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This thread is absolutely right, both in saying we do not know what's really going on, and also in saying there's reason to suspect a particular outcome and that that will be bad.
Want to highlight a few things: https://twitter.com/rustbeltjacobin/status/1356691092666675201
Want to highlight a few things: https://twitter.com/rustbeltjacobin/status/1356691092666675201
First, the externalities. As @rustbeltjacobin points out, this election is big enough, well-known enough, that its success or failure will ripple out to lots and lots of workers and unions not at all involved in it.
This creates an equity problem.
This creates an equity problem.
The simple truth is *everyone in the American labor movement* has some kind of genuine stake (not just an opinion) in the outcome, and yet only one relatively-small union (and only a small number of people in that union) know what's going on and are making decisions about it.
The answer to this is decidedly NOT to create some kind of national referendum system on the picking of organizing targets and the running of organizing campaigns. Of course not.
But what IS RWDSU's obligation to the larger movement here? I think they have one.
But what IS RWDSU's obligation to the larger movement here? I think they have one.
This relates to the other point I wanted to stress: we're never going to know. No one outside of RWDSU will ever have the slightest REAL idea of what decisions were made, what the union was thinking, what resources were allocated, what their assessments were telling them,....
...why they were okay with this expanded unit, how big their organizing committee was, how many predicted votes they have now or will have when voting begins, and so on.
We'll never know. @GrimKim is on the ground and I expect amazing reporting that will tell us a lot, but it...
We'll never know. @GrimKim is on the ground and I expect amazing reporting that will tell us a lot, but it...
...won't be all of it. (and don't for a moment think I'm knocking @GrimKim, who is fantastic and is exactly the person everyone in labor should want to be down there reporting on it - it's just there's a limit of what Kim will ever be able to find out)
We need some kind of system wherein the broader movement can learn the lessons of this campaign, for good or for ill. And we don't have one. Not close.
End.
End.
