Late last Friday afternoon, Shawn Fain, president of the UAW, addressed workers at the Mercedes SUV plant in Vance, Alabama, after the union failed in a representation election (2,054 votes in favor, 2,642 against) many had expected them to win. He told them, “Justice isn’t about one vote or one campaign.
The mistake is operating within the nlrb framework. The UAW didn’t win in the 30s by asking the government to recognize them and if the 2000 or so people that voted for a union in that plant acted like they were a union rather than waiting for the bourgeoisie to pat them on the head and give their approval Mercedes would be at the bargaining table with them right now.
Even within the IWW all anyone talks about is the NLRB and its framework. The NLRB doesn’t work for us, it works for “the American people,” which includes the bosses and, realistically, is just the bosses. Even when a fellow worker in my branch got screwed over by the NLRB, everyone keeps talking within the framework of the NLRB.