Huge Supreme Court case today. Glacier v. Teamsters.
Cement truck drivers went out on strike. Some of the cement in their trucks hardened (as cement is known to do). After the strike, the company sued the workers for destruction of property. Issue is whether they can.
If the company wins, it will vitiate the ability of workers to strike in this country (which has been happening quite a bit, don’t you know).
And now is where I remind you that the Roberts Court has been the most pro-business court in US history that lives to smash labor rights.
If “White working class voters” were motivated by economic self interest, their MAGA spokespeople would be up in arms for the workers.
Instead, it’s the kind of case that proves MAGA is just in it for the racial bigotry and doesn’t give a toss economic anxiety.
One (dumb) thing that is happening in this thread from people determined to lick jackboots, the issue IS NOT whether the workers had to empty the cement trucks after they started striking. The issue is whether the NLRB (Which said the workers’ actions were FINE) has any power.
Like there was an actual ruling from the National LABOR Relations Board that said the workers DID take reasonable precautions to avoid the destruction of property.
The nihilist Republicans are saying the NLRB doesn’t matter and they should still be able to sue anyway.
This is all going even worse than I figured, and I figured it would go pretty badly.
Essentially KBJ and Sotomayor have abandoned the best arguments for the unions, and are now focused on limiting the scope of the eventual corporate victory.
Well, that sucked.
Every labor case start with this Court 6-3 against labor.
This case might be 8-1 or 9-0 with the liberals siding with the jackboots to limit the scope of this ruling. Getting very Fulton v. City of Philadelphia (anti gay adoption case that was 9-0) vibes.
striking is compromise against armed militant unionism. removing legality of strikes makes them not so useful. suddenly, violence looks very effective again. america has no gun control laws.
another bad idea from ruling class. this will cause suffering: first for workers, then for owners.
not good. that compromise is reformist, but it saved lives.
you want to know the one thing that would make those gun control laws spring up like rat traps?
[edit] or more realistically, they’ll arrest you for doing an “illegal” strike and that would disqualify you from carrying, or other tricks like that
yes, like california under Reagan when Black Panther Party began to defend itself.
the government will try, but I think it would not work in states with gun culture.
Yeah maybe you could’ve done something like 15 years ago but if you try to take guns in a state like Florida, Georgia, or Texas today and good fucking luck, like 30% of those people will genuinely shoot the cops that come at them.
And I don’t even agree with those people on literally anything. But it’ll be a big problem if you want to restrict gun ownership.
Fascism literally cannot win forever, if only because they run out of people to kill and shit to steal.
It’s still frustrating how domesticated America has become, but hey, dingoes were domesticated once too.
We’ve shown with WTO in the 90s that we can organize toward militancy. It’s not a matter of how bad things are but of how organized we are.
striking is compromise against armed militant unionism
That’s still striking though, just not legally sanctioned. Which is what strikes originally were in the first place.
