#pullman union

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Is antitrust anti-labor?

If you find the word “antitrust” has a dusty, old-fashioned feel, that’s only to be expected — after all, the word has its origins in the late 19th century, when the first billionaire was created: John D Rockefeller, who formed a “trust” with his oil industry competitors, through which they all agreed to stop competing with one another so they could concentrate on extracting more from their workers and their customers.

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/14/aiming-at-dollars/#not-men

Trusts were an incredibly successful business structure. A bunch of competing companies would be sold to a new holding company (“the trust”), and the owners of those old standalone companies would get stock in this new trust. The trust would operate as a single entity, hiking prices and suppressing wages. If anyone tried fight the trust with a new, independent company, the trust could freeze them out, by selling goods below cost, or by doing exclusive deals with key suppliers and customers, or both. Once a trust sewed up an industry, no one could compete. The trust barons were rulers for life.

The first successful trust was Rockefeller’s Standard Oil, which amassed a 90% share of all US oil. Other “capitalists” got in on the game, forming the Cotton Seed Oil Trust (75% market share), the Sugar Trust (85%). Then came the Whiskey Trust and the Beef Trust. America was becoming a planned economy, run by a handful of unelected “industrialists” with lifetime appointments and the power to choose their successors.

A century after overthrowing the King, America had new kings: “kings over the production, transportation and sale of the necessities of life”. That’s how Senator John Sherman described the situation in 1890, when he was campaigning for the passage of the Sherman Act, the first “anti-trust” act. The Sherman Act wasn’t the first time American lawmakers tried to protect competition, but it was the first law passed after the failure of competition law led to the hijacking of the nation by people Sherman called the “autocrats of trade.”

https://marker.medium.com/we-should-not-endure-a-king-dfef34628153

The Sherman Act — and its successors, like the Clayton Act, are landmark laws in that they explicitly seek to protect workers and customers from corporate power. Antitrust is about making sure that no corporation gets so powerful that it’s too big to fail, nor too big to jail — that a company can’t get so big that it subverts the political process, capturing its own regulators:

https://doctorow.medium.com/small-government-fd5870a9462e

If American workers are derided as “temporarily embarrassed millionaires” who won’t join the fight against the rich because they assume they’ll soon join their ranks, then the American rich are “temporarily embarrassed aristocrats” who would welcome hereditary rule, provided they got to found one of the noble families. The goal of the American elite has always been to create a vast and durable dynasty, wealth so vast and well-insulated that even the most Habsburg-jawed failson can’t piss it away.

The American elite has always hated antitrust. In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan, abetted by Robert Bork and his co-conspirators at the Chicago School of Economics gutted antitrust through something called the “consumer welfare standard,” which ended anti-monopoly enforcement except in instances where price hikes could be directly and unarguably attributed to market power, which is, basically, never.

It’s been 40 years since Reagan took antitrust out behind the Lincoln Monument and shot it in the guts, and America has turned into the kind of aristocratic kleptocracy that Sherman railed against, where “great families” control the nation’s wealth and politics and even its Supreme Court judges:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/06/clarence-thomas/#harlan-crow

Anything that can’t go on forever will eventually stop. Monopoly threatens the living standards, health, freedom and prosperity of nearly every person in America. The undeniable enshittification of the country by its guillotine-ready finance ghouls, tech bros and pharma profiteers has led to a resurgence in antitrust, and a complete renewal of the @FTC and @JusticeATR:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/party-its-1979-og-antitrust-back-baby

Key to the new and vibrant FTC is Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya, who, along with Commissioner  Rebecca SlaughterFTC and Chairwoman Lina Khan, is part of the Democratic majority on the Commission. Bedoya has a background in tech and privacy and civil rights, and is a longtime advocate against predatory finance. He’s also a law professor and a sprightly scholarly writer.

