How to Bargain With Capitalist Shitheads

You wanna leave? Fine. But your factory stays here.

 

Charles Pierce: 

Up in the state of Washington, the Boeing Corporation has decided to play monkey-mischief with its machinists. We will keep your jobs in Everett if you all give up your guaranteed pensions in favor of some 401K scam that will enable the people in the investment banks to steal their money at leisure between now and the next time the banks decide to blow up the world economy for their own profit. Phooey, so far, have said the machinists. Recently, of course, the city of Seattle has gone and elected an actual Socialist to its city council. She seems to be advocating a third option in the dispute.

On Monday night, she spoke to supporters of Boeing Machinists, six days after they rejected a contract guaranteeing jobs in Everett building the new 777X airliner for eight years, in exchange for new workers giving up their guaranteed company pensions. Now Boeing is threatening to take those jobs to other states. "That will be nothing short of economic terrorism because it's going to devastate the state's economy," she said. Sawant is calling for machinists to literally take-possession of the Everett airplane-building factory, if Boeing moves out. She calls that "democratic ownership." "The only response we can have if Boeing executives do not agree to keep the plant here is for the machinists to say the machines are here, the workers are here, we will do the job, we don't need the executives. The executives don't do the work, the machinists do," she said.

Ruh-roh, says the newspaper. Radical ideas!

But, seriously, what's left for these people to do? They worked their entire lives for these pensions, very likely taking lower wages in exchange for security in their retirement. Now, the company has been empowered -- nay, encouraged -- to renege by 30 years of bipartisan deregulated national economic policies. The 401K is a shuck. Everybody who has one knows that. (At the same time, of course, there is the ongoing sub rosa Grand Bargaineering on both sides regarding Social Security.) The media's in the tank. The government is largely sublet to people who don't care about them. The country's economy is profit-mad and abandoned any concept of civic responsibility two Bushes ago. What's left but to grab the plant? I'm wide-open here.