Woke, But Anti-Union?

The Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union tried to unionize an Amazon warehouse in Alabama. The employees voted. The union lost. Obviously, that can’t be possible unless Amazon did something wrong, because why else wouldn’t employees vote for a union to take dues from their paychecks?

“Our system is broken,” said Stuart Appelbaum, the union’s president. “Amazon took full advantage of that.”

The union makes its pitch. The company makes its pitch. There is no shortage of means for both to fully communicate to employees, who, unlike everyone else who has something to say about whether they should unionize or not, actually work there and can decide for themselves whether they want to go union or not. Contrary to the deeply held feelings about unions of people who weren’t members of the putative collective bargaining unit, that’s why the employees get to vote. Their vote can be yes or no. They voted no union.

Now comes the buried lede, because while Amazon doesn’t want a union, Bezos wants Amazon to be seen as being on the right side of Woke Capitalism.

Some Republican critics of “woke capital” seem to understand the need to put some distance between their party and corporate America. Rubio, for example, has backed the effort to unionize an Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Ala., as a punishment of sorts for the company’s occasionally progressive messaging. “It is no fault of Amazon’s workers if they feel the only option available to protect themselves against bad faith is to form a union,” he wrote in an op-ed for USA Today. “Today it might be workplace conditions, but tomorrow it might be a requirement that the workers embrace management’s latest ‘woke’ human resources fad.”

This doesn’t come from Fox’s Tucker Carlson, but New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie.

If Republicans are truly serious about standing up to “woke capital” — if this is more than just a messaging ploy meant to smooth over ideological division within the party’s ranks — then there are a few other, larger, things they can do.

For example, Republicans and conservatives could support the Protecting the Right to Organize Act. If signed into law, the act would override “right to work” laws and impose tough penalties on employers who interfered in employees’ attempts to unionize. If part of the problem of “woke capital” is that individual workers lack the power to stand up to employers who don’t share their values, then allowing workers to act and bargain collectively is necessarily part of the solution. And if you fear the overall power of “woke” corporations on American politics, then unions representing the working class are your best weapon against that influence.

Whoa, did you see what that crafty Bouie did there, playing those dumb Republicans not only to become the party of unions due to the natural adversarial relationship between labor and management, but to back the Biden PRO plan that will turn every employee into a dues payer whether they want to or not? Sneaky.

But, of course, he knows it won’t happen, not because it’s absurd but because there really isn’t such a thing as Woke Capitalism.

Republican “woke capital” critics are not actually interested in curbing corporate influence and putting power in the hands of workers. They don’t have a problem with corporate speech as a matter of principle. They have a problem with corporate speech as a matter of politics. If the situation were reversed, and corporations were vocal supporters of “election integrity,” it’s hard to imagine that McConnell or his allies would have a problem.

“Woke” capital also does not actually exist. A Black Lives Matter advertisement does not make up for the McDonald’s exploitative relationship to labor and the environment. Amazon might take a few items deemed offensive off its shelves, but it still relies on overworked and underpaid workers in its warehouses and delivery vehicles.

Cynical as Bouie may be about the Republicans, he’s no doubt right that their only interest in corporate speech now is political. Corporations, and MLB, are speaking, but saying the “wrong” things. It’s kind of like Hispanic people not voting Democrat. They’re doing it wrong.

But is he right that “Woke Capitalism” doesn’t exist? MLB took a huge dive off a cliff by moving the All-Star game from Atlanta to Denver in the wake of the Georgia voting law. Watching CNN yesterday, I saw the CEO of Levi Strauss, Chris Bergh, call Georgia’s law racist and assert that his corporation hasn’t been around for 180 years by not taking the moral stance against racism.

What happened to business concerning itself with what’s best for business, what enhances shareholder value since they are, in theory at least, the owners of the business? Bergh spoke of “stakeholders,” a fashionable word but one that conflicts with his duty as CEO to serve the people who pay his salary, deferred salary, benefits, deferred benefits and stock options.

The only rational takeaway is that businesses, like MLB, see being “woke” as in their corporate best interests. And if they do, then they are putting their money where their mouth is, as they have done the calculations, run the numbers and determined that it is in their corporate best interest to back the sensibilities of the woke. They have determined that this is the future, the woke are their customers, and they need to embrace their financial future.

And if this is the corporate calculus, perhaps it’s the leading indicator that this isn’t going away any time soon, and they are of the view that they must either pander to these sensibilities or lose business and money. You may think wokiosity is wrong, untenable and doomed to spectacular failure, but they do not.

Yet, they still don’t want unions, woke or not, because they’re still engaged in business and have no interest in unions deciding their management prerogatives or taking a bite out of the wages they pay their employees.