The Strategy of the Mind
Rishad Tobaccowala | Warehouse Work Won’t Fill the Gap Left by Unionized Steel Workers | Factoids | Elsewhere
Narrative is the strategy of the mind for putting things in relation.
| Rishad Tobaccowala, On Words
Warehouse Work Won’t Fill the Gap Left by Unionized Steel Workers
In We Don’t Yet Understand What Warehouse Work Is Doing to Communities, Farah Stockman explores the impacts of the combination of closing the Bethlehem Steel Mill in 1995, and the rise of Walmart distribution centers to employ workers in the Bethlehem area.
The collapse of industrial manufacturing and production has hit hard across the U.S. rust belt, in places like Bethlehem where the failure of the iconic steel mill represents the dividing line between the good old days and the present. While two Walmart distribution centers have almost made up the employment numbers lost, politicians say it's hard to reach these citizens and the blue collar power they brought to bear has dissipated. Why? At least so far,
warehouse workers don’t form an influential voting bloc in the way that steelworkers did.
They don't congregate the way unionized steel workers did.
It turns out that making stuff isn’t the same as distributing it. Working in a steel mill is a communal act that lends itself to the pursuit of political power in a way that warehouse jobs do not. Steelworkers toiled alongside one another, forming lifelong bonds, bowling leagues and unions that delivered a reliable voting bloc.
And that appears to be gone.
Stockman spends a great deal of attention to the disintegration of community that arose when the workers shifted from the steel mill to warehouse jobs. They work individually, not in teams. They may stay only a few months, before burning out or finding other work. They rarely socialize with other co-workers. In fact, this way of working takes the co out of co-worker.
Politicians do not stand outside the warehouse doors to get their votes, as was done in the before time.
No one seems to have cracked the code of how to talk to warehouse workers as workers. Republicans try to engage them as Christians. Conservative pastors who support Mr. Trump have begun to preach at Latino-majority evangelical churches.
One respondent said he thinks
Republicans are getting traction among Pennsylvania’s Latinos through churches. Democrats, on the other hand, reach out to these voters as Latinos. Roughly a third of all warehouse workers in the area are of Hispanic descent.
The Dems are targeting them through paid Hispanic media than any previous campaign. But it's still a divided group, hard to get a handle on like a bowling ball without any holes.
Politicians in the area are more interested in mounting attempts to slow or stop the expansion of warehouses, because the great majority of voters don't work in them and don't like the impact they have on the community, in terms of traffic, and the impacts on a rural way of life.
In conclusion, Bethlehem’s warehouses have countered some of the economic downturn of the closed steel mill, although 1995 was long time ago and few former steel workers are working in the warehouses. But the missing factor is the sense of solidarity among blue-collar workers, and the precarious fluidity of warehouse work makes solidarity impossible, at least so far.
And Stockman closes on a downbeat note:
Warehouses have been an economic boon. But politically, for workers, they are a loss.
Factoids
The wellspring of democracy?
Factories were so good at political mobilization, in fact, that some credit them for democracy itself. Women and working-class men won the right to vote in the United States, Western Europe and much of East Asia after about a quarter of those populations were employed in factories, according to recent research by Sam van Noort, a lecturer at Princeton.
| Farah Stockman, We Don’t Yet Understand What Warehouse Work Is Doing to Communities
What critical threshold will define the turning point where all workers a voice in the strategy and operations of the businesses that employ them? Will we continue subject to ‘private governments’, that operate more like monarchies than democracies?
…
BYD.
In just a few years, BYD has grown its presence beyond China to 100 countries. In the first six months of this year, a quarter of all hybrid or fully electric vehicles sold on the planet were made by BYD, the company said.
…
Broccoli really is a superfood.
In a recent analysis, 17 out of 23 studies found associations between eating broccoli and having lower risks of common cancers, including lung, colon and breast cancer. Taken together, the studies suggested that people who ate broccoli at least once a week were 36 percent less likely to develop cancer than those who didn’t.
I eat broccoli all the time, but if I didn’t I’d sign up now.
Elsewhere
The National Labor Relations Board is being overwhelmed.
From October 1, 2023 to September 30, 2024, the National Labor Relations Board received 3,286 union election petitions, up 27% since FY 2023, when the Agency received 2,593 petitions. This is more than double the number of petitions received since FY 2021, when the NLRB received 1,638 petitions.
Likewise, from FY 2023 to FY 2024, unfair labor practice charge filings increased 7% (from 19,869 to 21,292 cases). In sum, the NLRB’s field offices received a total of 24,578 cases, the highest total case intake in over a decade.
“The surge in cases we’ve received in the last few years is a testament to workers knowing and exercising their rights under the National Labor Relations Act and to our board agents’ accessibility and respectful engagement with them,” said NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo. “Our committed and talented NLRB staff continue to process cases with professionalism and care, despite working with limited resources. I urge Congress to fully fund the NLRB so that employers, unions, and workers receive prompt and meaningful case resolutions.”
| National Labor Relations Board
Tell your representatives to fully fund the NLRB.
…
In-Groups and Out Groups
Jasmine Gartner is a great questioner, and a recent post is introduced by a question: Who's in? Who's out?
Instead of talking about ‘minority’ and ‘majority’ groups in an organization, she suggests ‘in-groups’ and ‘out-groups’:
An exec team in a company are the minority in terms of the number of people, but they are the majority in terms of the amount of power that they hold.
For this reason, I prefer to use the terms "in-groups" and "out-groups." An in-group has the power; an out-group has less or no power.
If you want to encourage a more inclusive workplace, start by collecting some data. Look around and talk to people. Who’s in? Who’s out? Who has the power in your organisation (and what does that power look like – is it the purse-strings, the decision-making, the ability to influence, knowledge, access amongst many other options)? Who doesn’t? I find when I run this as an exercise in training, people know the answers to these questions immediately.
Once you’ve identified the out-groups, and why they’re out, you can start to consciously think about how to craft an inclusive workplace culture.
Before an inclusive culture can be coaxed into being, find out who’s excluded, and how.
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