Earlier this week, Bedoya gave a prepared speech for the Utah Project on Antitrust and Consumer Protection conference, entitled “Aiming at Dollars, Not Men.” It’s a banger:

https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/bedoya-aiming-dollars-not-men.pdf

Criticisms of the new antitrust don’t just come from America’s oligarchs — the labor movement is skeptical of antitrust as well, and with good cause. Antitrust law prohibits collusion among businesses to raise prices, and at many junctures since the passage of the Sherman Act, judges have willfully perverted antitrust to punish labor organizers, treating workers demanding better working conditions as if they were Rockefeller and his cronies conspiring to raise prices.

This is the subject of Bedoya’s speech, whose transcript is painstakingly footnoted, and whose text makes it crystal clear that this is not what antitrust is for, and we should not tolerate its perversion in service to crushing worker power. The title comes from a 1914 remark by Democratic Congressman Thomas Konop, who said, of antitrust: “We are aiming at the gigantic trusts and combinations of capital and not at associations of men for the betterment of their condition. We are aiming at the dollars and not at men.”

Konop was arguing for the passage of the Clayton Act, a successor to the Sherman Act, which was passed in part because judges refused to enforce the Sherman Act according to its plain language and its legislative intent, and kept using it against workers. In 1892, two years after the Sherman Act’s passage, it was used to crush the New Orleans General Strike, an interracial uprising against labor exploitation from longshoremen to printers to carpenters to hearse drivers.

Bosses went to a federal judge asking for an injunction against the strike. Though the judge admitted that the Sherman Act was designed to fight “the evils of massed capital,” he still issued the injunction.

The Sherman Act was used to clobber the Pullman Porters union, which organized Black workers who served on the Pullman cars on America’s railroads. The workers struck in 1894, after a 25% wage-cut, and they complained that they could no longer afford to eat and feed their families, so George Pullman fired them all. The workers struck, led by Eugene Debs. Pullman argued that the strike violated the Sherman Act. The Supreme Court voted 9:0 for Pullman, ordered the strike called off, and put Debs in prison.

In 1902, mercury-sickened hatters in Danbury, CT demanded better working conditions — after just a few years on the job, hatters would be disabled for life with mercury poisoning, with such bad tremors they couldn’t even feed themselves. 250 hatters at the DE Loewe company tried to unionize. Loewe sued them under the Sherman Act, and went to the Supreme Court, who awarded Loewe $6.8m in today’s money, which allowed Loewe to seize his former workers’ homes.

This is what sent Congress back to the drawing board to pass the Clayton Act. Though the Sherman Act was clear that it was about trustbusting, the courts kept interpreting it as a charter for union-busting. The Clayton Act explicitly permits workers to form unions, call for boycotts, and to organize sympathy strikes.

They made all this abundantly clear: writing in language so plain that judges had to understand the legislative intent. And yet…judges still managed to misread the Clayton Act, using it to block 2,100 strikes in the 1920s. It appears that passing the Clayton Act did not save a single strike that would have been killed by the bad (and bad faith) Sherman Act precedents that led to the Clayton Act in the first place.

The extent to which greedy bosses used the Clayton Act to attack their workers is genuinely ghastly. Bedoya describes one coal strike, against the Red Jacket Coal Company of Mingo, WV. The mine’s profits had grown by 600%, but workers’ wages weren’t keeping up with inflation. The miners sought a raise of $0.10 on the $0.66 they got paid for ever carload of coal they mined. The company didn’t even pay the workers with real money — just “company scrip”: coupons that could only be spent at the company store. Red Jacket gave its workers a $0.09/car raise — and raised prices at the company store by $0.25/item.

The workers struck, Red Jacket sued. The Fourth Circuit refused to apply the Clayton Act, following a precedent from a case called Duplex Printing that held that the Clayton Act only applied to people who stood “in the proximate relation of employer and employee.”

