‘Jersey Elbow’ Epitomizes the Built-In Hostility Bosses Have for Workers Everywhere

Image taken from video of incident outside RWJ University Hospital last week.

By Joe Maniscalco

Something ugly and very troubling recently happened on the picket line outside the Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick, New Jersey that should tell us a lot about the ongoing strike at that particular institution.

But more importantly, it should also serve as a sobering warning about the class struggle working people throughout this country now face — and have, indeed, always faced when they collectively stand up to the bosses. 

The fat cats lose their effing minds.

A representative from the United Steelworkers Health Care Workers Council, was picketing outside the hospital’s parking garage with a number of other strikers on the afternoon of September 14, when it looks like a black-shirted security guard attempted to violently elbow her out of the path of an automobile driving through the picket line.

You can see video of the incident here, along with further Work-Bites coverage of the RWJ University Hospital strike here, here and here.

Now, we’ve yet to hear back from the corporate guys who run RWJ University Hospital about their take on events, but we’re guessing it will invariably be something along the lines of the black-shirted security guard was attempting to prevent the striker from being struck by that car breaking the picket line.

But that’s B.S. That’s not how you prevent an injury — that’s how a pissed off hockey defenseman clears the crease. Anybody see any ice on that pavement?

I don’t.

And does anybody think this security guy would have reacted the same way if the person being elbowed walking in front of that oncoming vehicle was his sister or daughter — and not some mouthy unionist demanding safe staffing standards in defiance of his corporate paymasters?

Hell no.

He probably would have grabbed her up, or better yet, gotten in front of that car and immediately stopped it from proceeding any further.

But the guard, coming in at…I dunno…6’ 1”…240 lbs., didn’t do that. Instead, he decided, with arms flailing in very goon-like fashion, to step to the nurses’ union rep. What was he gonna do next — drop his imaginary gloves and start pummeling her?

The flying elbow wasn’t the end of it. Union sources tell Work-Bites the same security guard was involved in additional incidents on the picket line. Police reports have been filed.

This single incident is vital to understand because it epitomizes the mentality that defines the employer class’ attitudes towards the rest of us when we lift up our heads. We’re well into the third decade of the 21st century — post-pandemic era — and yet, where is the progress? How far away do you really think we are from the brutality workers faced in the 1930s? 

The latter is especially illuminating because the strike against RWJ University Hospital isn’t just any strike. It involves nurses — you know, the same folks that up until a second ago, were correctly acknowledged throughout the corporate media world as heroes?

Why are they now being elbowed in the chest? How does that happen?

I think it happens because nothing has systematically changed since the dangerous days of the 1930s when workers demanding the gains many of us now take for granted where brutalized and killed. The oppression and repression that’s always been there anytime working people act together in defiance of the bosses has never wavered.

You can argue it’s actually gotten worse — or getting ready to get worse. Are we not already living in an insane time where cars plowing through crowds of demonstrators is almost commonplace?   

The employer class stands ever ready — post-pandemic be damned — to sic its private armies on the masses to keep us in our place. And that includes lifesaving nurses. 

Tragically, the bosses have always had a pool of equally-ready recruits — for a variety of psychological and emotional reasons — all too happy to help them do their dirty work.

In “Strikebreaking and Intimidation: Mercenaries and Masculinity in Twentieth Century America,” author Stephen H. Norwood notes how some young men “embraced strikebreaking during the early twentieth century not just to display antagonism to labor but also to prove their manhood.”

Norwood continues, “Strikebreaking provided the collegian with his best opportunity, short of military combat, to test his strength and nerve, by exposing him to severe danger and providing him with the opportunity to fight.”

Hmm, might we be witnessing the same kind of thing in Jersey? 

Strikers who encountered that security guard on the picket line also tell Work-Bites the aggression was “unexpected” and it seemed like “this person really took it personally.”

One thing is sure: Analyzing and understanding how the foot soldiers of the elite operate is crucial for the simple fact this is not the 1930s. Despite the relentless campaign to enforce the status quo, progress happens, awareness grows, lessons are learned.

Unless they’re successfully suppressed. 

There is no valid or justifiable reason why the struggle for worker rights at RJW University Hospital — or anywhere else — should ever invoke a violent response from anyone or any group. 

And if you do happen to find yourself wearing a black shirt in the employ of some corporate boss raking in tens of millions of dollars who orders you to “go keep order” — now is a very good time to seriously contemplate why, at this point in your life, you are throwing elbows at people advocating on behalf of bona fide lifesavers.