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Want to Stop Trump? Take a Page From These Dockworkers, and Stop Work
Cole, Peter
http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/19835/want_to_stop_trump_take_a_page_from_these_dockworkers_and_stop_workDate Written: 2017-01-23 Publisher: In These Times Year Published: 2017 Resource Type: Article Cx Number: CX20414 On the day of Donald Trump's inauguration, many Americans wrung their hands. Some took to social media to express their discontent while others protested. But, perhaps, the most dramatic and important action was taken by dockworkers in Oakland, California: They stopped working. Their strike demonstrated the potential power ordinary people have on the job, when organized. Abstract: - Excerpt: Today, though some workers are assigned to specific companies on a long-term basis, many still are dispatched via hiring halls. This system gives workers incredible power because they decide when to report for work, creating the possibility for workers to coordinate not showing up. The result, as seen on Friday, was to shut down the port of Oakland. Obviously, many workers, nationwide, do not operate under a dispatch system. But they can still organize something similar without technically calling a strike. At the end of 2014, New York City police officers coordinated a "virtual work stoppage," nicknamed the "Blue Flu." And last year, Detroit public school teachers, enraged by the awful conditions students and teachers suffer from because of a lack of state funding, organized an effective "sickout." In other words, workers need not officially "strike," or even belong to a labor union, to engineer a shutdown. Subject Headings |