The fact that Starbucks took the case of the Memphis 7 all the way to the Supreme Court, months after bargaining began, exposes its absolute hypocrisy.
Rarely do capitalists sincerely want a “positive, productive relationship” with a union fighting to improve wages, benefits and working conditions for the workers they exploit. When the workers get more, it cuts into the profits of the bosses.
It is actually fairly uncommon for the NLRB to order workers to be reinstated before their cases are resolved in a drawn-out court process. With the latest SCOTUS ruling, the Board will be even less likely to issue a pro-union injunction.
It should come as no surprise that this viciously right-wing court took the side of Starbucks. Nor should anyone be shocked that two of the three “liberal” justices sided with the “conservative” majority. The court was established by Congress in 1789, with justices appointed for life, when enslavement was legal. Its purpose was never to uphold the rights of the exploited.
In an opinion piece published in The New York Times on June 15, SBWU co-founder Jaz Brisack wrote: “The outcome is predictable: the most conservative Supreme Court in decades eroded another legal protection of workers’ right to organize. In response, the labor movement must re-evaluate the source of our power; the law will not save us.”
It will take independent, militant action by the working class to defend the basic right to organize unions.
Why does anyone expect a fascists state to rule in the workers favor? The will eventually make it illegal to not be a slave. People are going to end up going to extremes. If they make it illegal to strike and make you punishable in courts for it… Then at what point do people just start killing their boss instead?
At least that’s what should happen… Unfortunately though, Americans are just too broken to actually do anything about it. Courts will eventually make it illegal to not be slaves to your corporation and people will just roll over for them.
Alternatively,
Material conditions are still too good in the US for the type of extremism you write about to manifest (yet). People who are getting fucked over but not starving won’t be murdering anyone anytime soon.
However, the trend is clear, your observation is correct about where capitalists would like to take things. This will worsen conditions and push more and more people towards extremism… which is where it is up to “us” to push people leftward and point their anger where it belongs, towards capitalists/capitalism.
As I find myself repeating a lot, things just simply aren’t bad enough yet across the board in the US to see the unrest which is required for actual change. It’s going to get worse, worse probably than any of us can imagine right now, before it starts to get any better. If you can see the inevitable future coming then you can see things like this court case being another domino in a line of them that is still fuzzy. It won’t change anything on its own, but all these small events will eventually add up to something big. We just aren’t there yet, and that’s probably good in some ways because there is effectively no leftist movement of any sort in the US. Like the fact that these cases get decided in the obviously far right way, and that we expect it, shows that the left is totally annihilated in the US. Absolutely no power currently. Just gotta work on changing that however we can. It’s very bleak.
This case’s existence is one indicator that the U.S. is much closer to a decaying empire than a fascist state. In a fascist state your union leaders wouldn’t argue a case before the Supreme Court – your union leaders would be shot. The U.S. will still do all the horrors of fascism abroad, but that’s “just” imperialism. At home, there are still many of the elements of bourgeois democracy.
If they make it illegal to strike and make you punishable in courts for it… Then at what point do people just start killing their boss instead?
Probably after they start with work-to-rule, slowdowns, sabotage, etc.
