You Say Labor, I say Lie-Bore, Let's Call the Whole Thing Off
Labor's Immobility in the Tortuous Present
When Joe Biden endorsed the UAW’s demand for a 40% raise, an unprecedented action for an American president, I thought immediately of Shake Shack Bill de Blasio and his presidential campaign in 2019 during which he said he planned to “tax the hell” out of the rich. It was such an obvious pander that not a living soul took it seriously, any more than his burger-and-fries enticement worked to persuade people to get shot, I mean, take The COVID-1984 Clot and Immunosuppressant Shot.
The UAW strike was called about five weeks after the California Public Utilities Commission approved self-driving taxis for the city of San Francisco. Reports vary, but there are apparently four to five-hundred such cars-for-hire operating on the streets of The Golden City now. Not everyone is pleased and some non-violent saboteurs have been immobilizing these cars using traffic cones. Even if such silent resistance is coming from labor activists (are there such people any longer?), there has been absolutely no organized outcry from we-don’t-hang together, disorganized labor.
Just as the Confédération générale du travail (CGT) and other unions in France are capable of shutting the country down, but were supine during the COVID tyranny, so the America Labor (Non) Movement has been blind, weak or both in confronting the imminent destruction of the livelihood of workers, whether blue, white or whatever collar. The insidious technological “innovations” that are gradually making increasing numbers of occupations redundant and have been doing so for decades (and in a broader sense, centuries) face no opposition. Why should the UAW oppose self-driving cars while auto plants use workers to make them? I think the answer is obvious. As time goes on fewer and fewer workers are required to build cars and now, no one needs to drive them.
AI is putting the nails in and around the workforce coffins as the “labor movement” has been dead a long time. Biden’s empty rhetoric is a deft underline. But the crowning glory of union contract negotiations comes in the wake of the “glorious” Hollywood writers’ agreement (as descibed by former WGA president Howard Rodman).
But, wait…from the same Hollywood Reporter piece quoted above:
“If we’re going to regulate AI, this is the right way — putting limits on how and under what circumstances AI can be used and, when it is used, how it’s going to be treated,” notes Marc Guggenheim (Legends of Tomorrow). Ryan stopped short of calling the AI contract language a loss but considers it a “temporary stalemate.” “There are a lot of things around AI where I don’t think this is the final word on it. That area bears watching and diligence going forward,” he says, adding that he also would have liked to have secured “larger pay raises than what the DGA negotiated to help make up for inflation and wage stagnation"
And according to the Wall Street Journal Hollywood Studios Can Train AI Models on Writers’ Work Under Tentative Deal:
Hollywood studios are expected to retain the right to train artificial-intelligence models based on writers’ work under the terms of a tentative labor agreement between the two sides, people familiar with the situation said.
The writers would also walk away with an important win, a guarantee that they will receive credit and compensation for work they do on scripts, even if studios partially rely on AI tools, one of the people said. That provision had been in an earlier offer from the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, the group representing studios, streamers and networks…
So, play it again, Sam, in return for a temporary gain in compensation, the unions have given away the store.
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Perhaps fifteen years ago I used to have a CB radio, and sometimes tuned in at home, where several times I came across the broadcast of a kind of CB radio shock jock. I can’t recall his radio handle, but he was, I think, a disabled former trucker and a Cassandra, forecasting the doom of the trucking profession. He was shut down per FCC rules, I believe, sound familiar?
Here is a snippet of a dramatic scene I wrote based on what I heard:
JOE
Breaker 1-9. Alright you sorry-eyed, outmoded freaks, the repo-man is right behind you! What are you, three, four payments in the hole? Not answering the phone? That 350 grand you spent on the trailer when times were good? Now what do you think? Didn’t you know things would change and times would be bad?
ROY BOY
10-4 Willie! You’ve got it! Sorry-eyed scum!
JOE
Don’t ever say that Roy Boy! Truckers ain’t scum. But guess what? Truckers? Guess what? You might as well put the dirt over your head now, you’re done. The load is gonna go from the boat to the trailer to the train to the factory, that’s it. Say a prayer, say goodnight, you’re days of drivin’ are over.
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The once holy LIBOR Rate is gone, replaced by the Secured Overnight Financing Rate (SOFR).
What will replace Labor? I think we know.
The infantilization of the American public continues apace, which explains the ever growing dissatisfaction among the populace despite the ever growing abundance of technologies that supposedly improve our lives. Self-driving cars may eventually eliminate fatalities among the driving public, but at what cost? The fun and exhilaration that comes with driving off on an extended weekend retreat has been replaced with the boredom of listening to an audio book - no need to read anymore! - or watching a movie. You won't even have to plan the trip, the GPS will have done that for you.
"Affluenza", we used to call it. With kids and grandkids now residing in distant cities, we're left to deal with a private hell of solitary (or dual) confinement. More comfortable, of course.
These strikes are going about the usual motions, but are they fooling anyone? The theatre of the absurd, the powerlessness of the worker is heartbreaking. Biden and Union leaders represent the machine and pretend to care though the consequences of AI are consequential and impersonal to human creativity. The avarice and non-existing conscience of The Users of people is unconscionable, cruel and the deconstructing of society accelerating. Is the greed for profit worth the destruction of society by undervaluing individuals' creativity by replacing it with machine output? There will be no customers if there are no earning workers. Period.