Crooked Media - What A Day: Deflate of the union

Amazon has defeated the unionization effort at a Bessemer, AL, warehouse, in a testament to either the unfair employer advantages baked into existing labor laws, or the enduring popularity of pissing in bottles. Hard to say!
 

• Roughly 5,800 people were eligible to vote in the mail-in election, which was just the second union vote ever held by a U.S. Amazon facility. Of the 3,041 ballots cast, 1,798 workers voted against joining a union, while 738 workers voted in favor. (The 505 contested ballots may narrow the margin, but Amazon’s lead is insurmountable.) The Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) said it will appeal the election: “We demand a comprehensive investigation over Amazon’s behavior in corrupting this election.”
   
• One key tactic that the union might highlight is Amazon’s push to install a mailbox on warehouse property. After the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) denied Amazon’s request for an on-site drop box, the company pressured the Postal Service to install one anyway. Amazon claimed it was all about making voting easier, but RWDSU pointed out that an unmarked USPS box at the warehouse could have given workers the impression that Amazon played a role in ballot collection, and intimidated them into voting no.
   
• That fits a certain pattern. As the election approached, Amazon ran an aggressive anti-union campaign featuring high-priced consultants, Facebook ads, signage in break rooms and bathrooms, mass, repeated text messages to workers, an unnerving Twitter army, and one-on-one meetings where supervisors urged employees to vote against unionizing. All of that was perfectly kosher under U.S. labor law, not that Amazon necessarily cared: Earlier this week, the NLRB confirmed that Amazon had illegally fired two corporate employees who were agitating for better warehouse working conditions.

The loss is a disappointing setback for organized labor, but it shines a well-timed spotlight on the need for a legislative overhaul.
 

• Union organizers are at an inherent disadvantage: Unlike employers, organizers can’t drag workers off the warehouse floor and sit them down for solidarity hype sessions. The Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act that the House passed last month would help resolve that imbalance by banning companies from holding mandatory anti-union meetings, among other measures. On Friday, Democrats and labor activists re-upped calls for the Senate to pass the bill, but the working-class heroes in the GOP seem inclined to block it, strangely enough. 
   
• Meanwhile, the fight doesn’t stop here: RWDSU leaders said the Bessemer vote has prompted more than 1,000 Amazon workers in other cities to reach out, and other unions have reported spikes in inquiries, too. Union leaders have signaled a shift in strategy in the wake of the election, saying they would ramp up efforts to draw attention to Amazon’s garbaggio labor practices (through things like protests and PR campaigns), rather than pursue all-but-doomed elections at individual job sites.

The Bessemer election has highlighted the incredible advantages that powerful companies enjoy in labor fights, and the powerlessness of even POTUS-backed labor organizers to effect change through elections under the current laws. Democrats can change that landscape, but they’ll need to ditch the filibuster to do it.

On this week's ALL CAPS NBA , Jason Concepcion explores Paul Pierce's dismissal from ESPN over a deviant Instagram Live, the Michael Rapaport story that won't go away, and Julius Randles's son's hatred of the Nets. All that and much more with guest Downtown Josh Brown! Watch and smash that subscribe button at youtube.com/takelineshow.

A leaked video of a March presentation shows a GOP official in Harris County, TX, saying that the party needs 10,000 Republicans for an “election-integrity brigade” in Houston. Common Cause Texas, a government accountability group that published the footage, warned that this sounds an awful lot like an effort to scare the shit out of likely Democratic voters: “It’s very clear that we’re talking about recruiting people from the predominantly Anglo parts of town to go to Black and Brown neighborhoods.” That’s part of what’s so alarming about a voter-suppression bill currently under consideration in the Texas legislature, which would expand poll watchers’ access to voting sites—even giving them the power to video record voters receiving help with their ballots—and limit election officials’ ability to oversee those volunteers. The bill has already passed in the state senate, and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R-TX) has deemed it a priority. Here’s where to fight back: votesaveamerica.com/forthepeople.

• President Biden has established a commission to study possible Supreme Court reforms like adding seats or instituting term limits for justices. The bipartisan commission (comprising mostly academics) has been instructed to study proposed changes for 180 days, but hasn’t been tasked with making formal recommendations. 
   
• Prince Philip has died at 99, and while there are any number of tributes and obituaries you can read, only BBC Radio 1 truly knocked it out of the park.
   
• Today in Gaetzgate: Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) has become the first congressional Republican to call on Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) to resign, the House Ethics Committee has opened a probe, Gaetz’s legislative director abruptly quit last week, and federal investigators have been told that Gaetz and a Florida lobbyist discussed propping up a fraudulent straw candidate in a Florida Senate race last year.
   
• Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) said the Capitol insurrection “changed” him, and is the cause of his increased calls for bipartisanship. You know when someone tries to murder you, and it makes you wanna collab on a project at work? Anyway, Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC) is having none of it.
   
• Tucker Carlson straight up endorsed the white supremacist “Great Replacement theory” on Fox News on Thursday night, coming off almost like some kind of white supremacist. The ADL has called for his firing. 
   
• Trump officials gleefully celebrated their efforts to alter CDC reports on coronavirus, in new emails released by congressional investigators. “Small victory but a victory nonetheless and yippee!!!” wrote adult man Paul Alexander in a work email after successfully misleading the American public about a deadly virus.
   
• The Justice Department has given prosecutors the go-ahead to start cutting guilty plea deals for Capitol rioters, a step towards wrapping up some of the hundreds of cases.
   
• DMX has died at 50. He had been hospitalized since last week after suffering a heart attack. Please take a moment to enjoy this dramatic reading of DMX lyrics on the Senate floor from 1999. 
   
• He’s running.

President Biden has asked Congress to authorize a $1.5 trillion spending plan in 2022, with major funding increases for education (particularly for schools in low-income areas), health care, housing, and the fight against climate change. That’s an early blueprint of the full annual budget he’ll release later this spring, but Biden’s big-government ethos comes through loud and clear: The plan calls for a nearly 16 percent increase in discretionary spending across domestic agencies. It requests a less than two-percent increase for the military budget, which has impressively ticked off both Republicans who wanted a money printer at the Pentagon and progressives who have been urging Biden to slash the defense budget. The spending plan could look very different by the time Congress gets done with it, but it’s a useful glimpse at Biden’s vision of robust government solutions for the problems the country faces.

Pfizer has asked the FDA to authorize its coronavirus vaccine for kids ages 12 to 15. 

One in four American adults is now fully vaccinated, and as of Friday,  over two thirds of Americans live in states with universal eligibility.

Austin, TX will use about $1 million from the city’s police budget to fund substance use care.

Gov. Andy Beshear (D-KY) has signed laws restricting the use of no-knock warrants, opening up grants for Kentucky’s HBCUs, and investing in West Louisville communities.