The single most important pro-labor speech of the shutdown was not given by AOC

The country was convulsed by shutdown finger-wagging and one lone voice called for a general strike. it wasn't AOC
BOB HENNELLY
JANUARY 27, 2019 1:00PM (UTC)

The single most important speech given about labor in decades was easy to miss last week. It was given by a woman who, like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, is a leader evidently guided by an internal moral compass that transcends conventional politics. That consciousness is a real threat to a status quo almost entirely defined by men.

The Joe Bidens of the world — in politics and labor — just have to let go if the Republic is to endure and the planet is to survive.

The world built by male patriarchy is in convulsions. It took every bit of focus to keep up with the breaking news: the pre-dawn raid by armed (unpaid) FBI agents on the home of a sleeping Roger Stone; the near collapse of our air traffic control system; and the epic humiliation of President Trump by Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

And that was just Friday.

Yet, the Jan. 20 impassioned speech given by Association of Flight Attendants CWA International President Sara Nelson deserves not to be lost in that blur because it grasped the potential power of organizing a national general strike in support of 800,000 Federal workers and their families that the male dominated labor movement largely missed.

https://www.salon.com/2019/01/27/the-single-most-important-pro-labor-speech-of-the-shutdown-was-not-given-by-aoc/

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American union participation fell to 10.5 percent last year. from 10.7 percent in 2017 and 2016 across all demographic categories. By contrast, in the early 1980s one in five American workers were unionized. And, it should come as no shock that there’s a direct historical connection between the decline in union enrollment, depressed wages and rising inequality, that no matter which party is in charge continues to get worse.

In the private sector just 6.4 percent of workers belonged to a union. In the public sector 37.2 percent of workers are unionized, down by half a percent due to a decline at the state level.

And yet, American public support for unions is at an all time high. And, as we saw in the West Virginia teachers strike, its totally possible for a grass roots shoestring budget movement to upend reactionary ‘right to work’ politics — even in a state where Trump beat Clinton by 42 points.

But without the kind of courage and big picture vision of a Sara Nelson, this crop of six-figure labor leaders will continue to preside over a shrinking movement.