Congress was pissed. They passed the Norris-LaGuardia Act of 1932, with LaGuardia spitting about judges who “willfully disobeyed the law…emasculating it, taking out the meaning intended by Congress, making the law absolutely destructive of Congress’s intent.” Norris-LaGuardia creates an antitrust exemption for labor that applies “regardless of whether the disputants stand in the proximate relation of employer and employee.” So, basically: “CONGRESS TO JUDGES, GET BENT.”

And yet, judges still found ways to use antitrust as a cudgel to beat up workers. In Columbia River Packers, the court held that fishermen weren’t protected by the exemption for workers, because they were selling “commodities” (e.g. fish) not their labor. Presumably, the fish just leapt into the boats without anyone doing any work.

The willingness of enforcers to misread antitrust continued down through the ages. In 1999, the FTC destroyed the hopes of the some of the country’s most abused workers: “independent” port truckers, who worked 80 hours/week and still couldn’t pay the bills. Truckers were only paid to move trailers around the ports, but they were required to do hours and hours of unpaid work — loading containers, hauling equipment for repair, all for free. The truckers tried to organize a union — and the FTC subpoenaed the organizers for an investigation of price-fixing.

But the problem wasn’t with the laws. It was with judges who set precedents that — as LaGuardia said, “willfully disobeyed the law…emasculating it, taking out the meaning intended by Congress, making the law absolutely destructive of Congress’s intent.”

Congress passed laws to strengthen workers and judges — temporarily embarrassed aristocrats — simply acted as if the law was intended to smash workers. But by 2016, judges had it figured out. That’s when jockeys at the Camarero racetrack in Canóvana, Puerto Rico went on strike, demanding pay parity with their mainland peers — Puerto Rican jockeys got $20 to risk their lives riding, a fifth of what riders on the mainland received.

Predictably, the horse owners and racetrack sued. The jockeys lost in the lower court, and the court ordered the jockeys to pay the owners and the track a million dollars. They even sued the jockeys’ spouses, so that they could go after their paychecks to get that million bucks.

The case went to the First Circuit appeals court and Judge Sandra Lynch said: you know what, it doesn’t matter if the jockeys are employers or contractors. It doesn’t matter if they sell a commodity or their labor. The jockeys have the right to strike, period. That’s what the Clayton Act says. She overturned the lower court and threw out the fines.

As Bedoya says, antitrust is “law written to rein in the oil trust, the sugar trust, the beef trust…the gigantic trusts and combinations of capital…dollars and not at men.” Congress made that plain, “not once, not twice, but three times, each time in a louder and clearer voice.”

Bedoya, part of the FTC’s Democratic majority, finishes: “Congress has made it clear that worker organizing and collective bargaining are not violations of the antitrust laws. When I vote, when I consider investigations and policy matters, that history will guide me.”

There's only three days left in the Kickstarter campaign for the audiobook of my next novel, a post-cyberpunk anti-finance finance thriller about Silicon Valley scams called Red Team Blues. Amazon's Audible refuses to carry my audiobooks because they're DRM free, but crowdfunding makes them possible.

[hughesvolpe]

We love a cast that fights for fair wages and fair treatment

[aryburn-trains]

UP 4-8-8-4 #4018 with troop train. Weber Canyon, UT 1946

[screenzealots]

"Riff Raff"

This black comedy offers few surprises, but is satisfying enough due to the talented ensemble cast.

Director Dito Montiel‘s easily accessible black comedy “Riff Raff” is an irreverent look at the bizarre lengths we will go to for family, even if that includes committing murder. This revenge story about familial bonds and criminal entanglement gone wrong is a lot of fun, even if there isn’t a ton of originality here. Overall, the film is satisfying enough and more than watchable due to its…

[hotvintagepoll]

What are some screwball comedy pairings you wish had been a thing? Can definitely be gay ones :)

Okay finally!

