The country’s major corporations, seeking to crush union organization, have filed legal papers to shut down the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the federal agency that enforces labor rights and oversees unionization efforts. Elon Musk’s SpaceX as well as Amazon, Starbucks and Trader Joe’s have targeted the NLRB after it accused Amazon, Starbucks and Trader Joe’s of breaking the law in battling against unionization and accused SpaceX of illegally firing eight workers for criticizing Musk.
The attempt to get the federal courts to overturn the 89-year-old National Labor Relations Act, which has governed labor relations since Franklin Roosevelt was president, is one more assault in the war against workers by corporations and Wall Street. Laws and regulations put in place by the New Deal have been steadily dismantled. The NLRB has already been rendered largely toothless. It is unable, for example, to fine corporations for breaking the law, including when corporations fire workers who are attempting to organize. If NLRB judges are declared unconstitutional, the goal of the legal challenge, it would halt judges from hearing hundreds of cases brought against corporations for violating labor laws.
This latest attack on workers comes as corporations engage in mass layoffs of workers and costly stock buybacks to enrich shareholders at worker’s expense. This assault has not only caused financial distress among the working class, seen wealth funneled upwards into the hands of the billionaire class but had negative repercussions for our society and our democracy. Joining me to discuss the war on workers is Les Leopold, who co-founded the Labor Institute and is the author of “Wall Street’s War on Workers: How Mass Layoffs and Greed are Destroying the Working Class and What to do About It.”
The Chris Hedges Report with Les Leopold on how corporations and the billionaire class have made war on workers, subverted our democracy and created the conditions for a Christian fascist state.