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Erik Loomis Profile picture
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30 Oct, 5 tweets, 2 min read
I was very happy to be part of this @greenhousenyt article on the potential for a general strike if Trump tries to steal the election.

theguardian.com/us-news/2020/o…
As I said in the piece, if there ever is a general strike again, it's not out of some syndicalist fantasy. It will come straight from the established labor movement. And it very much can be effective. It may well be that only unions can save our democracy.
Moreover, if Trump or the courts steal this, there are going to be millions of pissed off people. But what's the organizational capability to organize these people into concrete action that's more than a one-off protest? It's pretty much only labor unions. It's sure not Democrats
Lots of enviros, women's rights activists, etc., who are not union members may well see very real inspiration in this and participate and shut down this nation. And remember how fast Republicans caved when @FlyingWithSara threatened to shut down the nation during the shutdown!
Organized labor has its problems, lord knows. But the liberal-left lacks large-scale organizing capability with strategic planning and this is what unions can provide.

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More from @ErikLoomis

Erik Loomis Profile picture
30 Oct
This Day in Labor History: October 30, 1837. Nicholas Farwell, a train engineer toiling for the Boston and Worcester Rail Road Corporation fell off a train while at work and had his hand crushed. In 1842, the courts said he deserved no damages! Let's talk about this!
The 1842 decision by the Massachusetts Supreme Court set into place the doctrine of worker risk.
This decision set a vitally important precedent in American labor history that the worker voluntarily took on risk when he or she agreed to be employed on the job. Over the next century, tens thousands of Americans died on the job with employers doing nothing.
Read 26 tweets
Erik Loomis Profile picture
29 Oct
This Day in Labor History: October 29, 1889. Whites in Hawaii lynched the Japanese organizer and merchant Katsu Goto in Hawaii after opening a store to compete with the plantation company store and advocating for labor organizing! Let's talk about racism and labor in Hawaii!
This event would demonstrate how planters and other white migrants to Hawaii would use white supremacy and violence to establish control over the diverse labor force of those islands.
Nearly as soon as white missionaries arrived in Hawaii before the Civil War, they wrote back home about all the investment possibilities there.
Read 20 tweets
Erik Loomis Profile picture
28 Oct
This Day in Labor History: October 28, 1793. Eli Whitney submitted a patent for his invention known as the cotton gin. Perhaps more than any technology in American history, this invention profoundly revolutionized American labor!!! Let's talk about it! Image
Creating the modern cotton industry meant the transition from agricultural to industrial labor in the North with the rise of the factory system and the rapid expansion and intensification of slavery in the South to produce the cotton.
The cotton gin went far to create the 19th century American economy and sharpened the divides between work and labor between regions of the United States, problems that would eventually lead to the Civil War.
Read 38 tweets
Erik Loomis Profile picture
19 Oct
This Day in Labor History: October 19, 1935. John L. Lewis punches Carpenters president Big Bill Hutcheson in the face on the stage at the AFL Convention in Atlantic City. Let's talk about this bizarre moment and the creation of the CIO!
The United Brotherhood of Carpenters was the largest member of the AFL. It was also among the most politically conservative unions.
While, like much of the AFL, the UBC was technically nonpartisan in these years, Hutcheson was an active Republican and would remain so throughout his life, openly campaigning for Republican candidates against Franklin Roosevelt.
Read 28 tweets
Erik Loomis Profile picture
18 Oct
This Day in Labor History: October 18, 1981. Workers at Brown and Sharpe, one of the nation’s largest machine tool companies, went on strike at its plant in North Kingstown, Rhode Island. This strike continued for...15 years! Let's talk about the longest strike in US history!
Brown and Sharpe was founded in 1833 a couple of miles from where I currently live in Providence, Rhode Island.
Over the decades, it became a large manufacturing firm making all sorts of goods in its large Rhode Island factories, helping to make the state one of the nation’s centers of American manufacturing.
Read 29 tweets
Erik Loomis Profile picture
15 Oct
This Day in Labor History: October 15, 1914. President Wilson signs the Clayton Act, providing protections for unions from courts issuing injunctions against them. Yet this groundbreaking legislation would prove only moderately successful. Let's talk about why!
The Sherman Anti-Trust Act passed in 1890 and was intended to limit the monopolies that dominated the Gilded Age. But these laws required enforcement.
Not so different from today, when unions are subjected to First Amendment challenges and restrictions that no other institution in the United States have to deal with, the courts decided to find ways to use the Sherman Act to attack unions while ignoring it for corporations.
Read 30 tweets

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