THEn February 24, Vice reported that McDonald’s has, for years, spied on activists and employees engaged in the work organization and the $ 15 Fight campaign. McDonald’s internal corporate documents obtained by Vice confirm that the company has been concerned with bringing together “Strategic intelligence” about workers involved in efforts to ensure higher wages, better working conditions and a union. This includes the use of data collection software to monitor employees and their networks through social media and “a team of intelligence analysts in the Chicago and London offices”.
This comes after years of reporting similar efforts by Amazon to avoid unionizing its own employees. Job postings for intelligence analysts to monitor and report “threats to work organization”; social media monitoring; interactive “thermal mapping” tools to anticipate and prevent strikes or unions; Pinkerton operatives; and, more recently, coordinated efforts with county officials to change traffic lights outside of Amazon facilities in Bessemer, Alabama, to prevent organizers from talking to workers during shift changes – all of which have been deployed to ensure the company’s bottom line .
As Vice points out, surveillance against work organizers is nothing new. The novelty is the use of technology to assist in these efforts, which can also violate federal labor laws.
Surveillance and intimidation of workers is a feature, not a bug, that has come to define American capitalism at home and abroad. As Vox noted last June, “the creation of urban police forces was largely stimulated by the desire to curb union activism and protests.” While police in southern cities are largely a residual consequence of slave patrols, in northern cities like Chicago, elite businessmen pushed for the development of municipal police forces to suppress the organization of work around demands such as one day hours of work. The concept of policing as “public security” came later.
There is no evidence to suggest government involvement in the surveillance of Amazon or McDonald’s workers. However, failure by previous administrations to condemn these blatant labor violations – or condemn the huge wealth gap between the mega corporations and the low-paid workers on whose work they depend – amounts to the tacit approval of business-as-usual by all. necessary means.
This Sunday, Biden broke that terrible trend by issuing a surprisingly strong statement in support of the unions. Although he hardly called Amazon’s name, his video address was aimed at “Alabama workers” and represents the strongest pro-union statement by any president in modern United States history.
“You must remember that the National Labor Relations Act not only said that unions can exist, but that we should encourage them,” said Biden. “There should be no intimidation, coercion, threats, anti-union propaganda. Every worker must have a free and fair choice to join a union. The law guarantees that choice. “
Under an economic system that enriches CEOs by paying workers badly for the value of their time and pocketing profits, there is a direct connection between the dystopian anti-worker tactics used by companies like McDonald’s and Amazon and the $ 1.3 trillion wealth transfer for the country’s 664 billionaires throughout the pandemic. Bezos’s path to becoming the world’s first trillionaire is precisely Why of their successful efforts to prevent unions from settling in their private empire.
As Marx said: capital is dead work, which, like a vampire, lives only by sucking live work, and lives the more, the more work it sucks.
Biden now has a choice to make: Amazon or unions. He cannot fight for both.
During the campaign, Biden sent conflicting messages, cultivating the image of a worker unionist and, at the same time, promising a room full of corporate donors who, under his presidency, “nobody’s standard of living will change, nothing will change fundamentally” .
Biden adopted a $ 15 minimum wage as one of his few concessions to the left in an effort to win over Bernie Sanders supporters, and later changed his tone, saying he did not believe the clause would last on the last Covid-19 stimulus. package. The statement was contempt for one of several campaign promises that seem less likely to be fulfilled each day. Democrats are now dishonestly pointing the blame at a single, little-known Senate congressman, although Kamala Harris could easily overturn the decision and lift nearly a million people out of poverty.
We can and must give credit to Biden for his recent statement about unions, although we also recognize that words alone are not enough. Biden has the power to immediately approve a $ 15 federal minimum wage, raise corporate taxes, call on the National Labor Relations Board to investigate companies like McDonald’s and Amazon that illegally spy on their employees, and take a trip to Bessemer to show support. 5,800 workers to the facilities.
This is David’s fight against Goliath and the stakes are simply too high to prevent executive action. Until he proves otherwise, we need to remember Biden’s message to corporate America: nothing will fundamentally change.