The Hammer: Power, Inequality, and the Struggle for the Soul of Labor Highlight

They are some of the few remaining holdouts against the ceaseless action of global capitalism to suck up the dollars that used to go toward pay and benefits for these working people, redistribute those dollars to far-flung investors, push those wages and benefits down into the gutter, and then, when that gutter bottoms out, to ship the jobs off to poorer countries where more desperate people will do them for even less. That is the story of the past half century in America. That is what happened to most of the blue-collar jobs that once animated the towns in the middle of this country that are now husks of their former selves. That process of the upward redistribution of money and hope has done incalculable damage, and it has not stopped. But it would be held at bay at least a little while longer, for the Nabisco workers. They had a contract.