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THEOn February 24, Vice reported that McDonald’s had, for years, spied on activists and employees engaged in organizing and the Fight for $ 15 campaign. Internal McDonald’s company documents obtained by Vice confirmed that the company was concerned with collecting “strategic intelligence” on workers involved in efforts to achieve higher wages, better working conditions and a union. This includes the use of data collection software to monitor employees and their networks via social media and “a team of intelligence analysts in the Chicago and London offices.”
It comes after years of reports of similar efforts by Amazon to prevent unionization of their own employees. Jobs for intelligence analysts to monitor and report on “threats of unionization”; social media monitoring; interactive “thermal mapping” tools to anticipate and prevent strikes or union campaigns; Agents of Pinkerton; and, most recently, coordinated efforts with county officials to change traffic lights outside Amazon’s facilities in Bessemer, Ala., to prevent organizers from talking to workers during shift changes. work – all have been deployed to secure the bottom line of the business.
As Vice points out, surveillance against labor organizers is nothing new. What is new is the use of technology to aid in these efforts, which may also violate federal labor law.
The surveillance and intimidation of workers is a feature, not a bug, and has come to define American capitalism at home and abroad. As Vox noted last June, “the creation of urban police forces was largely driven by a desire to contain union activism and protests.” While police in southern cities are largely a residual outgrowth of slave patrols, in northern cities like Chicago, elite businessmen have been pushing for the development of municipal police forces to remove the organization of work around requirements such as an eight-hour work day. The concept of the police as “public safety” came later.
There is no evidence to suggest government involvement in monitoring Amazon or McDonald’s workers. Yet the failure of past administrations to condemn these blatant labor violations – or to condemn the yawning wealth gap between mega-corporations and the underpaid workers they work on – amounts to a tacit endorsement of the status quo by all. the necessary means.
This Sunday, Biden broke that terrible trend by issuing a surprisingly strong statement in favor of unions. While he stopped before calling Amazon by name, his video speech was aimed at “workers in Alabama” and represents the strongest pro-union statement of any president in modern state history. -United.
“You have to remember that the national labor relations law doesn’t just say unions are allowed to exist, it says we have to encourage unions,” Biden said. “There should be no intimidation, coercion, threats, or anti-union propaganda. Every worker should have the free and fair choice to join a trade union. The law guarantees this choice.
In an economic system that enriches CEOs by underpaying workers for the value of their time and pocketing the profits, there is a direct link between the dystopian anti-worker tactics used by people like McDonald’s and Amazon and the transfer of money. wealth of $ 1.3 billion in the United States. 664 billionaires nationwide during the pandemic. Bezos’ path to becoming the world’s first billionaire is precisely because of his successful efforts to prevent unions from gaining a foothold in his private empire.
As Marx said: capital is dead labor, which, like a vampire, only lives by sucking living labor, and lives more, the more labor it craves.
Biden now has a choice: Amazon or the unions. He can’t fight for both.
During the election campaign, Biden sent mixed messages by cultivating the image of a trade unionist and simultaneously promising a room full of corporate donors that under his presidency “no one’s standard of living will change, nothing will change fundamentally.” .
Biden adopted a minimum wage of $ 15 as one of his few concessions to the left, in a bid to win over supporters of Bernie Sanders, and then changed his tone by saying he didn’t think the provision would last. in the latest Covid-19 stimulus. package. The statement is tantamount to ignoring one of the many campaign promises that seem less likely to be kept from day to day. Democrats are now dishonestly pointing the blame on a single and little-known Senate parliamentarian, even though Kamala Harris could easily overturn the decision and lift nearly a million people out of poverty.
We can and should pay tribute to Biden for his recent statement on unions while recognizing that words alone are not enough. Biden has the power to immediately pass a federal minimum wage of $ 15, raise corporate taxes, ask the National Labor Relations Board to investigate companies like McDonald’s and Amazon that illegally spy on their employees, and to travel to Bessemer to show his support for the establishment. 5,800 workers.
This is a David vs. Goliath fight and the stakes are just too high to stop before the executive action. Until he proves otherwise, we must remember Biden’s message to American business: Nothing will fundamentally change.
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