Chokepoint democracy: Workers capitalize on global system weak spots
Since coal was the largest fossil fuel energy source for human societies from the early days of the Industrial Revolution until the 1950s and its extraction employed a large number of workers who over time unionized, strikes among coal workers severely impacted energy supplies. Those strikes riveted the attention of the authorities and the public as the health and economic well-being of society was at stake.
The rise of oil as the world’s dominate energy source changed all that. Oil required many fewer workers to bring it out of the ground and distribute it. Oil production utilizes pumps and pipelines instead of people to move fuel. The decline of the power of coal miners followed in the wake of oil’s rise. Oil did not similarly empower workers because so much of the system to extract and refine it runs automatically and can often be overseen temporarily by a few management personnel in the event of a strike or work stoppage.
Fast forward to today and we see for the first time in a very long time, workers in a variety of industries are showing renewed political and economic power as a variety of causes have created a labor shortage. Strikes are spreading across the United States and include workers in (not surprisingly) health care, manufacturing (farm implements, food), food service, public transit, building trades, and coal mining…
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