The Collapse of Yellow and its Context

The collapse of the Yellow Corporation in August 2023 made a brief splash in the news cycle – probably a little too brief. Many individuals and analysts have reason to be concerned when considering the volatility of the US economy as demonstrated by not only this collapse but the numerous banks that have faced difficulty and near collapse over the past year or so.

Right-wing outlets tried to spin the banking stories and with the Yellow bankruptcy they also took the opportunity to serve notice to the simmering labour movements – and the timing was critical in light of the potential UPS strike, which has seemingly been averted with a recent (if corrupt) new contract.

The message was already sent by the Biden administration with the recent outmaneuvering of railroad workers looking to strike in 2022. And there's trouble brewing with the United Auto Workers (UAW) who even now are threatening to walk-off. In light of this, you can be sure the Biden administration is already angling to shut this down – the UAW's 'critical status' which has generated a lot of worker frustration can force workers to toil seven days a week for ninety days, and yet this is critical to pending war plans. This worker abuse is (in part) driving the strike action and the White House does not want to see the union earn a 'win'. Biden can keep repeating his line about being a pro-union president – his actions indicate that he's no friend to the workers.

Union officials 'talk tough' but repeatedly we've seen they are quick to cave, and no wonder given the fact that they're part of the corporate structure and well-paid to represent its interests – a development which emerged as far back as the 1980's. Scholars have addressed this conflict of interest as union leadership has a dual obligation – one to workers, and one to stockholders.

Labour historians note the action or in some cases inaction of the White House in the face of major disputes. The 1947 Taft-Hartley Act empowered the Federal government and particularly the President to intervene – the context for this being the Cold War. National Security expanded during the Cold War to include almost all aspects of economic and social life and in this respect the power is related to the Unitary Executive theory which gives the president (it is argued) near dictatorial power in his capacity as Commander-in-Chief. During the Cold War, labour movements and strikes within major industries fell (as some reckoned it) under the scope and spectrum of communist threats, subversion, and a clear and present danger to national security and the military-industrial complex. Striking workers could also hurt the war effort – once again an appeal to national security. In reality it's the same kind of imperial calculus that we can see in plain terms when it comes to geopolitics – in this case it's being applied to the domestic sphere.

Taft-Hartley represented the first step, the opening salvo in the capitalist war against labour – even though the next couple of decades would (by most estimates) rate as something of a golden age for union members.

By the time Reagan came into office in 1981, the Right was emboldened and began to wage open war as demonstrated by the firing of striking air-traffic controllers. The message was clear and the US began to de-industrialise. 1994's NAFTA represented another seminal moment in the dismantling of labour and the various unions. Obama's forced bailouts in the aftermath of the 2008-2009 financial crisis marked another watershed in terms of hours and employer obligations and questions of floating schedules, overtime and the like. The once secure full-time job model was effectively ended. This was in part due to the foolish US practice of tying health care in with employers, a problem the Affordable Care Act (ACA/Obamacare) largely perpetuated. The end result was that full-time jobs were largely eliminated in certain working class sectors such as retail. Workers are forced to take second and third jobs, but in situations with floating schedules this becomes impossible. The end result is something I see every day – despair and defeat. My daughter who works at a local grocery store is surrounded by co-workers who have given up. They want their 20 hours so that they can remain eligible for food stamps and other subsidies. Beyond that, they don't care anymore and aren't even interested in trying to get more hours. There's no future and no hope apart from maybe landing a winning lottery ticket. They can't get anywhere and if they earn just a little more – they lose all their subsidies and are worse off than before. They're in a trap – not a socialist redistribution scheme, but rather a capitalist bread-and-circus one meant to placate them.

In other situations, post-Obama and Covid-era labour shortages meant that the employer's hand was strengthened in the ability to mandate overtime hours – and eliminate the long fought for 8 hour day and 40 hour work week. In many union shops, a two-tier worker paradigm took hold – one meant to eventually eliminate all the benefits enjoyed by the previous generation. The legacy employees are placated for awhile while the new hires are under a completely different and inferior scheme. In time the legacy employees will be gone and the union effectively eradicated.

In the case of the aforementioned shops that require seven days a week for months on end – obviously any Christian employed there must quit, though given the Evangelical compromise with the world and its values, I would imagine very few do. Of course, I would argue Christians can't join unions in the first place.

