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Unionbusters (1986)

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11–20 of 59 posts

Re: Unionbusters (1986)

#11
post #5

I love unions in American fictional media. The Wire seasons two is centered around the dockworkers who take bribes and are arguing about how corrupt they should be (I’m biased since it’s the most boring season by far). Ozark features a union on the periphery which is introduced by a man carjacking a truck and kneecaping the driver with a shotgun. Can’t wait to see what’s up next.

> I’m biased since it’s the most boring season by far

Heresy!

Re: Unionbusters (1986)

#12

I'm definitely in favor of breaking up the dockworkers/longshormans unions. I don't see why we should let a small group of people hold the whole economy hostage just to enrich themselves.

If we don't want a small group of people to hold the economy hostage to enrich themselves, then we should be looking at corporations and the ultra-wealthy.

Re: Unionbusters (1986)

#13

I'm definitely in favor of breaking up the dockworkers/longshormans unions. I don't see why we should let a small group of people hold the whole economy hostage just to enrich themselves.

If we don't want a small group of people to hold the economy hostage to enrich themselves, then we should be looking at corporations and the ultra-wealthy.

I am always shocked by the mental model that despises labor power but is okay with the bug in our socioeconomic system where ultra wealthy people and corporations are allowed to wield such unelected power. Humans are strange.

Re: Unionbusters (1986)

#14

I'm definitely in favor of breaking up the dockworkers/longshormans unions. I don't see why we should let a small group of people hold the whole economy hostage just to enrich themselves.

You mean to tell me having the world's least efficient ports (worse than even Tanzania), is a bad thing? https://www.reuters.com/world/us/california-ports-key-us-sup...

This isn't due to the dockworkers. This is due to everything after the cargo is offloaded. LA and Longbeach are a disaster because the rail network is incredibly mismanaged.

Union Pacific has decided that they will only run unit trains out of the inland empire to a few destinations north and east.

In order to get cargo from LA and Longbeach to those inland terminals thousands of truck movements have to occur across LA's congested freeway network every day. And if the container's not going to one of the preselected locations (Chicago, St Louis, DFW, a few others) it has to go the whole way by truck.

Recall the "solution" to the blockage during the pandemic was to stack containers even higher. This is because the problem wasn't with offloading the containers, it was the trucking (drayage) getting them out of the port and to either the railheads ("intermodal ports") in the inland empire, or to their destination.

Re: Unionbusters (1986)

#15
post #9
post #5

I love unions in American fictional media. The Wire seasons two is centered around the dockworkers who take bribes and are arguing about how corrupt they should be (I’m biased since it’s the most boring season by far). Ozark features a union on the periphery which is introduced by a man carjacking a truck and kneecaping the driver with a shotgun. Can’t wait to see what’s up next.

[flagged]

hmm its not a "class" in the old social order sense.. aligned interests? what is allowed? maybe.. another angle is that govt is also shown as corrupt plenty of times in other places.. also lawyers .. also doctors.. just about all the professions.. Hollywood has to hook the viewer on the story, so yes they deal in stereotypes. Assigning "class" as a motivator is slightly dim, in the modern times IMHO

Re: Unionbusters (1986)

#16
post #5

I love unions in American fictional media. The Wire seasons two is centered around the dockworkers who take bribes and are arguing about how corrupt they should be (I’m biased since it’s the most boring season by far). Ozark features a union on the periphery which is introduced by a man carjacking a truck and kneecaping the driver with a shotgun. Can’t wait to see what’s up next.

Don't forget the classic film On the Waterfront. Considered one of the greatest movies ever made and adapted from "Crime on the Waterfront," a 24-article series by the New York Sun's Malcolm Johnson that received the second prize ever awarded for Local Reporting, in 1949.

> In a vocation where loss of limb (and even life) was not uncommon, prospective workers — in a field disproportionately comprised of working-class African-Americans and whites of Italian and Irish descent who did not benefit from the upward mobility of the G.I. Bill — were forced to offer kickbacks to syndicate representatives at the daily "shape-up," in which prospective workers were forced to compete against each other to secure work irrespective of union membership. At any time, workers could be virtually blacklisted from subsequent employment for arbitrary purposes in the union's "blue books," their jobs often requisitioned by members of the syndicate who were completing prison sentences.

https://www.pulitzer.org/article/underworld-syndicate-malcol...

Re: Unionbusters (1986)

#17
post #5

I love unions in American fictional media. The Wire seasons two is centered around the dockworkers who take bribes and are arguing about how corrupt they should be (I’m biased since it’s the most boring season by far). Ozark features a union on the periphery which is introduced by a man carjacking a truck and kneecaping the driver with a shotgun. Can’t wait to see what’s up next.

> I’m biased since it’s the most boring season by far

That season has really grown on me over time and rewatches. It has a lot of great character work on Omar, Avon, Stringer, McNulty, Prezbo, Freeman, etc.; Ziggy, Nick, Sobotka is peak tragedy with a lot of fun along the way.

You may be right that it's not as exciting as other seasons, but I personally would call it boring and it sets up and deepens _so_ much of what comes after.

Re: Unionbusters (1986)

#19
post #6
post #5

I love unions in American fictional media. The Wire seasons two is centered around the dockworkers who take bribes and are arguing about how corrupt they should be (I’m biased since it’s the most boring season by far). Ozark features a union on the periphery which is introduced by a man carjacking a truck and kneecaping the driver with a shotgun. Can’t wait to see what’s up next.

It's not just fictional media. https://www.justice.gov/criminal/criminal-vcrs/infiltrated-l... .

Yeah, just ask the DOJ!?!?!? Is this supposed to be a joke? Unions in the US have been corrupt ever since the Taft Hartley act kneecapped them, but it's absurd to take the DOJ's word for any of this.
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