So that's the result. But I think that too is almost conscious, that is, you know, their policies with respect to education aren't just shock and awe aren't just shock and awe. Their policies are also ignorance, let's call it, or denial of access to information, to debate, to discussion is good for us, meaning good for them, and so they're imposing that too.
Speaker 2:I mean we shouldn't underestimate. I mean I think what's interesting is the bad guys, the billionaires, the Trumpians, all of that. They understand better than we do that the neoliberal regime is collapsing and we haven't really talked about that here. But neoliberalism which has dominated, which led to so-called free trade, et cetera, et cetera, is collapsing and it's not working. And part of the problem is much of the Democratic Party and the so-called progressive world was actually and this happened throughout the world social democratic parties all supported the austerity of neoliberalism and lost the working class because they supported austerity. And part of that was and so the whole question of you know, when you think about what a student debt up to 2 trillion or a trillion and a half dollars. All of that's by design, as you're saying, to make it harder to go to school, limit who goes to school. But if you go to school, you have so much debt you don't have any time to protest because you're working two jobs. I mean that literally there are quotes from Reagan talking years ago about yeah, you know, they shouldn't just be able to go to school for free. I mean, higher education was essentially free in this country, in the public, you know, in public universities for years and you know so it's like. Part of our job is to help people understand that these are not accidents, this isn't the natural course of history. These are really really wealthy people that want to get richer by implementing things that make them richer, that hurt all of us. That want to get richer by implementing things that make them richer, that hurt all of us. And I think we can tell that story in a non-ideological way, without leftist rhetoric, because that's people's experience and we need to talk about people's experience. And I just throw on top of that is you know, they ran on think we also had on the left for a long time to say we want to go to the promised land, we want something dramatically better, that we've lost, that we've become so practical that what we say we're for, you know, two more sick days. I'm all for sick days, I'm all for all of that. But if I go to one more meeting where I'm meeting with nonprofits and other organizers and they say we're on the edge of fascism, let's do more of what we're doing, is our side has to get shaken up a little bit and say if we and that was the title of the article in these times, which is for labor.
Speaker 2:Caution is fatal. The biggest risk is something like maintaining the same thing. Folks should read the article. If you look up Stephen Lerner fatal in these times it will pop up is that I guess we're running towards times. I think this is the critical question for the labor movement that we have to decide at every level. Are we going to try to and I think this is how I end the article are we going to gamble that Trumpism will collapse and we will revive ourself from a diminished form, or are we going to say we're not afraid to poke the bear, we're not afraid of the consequences? We have no choice but to get into this fight full bore, to take the risks that come with it, because the risk of doing nothing is far greater than any consequence of aggressively organizing and fighting back consequence of aggressively organizing and fighting back.
Speaker 1:We agree, and hopefully it's emerging. We'll see, I guess, in the coming weeks and maybe months, what transpires. I'm tempted to just keep going on because I think it's so productive, but we've done the hour. Maybe the way to go on is to say we'll have you back again. Would you think about, um, I could imagine the next time a few weeks down the road, or a month or two down the road again. Right, you know, talking about what's going on and and uh, what opportunities are there to fight, and so on. But also, you made a point of and I agree that it has to be seeking more than to return to Biden, to return to business as usual pre-Trump, that that's not going to motivate people, and rightly so. So then the question becomes how do we enunciate something other than that that represents really going forward? Maybe we could talk about that next time too.
Speaker 2:That would be great, because I think part of the challenge is how we balance a vision of what we want with a strategy that people feel lets us start to march down that road, and I think that's really the challenge for us. You have to mess the feet off of each other.
Speaker 1:Yeah, how do you talk about the present and what we're fighting for in a way that leads toward something much better, something much more inspiring, and doesn't come across as lunacy? All those things at once not easy. I've been encountering them for decades.
Speaker 2:Well, anyway, I want to thank you and I will get back in touch with you to do this again, and if there's anything you want to say before we close, I would just end with sort of summarizing what I said, which is let's get out of the fetal position, let's stop being afraid, let's stop feeling this is some kind of colossus that isn't beatable. These are flawed, billionaire, whiny clowns, and if we get our act together and do what we need to do, we will win, and we'll win something much better than the past. We'll win the future. That's how I'd end.
Speaker 1:All right, thank you very much. And that said, this is Mike Albert signing off for Revolution Z Until next time.