Pinkos Parlor: What if the "low hanging fruit" is a poison apple?

January 12, 2007

What if the "low hanging fruit" is a poison apple?

My union organizer buddy dropped that phrase, "low hanging fruit" about one of these shops backed by a gov't contract. "You can't blame the union for going after the low-hanging fruit," he said.

Well, can I?

On the face of it, no. Clearly; this is why the trope works.

But what if the "low hanging fruit" is not just hanging lower than the others? What if it is an entirely different kind of fruit altogether? Then the story is a little more complex.

I know this deeply: these "low hanging fruits" are poison to the union movement.

But how to proceed with the analysis?

The crux is this: what makes union organizing different from other forms of social activism is that it can directly alter the rate of exploitation. Without that key ingredient, you may as well be bringing toothbrushes to the Amazon...

The full consequences of this are not clear to me.

more to come...

Posted by Sam at January 12, 2007 09:56 AM

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from pinky: yes rough facts pub sec orged 33% pri sect orged 8% orging the pub sec while good and surely important maybe even a bene to real union orging still it ain't real union orging.... it was profoundly NOT the mission of the IWW big bill haywoods the ARU gene debs and the gang that built the CIO to org the nation's public servents ya ya ya it's directly a help to a section of the job class lifting their households income but the up charge is laid on the tax payers and uncles credit card not private profits face it that's hardly waging class war on the profiteers is it ??? those who hive off value from their employed jobblers productions so how can pub sec raises be examples of the jobbled toiling productive masses "taking back" more of the value they produced in the first place

Posted by: Sam on January 16, 2007 11:35 PM

January 12, 2007

What if the "low hanging fruit" is a poison apple?

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