The movement is the movement.
Yesterday was May Day Loyalty Day.
It was also the day of a nation-wide boycott and massive immigration protests.
Of course this was controversial. For the moment, I'm going to set aside objections to the demonstrations by racist opponents of immigrants. What I found interesting was the degree to which the boycott was controversial within the labor and immigration movement(s). Some people supported it, others thought it was counterproductive, and everyone was afraid of those terrible words: Hoffman Plastics.
For my part, I thought that it was a good idea. The point was not to put pressure on Congress. The point was to develop the growing movement itself. It was intended, I believe, to strengthen the bonds of solidarity between the millions of members of disparate immigrant communities. It seems to have accomplished this with flying colors.
Most fascinating, though, was the fact that many, many businesses did not try to stop their employees from engaging in these protests. In fact, entire industries shut down for the day. The meatpacking industry was offline. Here at Sarah Lawrence, some of our subcontracted workers came to work only to put up signs explaining why they would not be there. Their managers had cancelled work for the day.
Why did they do this? They could have simply disciplined their workers for speaking up. As a matter of labor relations, it would have made sense to do this--many of the rallies were organized by unions, and in fact the entire event encourages their workers' power. Why would businesses support this? Had they failed to cancel work, I doubt the rallies would have been nearly as large--they weren't simply bowing to the inevitable. Maybe they realize that they need these workers. Maybe this was their way of telling Congress to shut up about cracking down on immigration. Damned if I can figure it out.
It was also the day of a nation-wide boycott and massive immigration protests.
Of course this was controversial. For the moment, I'm going to set aside objections to the demonstrations by racist opponents of immigrants. What I found interesting was the degree to which the boycott was controversial within the labor and immigration movement(s). Some people supported it, others thought it was counterproductive, and everyone was afraid of those terrible words: Hoffman Plastics.
For my part, I thought that it was a good idea. The point was not to put pressure on Congress. The point was to develop the growing movement itself. It was intended, I believe, to strengthen the bonds of solidarity between the millions of members of disparate immigrant communities. It seems to have accomplished this with flying colors.
Most fascinating, though, was the fact that many, many businesses did not try to stop their employees from engaging in these protests. In fact, entire industries shut down for the day. The meatpacking industry was offline. Here at Sarah Lawrence, some of our subcontracted workers came to work only to put up signs explaining why they would not be there. Their managers had cancelled work for the day.
Why did they do this? They could have simply disciplined their workers for speaking up. As a matter of labor relations, it would have made sense to do this--many of the rallies were organized by unions, and in fact the entire event encourages their workers' power. Why would businesses support this? Had they failed to cancel work, I doubt the rallies would have been nearly as large--they weren't simply bowing to the inevitable. Maybe they realize that they need these workers. Maybe this was their way of telling Congress to shut up about cracking down on immigration. Damned if I can figure it out.