One of the reasons I made this blog in the first place is that few things bring me as much blinding rage as imagining the movies we could have gotten, if old Hollywood had stopped being racist/homophobic/anti-everyone for ten fucking seconds. There were so many talented hotties working through our tournament era who only got cameo spots or no-budget movies! for no reason beyond white supremacy! there were so many stories that didn't get told because heaven forbid we acknowledge gay people! If this blog has a mission statement, a big chunk of it would be about highlighting all the amazing hotties who never got what they deserved in their heyday.

So! Let's tear Louis B. Mayer a new one and make some better movies.

Diamond Eyes (1946)

Harold Nicholas, the bored but fabulous son of a Manhattan millionaire, decides to take himself off on a transatlantic cruise to recover from the boredoms of socialites, constant martinis, and west side glamor. When working girl Rita Hayworth snags him into a fake dating scheme to throw off a jealous ex (Cesar Romero), he doesn't mean to fall in love with his false fiancé—or to set the ex up with his scheming accountant (Tyrone Power).

To the Tune of Millions (1945)

Ann Miller and Lena Horne are conwomen besties who use a fake dance act to get into casinos, which they then promptly rob. Unfortunately, an over-enthusiastic talent agent (Gene Kelly) sees the act and thinks they're legitimate, hiring them on the spot as the lead number in a newly opened but already failing musicale review. Who can they hustle at a theater that's barely bringing in a dime? The two ex-cons fall in love with show business, Kelly and Horne smooch at the grand finale, and Miller has an intense will-they-or-won't-they sparring relationship with the hot stage manager (Ethel Waters—and they will).

Untitled Three's-a-Crowd Film (1942)

Cary Grant, Jean Arthur, and Ronald Colman are running interference on a corrupt justice system while trying to keep up the act that they are all simply cohabitating in a shared AirBnB and definitely not falling in love with each other. Wait. This is actually The Talk of the Town. This movie actually exists and does veer this hard into polyamorous romance.

Tomatoes and Toast (1928)

Anna May Wong and Greta Garbo eat sandwiches for three hours. It's riveting.

One Soul, Two Bodies (1948)

Farley Granger and Vincent Price star as Alexander the Great and Hephaestion in this sword-and-sandals period piece. Though clearly made on a studio backlot with a budget of $3, the dashing romance grounds the chariot races and cardboard sword battle sequences.

Grand Central Station (1931)

Interconnected narratives of Josephine Baker, Joan Blondell, Dolores del Río, and Fredric March all vying for the last seat on the 5:45 train out to Poughkeepsie. When they realize they're jostling to sit next to the same sugar daddy who's been stringing all of them along, the four decide to unionize. Pre-code thrills; the four-in-a-bunk Pullman car scene remains notable for a reason.

I have more but I think I've gone a bit delirious.

[usnatarchives]

All Aboard: The Journey of Locomotives in the U.S. 🚂💨💨💨

A train's horn and the rhythmic clatter of wheels on rails are more than just sounds. They are echoes of an era that transformed America. Delving deep into the National Archives Catalog, we unearth treasures that tell the tale of the nation's love affair with locomotives.

The dawn of American rail travel began in the early 19th century. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, founded in 1827, marked the nation's entry into the world of rail. Locomotives like the Tom Thumb demonstrated the potential of train travel, even if they occasionally lost races to horse-drawn carriages.

By the 1860s, the monumental task of connecting the East to the West was achieved with the First Transcontinental Railroad. This incredible feat, symbolized by the golden spike at Promontory Summit in Utah, stitched the fabric of the nation together, making cross-country travel faster and more accessible than ever before.

The golden age of railroads ushered in luxurious train journeys. Trains like the Pullman Sleeping Cars offered Americans unprecedented comfort, making long-distance travel not just bearable but enjoyable. Meanwhile, iconic stations like New York's Grand Central Terminal and D.C.'s Union Station became symbols of the grandeur and promise of rail travel.

As the nation progressed, so did the role of trains. They were vital in transporting troops during wars, crucial for trade, and a lifeline for communities far from urban centers. However, with the advent of the 20th century and the rise of cars and airplanes, the prominence of train travel waned.