Whether Obama meant for these changes to be enacted as a result of his health care reforms or whether they were a side effect is still open for debate. For my part, I tend to believe the explanation need not be limited to an either/or dilemma and in fact the macro-level changes that resulted may have been the product of a carefully negotiated (if unofficial) compromise – one that would in reality represent a vicious betrayal on the part of Obama at the behest of Wall Street. Given that he now has eagerly joined the elite class and as president progressively adopted and expressed their values, such a conspiracy (if open) seems all the more likely.

Many presidents have made their mark on labour history and there have been some key markers along the way. While not the biggest or most consequential watershed, it's likely the collapse of Yellow will long be remembered.

In this case it's not what Biden did, but rather what he didn't do.

Most of Yellow's debt was owed to the US government and connected to loans associated with Covid relief. The White House via the Treasury and Labor could have easily intervened and forgiven or re-financed debt or provided some kind of bailout. This move would have been far less complicated than what was seen with the banks and would have required very little in the way of negotiation – but it was not pursued.

By way of contrast, Biden's Treasury was eager to intervene with the several banks that faced near collapse – and in doing so exceeded the FDIC obligations to depositors. Biden was willing to go way above and beyond in order to help these banks and protect the deposits of their customers – even the very rich. In keeping with the Wall Street model which tilts the scales in favour of the capitalist class, profits are always 'privatized' and fall into the pockets of those on top, even while losses are 'socialised', placing the burden on the taxpayer.

But Yellow received no help at all and thus it collapsed. The 30,000 workers, let alone the thousands more who will (by means of ripple effect) lose their jobs, received no succor. That's quite a message being sent – even though many workers seem to have missed it.

As the US seeks to restore its manufacturing sector by means of what is sometimes called in-sourcing – bringing jobs back (albeit in significantly modified form) to the United States from overseas, there is a growing fear of a resurgent labour movement. This is a clear message to them – dream on. The only two words they need to know are, "Yes, boss."

The danger has been exacerbated by the inflation crisis and the rise in wages that has accompanied it – wages that have largely failed to keep up thus negating any gains workers might have made. With the Yellow inaction, many saw the Biden White House was sending a signal to UPS drivers and the Teamsters Union, and perhaps the UAW. Others are even more cynical about the nature and progression of these events. Not a few have noted that the trucking industry is currently suffering due to a post-Covid market glut. The industry was riding high for a season – an unprecedented high, but has now fallen on hard times. Many owner-operators have been driven out of business, unable to find consistent work and keep up with the inflated price of diesel fuel. The workers and drivers now looking for jobs are going to encounter an already unfriendly market but the loss of a major player/competitor in the field will mean more available work for the large companies still standing. It will be a boon for them and for the industry in general when viewed in macro terms. This will provide little comfort to those in the unemployment line and competing for the limited number of openings. As things pick up, opportunities will re-emerge but that could be many months away. And it goes without saying that desperate people will work for less. Just like that, the 'workers' market that emerged during Covid is in the process of being reversed and corporate America will be able to name its terms and put the workers back in their place. They will face reduced wages and yet it is unlikely that inflation will have come down enough to compensate. Things were bad before Covid. When the dust settles the momentary high will be replaced by a reality that is probably far worse.

I constantly hear people saying that the government is trying to destroy small businesses. If that's the case, then what is driving this? Some think it's an evil communist plot hatched by anti-American politicians in Congress. That's ridiculous and just plain absurd. That's not it at all. In fact such expressions need to be denounced for what they are – juvenile and ignorant.  There are no communists in the capitalist-dominated American political order. It's Wall Street and the large corporate interests that in the name of monopolistic capitalism are rigging the game. The mammon-worshipping politicians are their creatures and do their bidding. The street-level anger directed at politicians is valid to a point but at the same time it's missing the larger picture and the mammonist cancer at the heart of the American system. The larger monopolistic corporations benefit from breaking the competition. It's an old game.

