Here’s a feel-good story for feel-bad times.

Ordinary Working Stiff gets fired by Amazon in Staten Island, New York.

He and his pal, his “co-star” on their “underdog journey” - journalists’ terms - set up “two chairs in a tent” and decide to create a Union there - which has failed everywhere else - except Europe, but that’s another film.

The story of Organized Labor has always been a drama, often a melodrama.

But after two years mainly on their own, they win!

If you don’t warm to this, you’re like the doofuses in the Onion’s American Voices: “This is sadder news than when David defeated the mighty and generous Goliath.”

Now, they’re getting calls for help from inspired workers worldwide - even Canada!

So how did they succeed where others flopped?

Basically, they reversed everything that a famous Union defeat a year ago at Amazon in Alabama did.

The huge Union that tried down there - the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU), didn’t even have a count of employees, so they didn’t know how many votes they needed.

Instead of building leadership in the plant, they imported celebrities like Actor and Union Activist Danny Glover and U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders.

Unfortunately, this undermined Workers’ sense of power and puts the load on outsiders - aside from depriving Workers of the sheer delight of standing up to Jeff Bezos - themselves.

When Amazon said Union Dues wasted Workers’ money, the Union said workers don’t have to pay (according to Alabama’s medieval Labor Laws) - instead of justifying dues as a Democratic source of power.

They even skipped visits to Workers’ homes, due to COVID, rather than masking up and making crucial in-person connections.

Instead they relied on a “digital strategy.”

Imagine challenging Amazon on that playing field!

It’s as though a generation of Union Leaders got institutional amnesia.

Many probably never organized a workplace themselves or walked a picket line.

Maybe they got their ideas from watching the movie, Norma Rae and don’t realize you lose far more often than you win.

Then, sometimes, maybe, you win.

Maybe the dudes from New York read the critique by wise Organizer Jane McAlevey of what went wrong in Alabama or just drifted down there with eyes open, then went home and did the opposite.

And then, too, there’s the zeitgeist.

Never forget the zeitgeist.

It often knows more than pollsters and statisticians.

To Continue Reading This Labor News Report, Go To: www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/2022/04/07/did-you-miss-the-feel-good-union-story-of-the-year-dont-miss-the-movie.html?rf