From the smoky beginnings in the 1800s to the streamlined trains of today, locomotives have been an integral part of America's journey, carrying not just people and goods, but dreams and hopes of a constantly evolving nation.

FURTHER READING:

Freedom Train https://prologue.blogs.archives.gov/2015/07/01/new-web-exhibit-on-the-freedom-train/

RFK Funeral Train

[sarahjacobs]

happy late labor day let's talk about how unionism in the newsies film and broadway production are represented differently.

broadly speaking, there are two different ways to organize labor. there are business unions, also referred to as trade unions, the more conservative mode of labor organizing that has been recuperated into capitalism. why it's deemed as a lesser threat is obvious once we consider its historical exclusion of women, people of color, and so-called "unskilled" workers, as well as its long collaboration with government and businesses at the expense of workers, especially the more radical ones. its ultimate prize is short term gains, such as higher pay, typically via the contract; long term transformative/revolutionary political projects are absent in its aims.

revolutionary unions, on the other hand, are explicitly hostile towards capitalism, with the end goal of instituting socialism always in mind. as one of their newspapers reminds us, "momentary phenomena must not blind us to our ultimate aim."

hard promises has some pretty clear cut references to the latter kind of unionism — mayer quotes and names eugene debs, who in 1905 established the industrial workers of the world (iww), a well known revolutionary union.

its hostility to all proponents of capitalism can be seen by its assessment that —

MAYER: The problem is, Jack, that the working class and the hiring class got nothing in common.

this sentiment comes from the iww's preamble to its constitution:

The working class and the employing class have nothing in common. There can be no peace so long as hunger and want are found among millions of the working people and the few, who make up the employing class, have all the good things of life.

Between these two classes a struggle must go on until the workers of the world organize as a class, take possession of the means of production, abolish the wage system, and live in harmony with the Earth.

in the iww's eyes, the world can be divided in two, the capitalists and the workers, between which "there can be no peace."

as for the business unionist's point of view —

When rightly considered, the interests of employer and employed are identical. In the first place both make their living out of the same business or undertaking. . . . [A]ny business is a partnership to a certain extent.

[This union wishes to] prevent unnecessary clashes between employer and employed.

— which states that workers and capitalists have common interests and should work together.

ironically enough, these excerpts were drawn from eugene debs himself, the essay "employer and employed." it was penned in 1884, before his involvement in the pullman strike and his subsequent prison sentence later that year, which reformed him into a socialist.

from debs's 1902 essay, "how i became a socialist," on the topic of his time as a business unionist:

. . . [N]o shadow of a "system" fell athwart my pathway; no thought of ending wage-misery marred my plans. I was too deeply absorbed in perfecting wage-servitude and making it a "thing of beauty and a joy forever."

the key issue of business unions is that they don't know their enemy. what's desired is a more "[perfect] wage-servitude," a more prolonged and humanitarian and fair suffering.

newsies live, too, doesn't know its enemy — i've already talked at length about how fierstein mistakenly places the heart of the struggle in a generational divide rather than the structure of capitalism itself. and because the "shadow of a 'system'" is absent, what we end up with, in both business unionism and broadway's take on newsies, is a labor struggle rife with conciliation and contradiction.

DAVEY: We're done being treated like kids. From now on they will treat us as equals.

KATHERINE: "For the sake of all the kids in every sweatshop, factory, and slaughter house in New York, I beg you… join us." With those words, the strike stopped being just about the newsies. You challenged our whole generation to stand up and demand a place at the table.

throughout newsies live, we see time and time again that there's a disconnect at hand, between the material reality of the conditions that caused the strike and what the writers have them say they're striking against. the oppressive work conditions and horrifically low pay are attributed to them "being treated like kids," and this fight is purported to belong to "our whole generation" — when there's a very real difference between katherine and someone like sarah, why they're working, and the kind of work they can access.

