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Episode 212 - Labor Pains (Patreon)

Published:
2022-09-22 13:58:52
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2026-06
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Content

Subscribe to Bad Faith on Patreon to instantly unlock our full premium episode library: http://patreon.com/badfaithpodcast

This week, Briahna asks history professor and author of A History of America in Ten Strikes Erik Loomis whether the past reveals the potential of the current labor surge. How did we go from almost no union activity to a workforce strong enough to force FDR into creating the modern social safety net in ten years or so? What role did third party's play, and is the modern left too indifferent to supporting third party movements? And importantly: why is there so much hostility to the idea of a general strike? What does history tell us about the power of solidarity strikes, and what can we do today to make these "illegal" strikes more likely to occur?

Subscribe to Bad Faith on YouTube for video of this episode. Find Bad Faith on Twitter (@badfaithpod) and Instagram (@badfaithpod).

Produced by Armand Aviram.

Theme by Nick Thorburn (@nickfromislands).

Comments

Liska Ostojic

Listening to this guy, about 20 min, and realizing I don’t want to hear from anyone, about anything, that isn’t pushing for, or discussing how to bring about, the full and complete destruction of the contemporary Democratic Party. I don’t want to hear about reform, or electoralism, or that third parties don’t really help, or that today’s context is different, or anything, anything else. I don’t want to hear from anyone who uses the terms “liberal” and “progressive” in any seriousness. From anyone who doesn’t recognize that “liberals” have no interest in the welfare of, or solidarity with, working people anywhere. That they are in fact, Reagan-Republicans and even worse war-hawks. Anyone who fails to see that is a fool, whose words aren’t worth my time, or the air used to expend them. I know that’s just me. I suspect I’m not entirely alone, but I don’t expect anyone else to agree or change their mind about it. This probably isn’t really relevant to anyone but me! But it was a revelation.

Anonymous

German and Czech socialists. Some were Jewish.

Anonymous

Wonderful discussion! Will definitely look into buying his book. Always a thrill to walk down memory lane of factual labor struggle of American history. Wouldn’t subscribe to or read any of the so called substacks and rumble Journalists that are always recommending dumb articles but will definitely read a book hahahaha.

Adam Burch

His book doesn’t include any of the 1934 strikes that paved the way for the establishment of the CIO. Huge oversight

Kamili Feelings

Thank you Brie for continuing to be a lovely cornball with that music at the end. :) #oldsoul #burningcomet

Drew Person

Much better episode than almost anything recently, but his framing of the Wagner Act and of FDR as "pro-labor" buys into a pretty harmful obfuscation. The goal of new deal labor legislation wasn't to empower the working class but rather to ensure "labor peace" - the first section of the Wagner Act itself even says as much. The Act was to achieve "labor peace" by providing a framework of government supervised union recognition elections and the NLRB as a kind of court where unions and employers could charge each other with ULPs. That framework was meant to take the place of strikes and other independent actions of the working class that impeded the flow of commerce. The fact that the passage of the Wagner Act was followed by a strike wave bigger than the one that preceded it infuriated FDR who, after Chicago police murdered 10 people in the Memorial Day Massacre, told the USW "a plague on both your houses." Of course the Wagner Act also made the Taft-Hartley Act possible but even before that there seems to have been a much higher number of people in the labor movement back then that recognized Wagner for what it is than there is today. Anyway, a lot of other stuff in the interview was pretty solid. I just cringed every time I heard the guy refer to democrats or liberals as "pro-labor." That's that Melvin Dubovsky school if labor history where wishful thinking counts as a primary source. Standard American chump level of analysis. A classic sub-variety of Mr. Block.

Sarah Jarrett

Loved the line about the people including your racist uncle. Americans are so afraid of people they don't like and that seems like such a frustrating cultural roadblock to me.

Nathan Ngumi

A very interesting discussion with great historical perspectives of the struggles of the labour movement through the decades. There is definitely increased interest in unionization in multiple industries, but it remains to be seen if it can organically crystallize into a resurgence of labour or the moment will pass without any significant legislative or political wins.

Anonymous

I've been listening to Briahna since her gig with Bernie, but I am a huge fan of Bad Faith. The discussions are always very thoughtful and informative. Briahna knows the right questions to ask. Join up with Krystal and Saagar on Breaking Points, and you will be an unbeatable team. Just subscribed. Keep it going!

Michelle B

This was such a great episode! Very compelling and informative. The thing that keeps coming to mind when I listen to an older generation talk about this action is that realistically established people within these systems are always going to be unlikely to be the ones who understand the expediency of our issues. People with a lot to lose have never historically been the ones who moved the needle. Another interesting question I have is around the fact that America's younger generations right now are significantly more educated than previous generations. With that I think comes a lot of belief in systematic approaches led from the top down. I think it is very reinforced. Whereas when a lot of these actions were happening at the turn of the previous century education was very limited and distinctions were much more clear between the classes. You would hope that this would become an advantage... But I think it also on some level limits a confidence to take action outside of systems which would eventually, if well organized, create new systems. Our education on some level is serving to re-entrench systems and power - especially if we find ourselves waiting on "experts" to lead. Early labor movements definitely did not have a similar credentialing energy to the one that exists in our current culture. And I think the last takeaway I had from it was that in reality American labor has never been that strong nationally. When I was studying how other countries managed to get their socialized health care systems or broader safety net programs the near universal answer was out of a labor party that was organizing the entire country. Factionalized labor organizing is definitely good for workers in specific industries, but it actually overall seems to be a pretty weak strategy that also allows corporations to play groups off of each other or to ignore the suffering of others while still feeling like labor efforts accomplished something for this small group. Not to say that it isn't extremely valuable... But the value that comes out of it seems to be specific to the size of the group that is organizing and the limited nature of the organizing. Hence we don't get Medicare for All or free public college. And we've seen how unions that do have good health care can sometimes come in opposition to broader national programs that you would expect them to support. My questions are 1) why we aren't talking about a labor party or some other party that is tied to other international successful organizing parties currently winning these battles? Like Brie said, whether the party is used to actually take the presidency or to get candidates into lower offices and required demands of democratic candidates (and the approach could obviously change over time as a party structure got stronger) isn't as important as having the structure in place. And 2) I think being a person who always valued education, my desire to find answers in history is always very present. I read his book at the beginning of the pandemic along with so many others and have been wanting to pick up as much history as possible to understand the next steps forward. I always feel like we have a lot to learn and understanding labor history is helpful, (My current interest is in the similarity of the media campaigns against Bernie Sanders and Upton Sinclair's campaign for Governor) but I do think there's a world where starting to formulate NEW philosophies, structures and strategies based on the failings and weaknesses in these previous approaches is really important. Learning from history seems critical but relying on strategies that were ultimately not fully national and relatively easy for the ruling class to undermine (and that they are already equipped to organize against) seems to indicate that what comes next needs to be a different less fragmented approach even if it builds off successful past approaches. History isn't actually over. We are not limited by these traditions or titles.

Anonymous

So much to digest here, great episode :D

Anonymous

Why does the Left taste so delicious to the Left?