I have related on this board bits and snatches of my personal history as the son and grandson of bigshots in the long disappeared Amalgamated Meat Cutters union.

The transformation of organized labor took place during the Reagan years. We went from something to nothing in the 1980s. They didn't kill us, they just scared us into institutional suicide.

The Amazon facility in Albany, N.Y., will be the next location to fight for a union.

NEW: Leaked video shows Amazon managers shouting at workers & warning them against signing union cards at an Albany, NY warehouse.

"Stay out of our way," one manager yelled, pounding a table. "I'm up to here with their bullshit."

You might think you know just how anti-union Amazon is, but you probably underestimate it by a country mile.

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Boy howdy did I get this wrong.

As I mentioned in one of my posts on this topic, the Electoral College system used by IATSE allows for the possibility of a minority of the popular vote carrying enough big locals to win the Electoral College. From Deadline Hollywood:

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More than 10,000 John Deere workers could be on strike by the end of the day.

While a lot is made of the strikes shutting France down during Christmas week, it is interesting to note that it is a reaction to the latest moves by Macron against the working classes. And there are broad swathes of the country not really feeling the strikes at all.

The teacher strikes are over for now. More teacher strikes will happen in the fall (L.A. being one of those). But that doesn't mean that the teachers are satisfied with their modest gains. They are still organizing and taking action.

Last week the teachers of West Virginia went out on strike due to low pay and weak health benefits. On Thursday things got interesting.

Tuesday night, state union leaders and the Governor Jim Justice reached a deal, and the teachers were expected to be back at work on Thursday.

They didn’t go.