Schadenfreude: Elizabeth Warren’s campaign staff votes to unionize

At last, the exploitation of the proletariat will come to an end at the Elizabeth Warren presidential campaign. CNBC reports:

A majority of Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s 2020 campaign staff has said it wants union representation.

Nonmanagement campaign employees authorized the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 2320 to represent them in negotiations with campaign leadership, according to Steven Soule, the local’s business manager.

“We look to move to the table to come to a bargaining agreement that provides pay and benefits and working conditions that are the best in the nation,” Soule said.

“Best in the nation” translates into “most expensive in the nation.” It must also mean time-and-half pay kicking in after working 40 hours in a week and maybe even the right to decline overtime.  Just what a presidential campaign needs. Especially when the candidate is not a stellar fundraiser.  William Jacobson at Legal Insurrection notes:

As of last quarter, she was burning through all the cash she could raise, and had to fall back on a $10 million transfer from her Senate campaign account to create a reserve for the primaries.

Warren’s campaign strategy was to hire aggressively and build a large campaign staff earlier than anyone else. It’s paying off in terms of her ability to generate publicity, but if she can’t ramp up fundraising and she has to pay union wages to staff, Warren may be caught in a cash squeeze.

That $10 million Senate account infusion could dissipate pretty quickly just as the primaries and caucuses approach early next year.

Campaigns, of necessity, are the opposite of factory routine, where shifts are predictable and tasks generally unchanging. “Organized chaos” is about the best one can hope for. Traditionally, campaign workers throw themselves into their tasks, dedication to the cause, or hopes for future patronage and influence, motivate them far more than the paycheck.

But this election cycle, Democrats know they have to win back blue collar union workers in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin and Michigan in order to win the presidency, so they have to pander to the unions. Even if it means the money running out and the staff behaving like employees of a factory when it comes to performing unanticipated tasks.

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore (croppped)

At last, the exploitation of the proletariat will come to an end at the Elizabeth Warren presidential campaign. CNBC reports:

A majority of Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s 2020 campaign staff has said it wants union representation.

Nonmanagement campaign employees authorized the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 2320 to represent them in negotiations with campaign leadership, according to Steven Soule, the local’s business manager.

“We look to move to the table to come to a bargaining agreement that provides pay and benefits and working conditions that are the best in the nation,” Soule said.

“Best in the nation” translates into “most expensive in the nation.” It must also mean time-and-half pay kicking in after working 40 hours in a week and maybe even the right to decline overtime.  Just what a presidential campaign needs. Especially when the candidate is not a stellar fundraiser.  William Jacobson at Legal Insurrection notes:

As of last quarter, she was burning through all the cash she could raise, and had to fall back on a $10 million transfer from her Senate campaign account to create a reserve for the primaries.

Warren’s campaign strategy was to hire aggressively and build a large campaign staff earlier than anyone else. It’s paying off in terms of her ability to generate publicity, but if she can’t ramp up fundraising and she has to pay union wages to staff, Warren may be caught in a cash squeeze.

That $10 million Senate account infusion could dissipate pretty quickly just as the primaries and caucuses approach early next year.

Campaigns, of necessity, are the opposite of factory routine, where shifts are predictable and tasks generally unchanging. “Organized chaos” is about the best one can hope for. Traditionally, campaign workers throw themselves into their tasks, dedication to the cause, or hopes for future patronage and influence, motivate them far more than the paycheck.

But this election cycle, Democrats know they have to win back blue collar union workers in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin and Michigan in order to win the presidency, so they have to pander to the unions. Even if it means the money running out and the staff behaving like employees of a factory when it comes to performing unanticipated tasks.

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore (croppped)