III. Unions have larger cash reserves than at any time in history;
IV. Under Biden, the National Labor Relations Board was more friendly to unions than at any time in generations; and
V. During the Biden years, the number of unionized workers in America *went down*, not up.
13/
That's because union bosses - sitting on a mountain of cash, surrounded by workers *begging* to be organized - decided that their priority was their existing members, and declined to spend more than a pittance of their cash reserves on organizing efforts.
This is suicidal - as self-destructive as the two-tier contract was.
14/
To pull off a general strike, we will need mass civil disobedience, a willingness to ignore the Taft-Hartley Act's ban on solidarity strikes. Trump's NLRB isn't just hostile to workers - he's illegally fired so many of its commissioners that they can't even perform most of their functions.
15/
But a militant labor movement could turn that to its advantage, because militants know that when Trump fires the refs, you don't have to stop the game - you can *throw out the rule book*:
https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/29/which-side-are-you-on-2/#strike-three-yer-out
This is the historic opportunity and challenge before us - to occupy our unions, save our workplace democracies, and then save our national democracy itself.
16/
I'm and the end of my tour for my new book, the international bestseller *Enshittification*!
My last two events are CCC in #Hamburg, Dec 27-30:
https://events.ccc.de/congress/2025/infos/index.html
and the Tattered Cover in #Denver, Jan 22:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cory-doctorow-live-at-tattered-cover-colfax-tickets-1976644174937
I hope you can make it!
eof/
