Silicon Valley’s Offer of Sectoral Bargaining Is a Trick

Any objective power structure analysis of the United States today reveals that we are teetering closer to the 1920s than during any decade since. In the 1920s and early ’30s, extreme racism was firmly entrenched thanks to Jim Crow laws, Southern plantation economies, and nonfunctioning voting “rights”; the US Supreme Court was wildly pro-big business; and the biggest employers of the era—auto, steel, coal, and their associated production industries—tolerated few to no unions. These companies were effectively killing workers without worry and terrorizing those who were attempting to unionize. Everyday occupational hazards frequently led to death and dismemberment, and regular employment for many was hard to find.