ultimately, the issue fierstein presents is not just a generational divide but one of power not being shared. the rhetoric of wanting to be treated "like equals" and demanding "a place at the table" seem to a) posit that there's such a thing as workers being equal with their employer, and b) voice a desire to share power (the table) with the employer. but an even split of power is impossible when the employer/pulitzer has state power (police, armed strikebreakers, the court) and funds at his disposal in such a way that the workers/newsies are systematically cut off from. the democratization of the workplace is worthless so long as the structures which privilege certain classes are intact.

the proposed solution is that the "[older] generation step aside and invite the young to share the day," as roosevelt puts it. this looks an awful lot like the partnership that debs so exalted in "employer and employed," and i think this connection becomes especially apparent in how negotiations play out.

on broadway, roosevelt has an almost overwhelming presence in the negotiating room. this is a bizarre choice because not only is it a missed opportunity to showcase the strengths of the characters we actually care about, it's also a noticeable departure from 92, which brings roosevelt in primarily to handle the refuge.

SEITZ: And the [trolley] strike's about to be settled. Governor Roosevelt just put his support behind the workers.

it's this line, also a new addition, that indicates the increased role of roosevelt is due to a lack of trust in worker power. or, put more simply, the writer's belief that the government needs to — and should — step in, in order for workers to get any wins; otherwise, labor and capital would be at a standstill. but we should always be skeptical of the government because the employer’s monopoly on state power/violence shows that government is in and of itself a kind of class relation. even when the government places restrictions on employers, it often restricts workers as well (ie taft-hartley act).

the increased emphasis on government intervention undermines revolutionary unionism's argument for and commitment to direct action, or action undertaken to address a problem, without the help of authority figures like union bureaucrats, government officials, and so on… direct action is everywhere in newsies — the newsies tearing up papers and overturning wagons, their various methods of dealing with scabs, and the decision to make their own newspaper in light of the total press blackout.

what drives direct action is an understanding of where the power is located — in the people. the film's negotiation scene understood this well —

true power doesn't lie in pulitzer, or even strike leaders. it's in the rank and file, in solidarity and withholding your labor, in direct action.

the broadway scene lacks this kind of analysis, which is why its take on negotiation falls flat for me. another difference is that jack says they win when in fact, they only win concessions, while in 92, they win all of their demands. this raises a lot of questions for me. was there any discussion beforehand in which the newsies collectively agreed what they were willing to give up — if they were willing to concede anything at all? or did jack make a unilateral decision on behalf of the newsies? on a doylist level, why was this change made in the first place? it can't be for realism. jack getting offered what essentially amounts to a promotion at the end is incredibly unrealistic when we consider how common it is for companies to retaliate against workers after a strike ends, ie the workers who were charged with felony vandalism and conspiracy to commit a crime, all for chalk on a sidewalk while picketing.

concessions are part and parcel of business unionism. using "employer and employed" again to draw comparisons —

[The boss should listen] with respect to the demand and affords relief if he can or a reason why if he cannot.

Both sides ought to give and take. . . . [B]oth sides ought to be willing to compromise.

Capital should extend its hand to labor and labor should grasp it in a friendly manner.

this last tidbit mirrors an earlier negotiation, where jack and les argue over how they should split earnings between them. they go back and forth (70-30, 50-50, 60-40 and that's final) until they agree and spit shake; someone comments "that's disgusting," and jack replies that it's "just business."

this mirroring implies a sense of partnership — after all, the spit shake is what marks the beginning of jack, les, and david being business partners — therefore implying equality. but david and les are more equal to jack than jack and pulitzer could ever be.

additionally, jack's final offer to les is 60-40, a split which favors him. similarly, the offer to the newsies favors pulitzer. what business unions and newsies live fail to understand is that labor and capital are enemies on uneven ground. labor has more to lose, so concessions will always disproportionately hurt the workers. they're the ones who truly have to count pennies, not pulitzer. and, well, maybe the speech the historical kid blink gave at a rally puts it best —

I’m trying to figure out how 10 cents on a hundred papers can mean more to a millionaire than it does to a newsboy, and I can’t see it. We can do more with 10 cents than he can with twenty-five.

