Lev Radin/Sipa USA via AP Images
Rally in support of Amazon workers, February 20, 2021, in New York City
Yesterday, there appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal (and for all I know, perhaps other newspapers as well) a two-page ad headlined “We Stand for Democracy,” which laid out the signatories’ support for voting rights and their opposition to “measures that restrict or prevent any eligible voter from having an equal and fair opportunity to cast a ballot.” That is, to the torrent of voter suppression bills that Republicans have introduced in nearly every state legislature and enacted in Georgia.
The very long list of signatories, which fills up the two pages in small type, begins with corporations, and goes on to include individuals, then law firms, and finally nonprofit organizations. Among the corporations are Airbnb, Alphabet (the fancy name for Google), Amazon, Apple, Bank of America, Berkshire, BlackRock, Facebook, Ford and GM, Goldman Sachs, Lyft (but not Uber), Starbucks, Target (but not Walmart), Twitter, Wells Fargo, and perhaps 100 more.
The only corporations on this very long list that are unionized, so far as I can figure, are its two auto companies and its two airlines, American and United—all four of which went union a long time ago. Signatory Levi Strauss was unionized at various times in its long history, but today, virtually all of its product is produced offshore.
So, one thing that’s clear from this very long list is that corporate America’s commitment to democracy certainly doesn’t extend to its own businesses (and if GM, Ford, and the airlines had been founded during the past 40 years, they’d almost surely be non-union, too). By avoiding, evading, or just plain squashing any and all worker attempts to gain a voice in their companies’ affairs by forming a union, virtually all our major businesses have made clear that they’ll run themselves on the traditionally autocratic principles they’ve long exercised. As you doubtless know, Amazon just defeated an effort by its employees in Alabama to form a union, and last fall, Lyft funded a successful ballot measure in California that enabled the company to disclaim any responsibility for the wages and working conditions of its drivers and to thwart any attempt on their part to form a union.
But the most egregious inclusion on the list came under the category of law firms. There, among virtually every single prominent firm in the country—a list that included Gibson Dunn, Covington & Burling, Davis Polk, Paul, Weiss, Sidley Austin, etc. etc.—was the firm of Morgan, Lewis & Bockius. Within the legal profession, that firm may be known for any number of things, but to the broader public, or at least that part of the broader public that roots for workers, Morgan Lewis is known as the go-to firm for companies that want to bust a union or keep one from being born. Morgan Lewis provides instructions and instructors in all the legal ways an employer can intimidate workers and spells out which ways are illegal as well (and surely also spells out how negligible are the penalties for those illegalities).
So two cheers for the nation’s economic powers’ support for democracy and voting rights, and a big Bronx cheer for their ferocious opposition to any form of democracy within their own house.
