By Daniel Gross
With
the political elites and professional pundits awaiting President
Obama’s proposal to boost the economy next week, a far more compelling
path to safeguard the financial health of working families emerged in an
unlikely place. Whichever tepid government plan moves forward won’t
alter, in the long run, the economic decline of America’s hard-working
men and women. Because the problems facing this country’s working class
are problems that government can’t and certainly won’t fix – can’t
because the problem is a lack of self-organization among working people
and won’t because the politicians side with the monied interests who
fund their campaigns, not with workers.
Look for the Union Label
So
the well-intentioned people calling for this or that economic
initiative from the President next week, ought to look instead to the
good folks who prepare and serve sandwiches at the Minneapolis locations
of national fast food chain, Jimmy John’s. (If you live in one of the
11 states that the company hasn’t expanded to yet and haven’t heard of
it, you can think of the Jimmy John’s brand as Subway with an
irreverent, college-town vibe).
The solution implemented by the
Jimmy John’s workers is both beguiling in its simplicity and stunning in
its power. They decided not to petition government, run away from a bad
situation and find another bad job, or keep making futile pleas as
individuals for change from their bosses. On September 2, in
anticipation of Labor Day weekend, workers at nine Minneapolis Jimmy
John’s stores announced that they had formed a member-run union with the
most innovative labor organization in the country, the Industrial
Workers of the World (IWW).
The workers are seeking to create
good jobs at Jimmy John’s instead of the minimum wage gigs with no
benefits and fluctuating schedules that currently prevail at the chain.
By the way, the corporate public relations-speak for these kinds of jobs
was ably demonstrated by Rob and Mike Mulligan, the owners of the nine
Minneapolis Jimmy John’s locations. The millionaire Mulligan brothers
angrily reacted to the workers’ decision to organize by explaining that
they, “offer competitive wages and good local jobs.” So remember, next
time fast food executives talk about “competitive wages”, they mean
minimum wage, currently $7.25 per hour. “Good” means the jobs are good
for the boss’s bank account. And “local” means the company executives
were kind enough not to outsource the sandwich making function to China
or India.
Tea Parties and Class Wars
In February of last
year, CNBC’s Rick Santelli called for a Tea Party rebellion after he
disparaged homeowners who had been duped, misled, lied to, and generally
defrauded into sure-to-explode mortgages fueled by derivative
trader-gamblers at the likes of AIG, Deutsche Bank, and Goldman Sachs.
While Santelli was off the mark of course, his call for an upsurge of
dissent would be well-placed in the workplaces of America like Jimmy
John’s.
Warren Buffet famously remarked, “There’s class warfare
all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and
we’re winning.” He’s right. And the only way working people will stop
losing this war is if we stop looking up at government and start looking
around to our co-workers on the job.
That’s what the Jimmy
John’s workers did and they didn’t wait for a union to come around to
them. They were proactive and got organized on their own with the
support of the IWW. And thank goodness they didn’t just wait around,
given the mainstream labor movement’s apparent lack of interest and even
greater lack of success in organizing the millions of workers in fast
food. It’s telling that the workers chose to connect with the IWW, a
very different kind of union, where rank & file workers on the shop
floor do the research, planning, organizing, and actions in a union
campaign, rather than the union being run by a professional staff not
present in the workplace. This organizing model has been best
articulated by legendary scholar and attorney, Staughton Lynd, who also
gave the approach its name: solidarity unionism.
Building Forward
Labor
Day has become the official day for hand-wringing over the decline of
organized labor (just over 7% of private sector workers are union
members). And President Obama has chosen next week to announce his new
economic stimulus proposals.
But it’s the workers at Jimmy
John’s who have put their finger on the real source of the economic,
political, and social problems facing working families today: the lack
of sufficient working-class organization and the collective action on
the job that comes with it. Without an organized, mobilized working
class, the large corporations and their agents in government will
continue their multi-faceted assault on working families with no serious
opposition.
Far from hand-wringing, the Jimmy John’s workers
are organizing, undaunted by the huge swath of unorganized workers in
the fast food industry. Indeed, the workers seem energized and excited
to enter this largely uncharted territory and assist or inspire others
to do the same.
So this Labor Day, I’m not going along with the
illusion that change comes from above and I won’t be watching President
Obama’s announcement next week. I’m throwing my lot in with the sandwich
workers at Jimmy John’s.
Daniel Gross, a member of the IWW, is a workers’ rights attorney and the director of Brandworkers, a non-profit organization protecting and advancing the rights of retail and food employees.