[moleshow]

i don't mean to harp on about this but having to read things like " the way workers organize outside the NLRA" is making me feel like i am living through my worst nightmare

"critical industrial relations theory"

[cartermagazine]

Today In History

Asa Philip Randolph, labor leader, and civil-rights leader, was born in Crescent City, FL, on this date April 15, 1889.

Randolph who was an influential figure in the struggle for justice and equality for African Americans. He was the organizer of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, and began organizing that group of Black workers. At a time when half the affiliates of the American Federation of Labor (AFL) barred Blacks from membership, Asa Phillip Randolph took his union into the AFL.

Despite opposition, he built the first successful Black trade union; the brotherhood won its first major contract with the Pullman Company in 1937.

He warned Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt that he would lead thousands of Blacks in a protest march on Washington, D.C.; Roosevelt, on June 25, 1941, issued Executive Order 8802, barring discrimination in defense industries and federal bureaus and creating the Fair Employment Practices Committee.

CARTER™️ Magazine carter-mag.com #wherehistoryandhiphopmeet #historyandhiphop365 #cartermagazine #carter #staywoke #asaphiliprandolph #blackhistorymonth #blackhistory #history

[morbidology]

Early in the 20th century, Pullman Palace Car employed more African Americans than any other company in the United States. Most held jobs as sleeping car porters, caring for mostly white railroad passengers. Porters worked long hours with little rest, but they were well paid compared to other African Americans. In 1937, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters became the first African American union to win a labor agreement. Its members often became community leaders and civil rights activists.

[leahnardo-da-veggie]

Snippets part 11

"Settle down, please," Pullman snapped, ever so slightly bent out of shape. "You are all aware that you are to work as mercenaries for the Mages' Union, yes?”

We all nodded. Chris and I settled down on the sofa, with Merida standing ram-rod straight beside us. “What about it?” I raised my eyebrows. (You know, I always wanted to raise a singular eyebrow, like those super-villains in the comic books, but unfortunately genetics did not comply, and my magic had no hold over neurology.)

“The Mage's Union has long had a need for a group to specialise in dealing with the twice-dead. It seemed pertinent to assemble this team, in light of the recent crimes committed by ghosts, spirits, fae and demons. To name one incident, the spate of thievery committed by Kristavla Ko-clan,” Pullman said, inclining his head at Chris, who snickered.

“So? We're your new anti-twice-dead squad? You don't need me,” I said cheerfully. Chris was a nice guy and all, but every time I looked at Merida, I could only think of our struggle within her mind. Something deeply unnerving lurked beneath her conscious, something not quite sane. Something I deeply wanted to avoid. Even now I could see the inhuman stillness of her mind, like she'd been silenced. Even Pullman had minor ripples in his thoughts, like the movement of a breathing chest. “I mean, I can't speak spirit! Surely there's a linguist or inhuman psychologist you could ask…”

Pullman rippled with amused irritation. “Certainly, there are many linguists who would jump at the chance to aid our endeavours. But we already have an honest to goodness spirit on our side, and a second individual well versed in both the Cescereli, the official language of the spirits, and the pidgin used by the Fae. It seemed a better choice to have you on the team, given your… skillset.”

I grumbled under my breath. It didn't seem like there was a way out of it. (I would find a way, however. I always did.) “So what's our first task, then? Hunt down a secret triad of Fae? Stop an incubus prostitution ring?”

“Nothing quite so mundane, I am afraid. There is a peculiar being, whom analysts suspect to be Fae, rampaging the suburbs of the city Iraios, along the border with Palioden. So far it has destroyed five houses and killed at least a dozen civilians, alongside two teams of mercenaries. It uses elemental magic unique to the Fae, and seems to be resistant to any form of evocation,” Pullman explained. He had slipped into the bored tones of a lecturer, as though he had repeated it a dozen times. His mind wavered, drawing the knowledge from the depths of memory.