Regardless of the details and the back-room negotiations surrounding Yellow, the end result is that American workers have been sent a message. Dissent will not be tolerated as the US is now on a war footing – that's the other big factor in this. As the US must compete with the likes of China and as the economy is increasingly streamlined toward a war-effort, worker dissent will not be tolerated and will be cast (as it was during the Cold War) as subversive and unpatriotic. While the weapons industry is booming due to Ukraine-related sales and the build-up for war with China, there are other processes at work. One is the decoupling process in which the US is dismantling the China-industrial and manufacturing network. This is strategic. In part it's to make the US more domestically self-sufficient but it's also to create an economic scenario in which war with China is a possibility. War will shut down trans-oceanic commerce. For many years analysts recognised that a war with Beijing would be like the US shooting itself in the foot. Jobs are returning to the US as a result of these decoupling efforts, but they are not going to be the kind of industrial jobs that could support a middle class family as seen in the 1950's and 1960's. Wall Street does not want to return to that model. The capitalist golden age of the Robber Barons in the late nineteenth century is more the ideal – even if it won't be possible to fully return to that model either. But given the concentration of wealth in recent years and the power wielded by some of these 'titans' of industry – one wonders if history isn't starting to repeat itself once more.

Unions exercise their power in the form of threat – give us what we want or we'll break your company, and this threat has historically involved violence and the destruction of property. To call out this fundamentally immoral paradigm is not to let companies of the hook or give them the ethical high ground. They have often behaved in a deplorable fashion and from an ethical standpoint the Christian finds himself outside this debate as neither faction has any real moral standing, and in fact present serious problems for one seeking to apply New Testament teaching to one's life.

That said, from a social standpoint the union-corporate management dynamic is on one level healthy as it provides a check on the abuse of power whether from the avarice of the capitalist class or the mob of workers. Both camps can easily fall prey to destructive and unethical patterns of entitlement thinking. Both have in the past and these actions and counter-actions have had a profound effect on the social history of the United States.

Has the dynamic broken down? Yes, it has. That was another important development in labor history – when the unions were brought into the corporate structure during the Reagan era. As already suggested, they're not disinterested parties anymore. They're stock holders and as such their corrupt and bloated bureaucracies do not properly represent the interests of workers anymore. Their job is to assuage anger and negotiate away any gains – occasionally allowing workers to blow off some steam for a few days at best. The farcical nature of many post-Reagan strike actions needs to be understood. It's more Kabuki theatre than actual engagement. These are the unions supported by Biden – not the old unions which once (long ago) represented the interests of workers.

I'm not interested in sitting atop the corporate management structure – though many Christians erroneously celebrate and idealize this position. Nor am I going to join a union, which in some contexts has also been erroneously viewed in connection with the application of Christian principles. Unions are a healthy corrective and I don't oppose them but as a Christian I cannot be part of one and its threats of coercion and violence. I have been forced to walk away from jobs over this in the past. A kind of necessary evil, organised labour is problematic and largely incompatible with New Testament Christianity.

I'm not taking sides, though if forced to I'm more likely to side with workers. I think it's important to understand what is happening and why – all the more as many (even many small business owners) do not and tend to see things in rather myopic and self-interested terms. This leads to misguided and ill-informed complaints and sometimes equally ill-informed activism. Disgruntled Christians who in the American context tend (by default) to lean Right, are then easily manipulated by the agents of propaganda and their simoniac theologians. As such these people are easily pulled into activism which is not only misguided but destructive – to both society and the Church.

That said, I have also seen the ugly side of unions and what happens when you cross paths with them. I remember my father (a property owner) being threatened by them when I was a kid. The world is broken and we're not going to fix it. There are no human means to do so. In the end these are battles over mammon and idolatrous Babel dreams. Don't fall for the emotional appeals made by either side. Live your pilgrim calling but understand the forces at work in society and you'll be able to discern and thus reject the propaganda being issued – from whatever side it happens to come. Following New Testament imperatives concerning money and the call to work quietly with our hands in a disentangled sort of life will not make us rich, nor is it a ticket to the middle class. But we'll have what we need and the time we need to give our energies to things that matter – the heavenly things we're called to give our time, energy, and affections to. Though this teaching of the New Testament is denounced and ridiculed by the Dominionist factions as merely focusing on trying to save some souls – we know better. It's much bigger than that. The Kingdom is of a spiritual and eschatological nature – something they evidently do not understand. And our actions while insignificant and worthless in the world's eyes are in fact waging a cosmic war and a demonstrated engagement on a spiritual and eternal level. The world cannot grasp that living a life of worship and faithfully raising a family are of greater impact than activism and organising or becoming a leader in an important social, political, or financial sector. How sad, that the majority of Christians share this same worldly mindset.