“I have informed the local Mage's Union that a specialised team will be sent to aid them. They will provide you with lodging and any resources you might require. Unfortunately, the Paliodaen Exorcist Corps are unable to provide any assistance to our endeavours,” he added, giving a peculiar glance at Merida. “One may well ask why.”

“I regret nothing,” she said simply in response.

There was definitely a story to sniff out there, I thought, one that could be turned to my advantage. Goodness knows I needed anything I could use against her. “You know,” I said slyly, “It would help if you explained how you got here, Merida.”

The look she gave me could have turned the very air solid. “That is none of your business,” she whispered. There was no inflection in the words, no growl or hiss, but the threat was there nonetheless. “Let us move on.”

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@thewingedbaron, @pluppsauthor, @cowboybrunch, @wylloblr, @possiblyeldritch

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@finicky-felix, @evilgabe29, @glitched-dawn, @rivenantiqnerd, @dragonhoardesfandoms

@drchenquill,

(Anyone else who wants to get added can tell me in the comments, pm me, or send me an ask about it!)

[digitalnewberry]

The Pullman Company, which manufactured and operated railroad cars, employed tens of thousands of Black porters from the 1860s to the 1960s. Pullman porters significantly influenced American labor history and the Civil Rights Movement, notably through the creation of the first all-Black union, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. They also boast famous alumni, including one who became known under a different name: Malcolm X.

View Malcolm X's Pullman employee card

View all currently digitized Pullman employee cards

[aryburn-trains]

MILW Troop Train, Oshkosh, WI 1961 by Hiawatha Rails

[retropopcult]

Dining car of The Forty-Niner, 1937.  It was an all-Pullman passenger train jointly operated by the Chicago and North Western, Union Pacific and Southern Pacific Railroads. The train traveled between Chicago and the West Coast.

[lboogie1906]

Dr. Millie Louise Bown Russell (October 29, 1926 - November 1, 2021) was born in Seattle to Augustus and Edith Bown, a Pullman Porter and beautician. She was born in Seattle, one of seven children. Both parents were local political activists, especially after Augustus became a member of the Longshoremen’s Union. Paul Robeson and Marian Anderson were among the visitors to the Bown home.

She became the first African American student in the Medical Technology program at Seattle University. She graduated with a BS in Biology. She married Ed Russell. They had four children.

She worked for the King County Central Blood Bank and its successor, the Puget Sound Regional Blood Center. She returned to Seattle University as a student and received a secondary science-teaching certificate. She received an MS in Kinesiology from the University of Washington. She received a Ph.D. in Education from UW.

She began working at the University of Washington as the Director of the Preprofessional Program for Minority Students in Health Sciences. She became Assistant to the Vice President of the Office of Minority Affairs. Her career at the University of Washington encompassed more than three decades.

The establishment of the Seattle-Mombasa (Kenya) Sister City Association has provided several opportunities to explore African life and culture. She founded the Early Scholars Outreach Program. The Early Program was the inspiration for the national GEAR UP program that now serves thousands of pre-college students across the state of Washington.

The City of Seattle named October 29 Dr. Millie Russell Day. She was honored with the University of Washington’s Outstanding Public Service Award. The University of Washington Office of Minority Affairs and Diversity established the Dr. Millie Russell Endowed Scholarship in honor of her lifelong devotion to education and equality. The Dr. Millie Russell Endowed Scholarship will benefit underrepresented, low-income, first-generation students interested in studying science. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence #alphakappaalpha

[theswampghost]

did you guys know that um. there is a train. it leaves the station at a quarter after five and it’s direct from union terminal right there at public square a quarter after five and where does it arrive at grand central station the cleveland limited of new york central railroad has first class pullman cars for big time movie stars and we’re gonna take one!!!!!!