this post was submitted on 16 Nov 2023
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[–] [email protected] 100 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Man, Unions in America are anaemic. I REALLY wish our labor force would grow that kind of spine and stand up for each other that aggressively.

[–] astraeus 64 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This isn’t even aggressive, they’re literally showing they won’t work for the company if the company isn’t willing to work for them. All the unions in the US have to play politics with the government and corporations in order to keep things flowing smoothly, one false move and the corporations have the upper hand. With that kind of advantage, it’s the corporations who are aggressive here.

[–] [email protected] 54 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'll never understand how the railroad workers union was only allowed to strike on a specific day for a specific time and then were forced to go back to work. Apparently they are labeled "critical" for the nation and then can't strike??

Like, uh, that's literally the point of the strike. Highlighting how critical they are and that you should give them the meager asks they wanted. If some low-wage earners can shut down the entire country because they are upset about earning peanuts - well then maybe it shows they shouldn't be earning peanuts.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Just watched on tv a documentary about strikes a hundred years ago in the US. Facing the Rockefellers, Carnegies and alike. Police was shooting them down. That’s the US. Railroaders are on strike just today in Germany.

[–] drcobaltjedi 19 points 1 year ago

Yeah, theres shit like the battle of blair mountain that everyone should look into.

Hey, my fellow 'Muricans, we actually took up arms here for our right to have a living wage

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Propaganda works. Think of how many of our union workers support Trump.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 year ago

No thank you, I just ate.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There is a push for American unions to set their next contract expiration dates to 1 May 2028, specifically to enable a general strike.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Important to note that this is a workaround. Solidarity strikes (which normally include general strikes) are illegal, but there's no law that prevents every union from happening to strike on their own behalf at the same time.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

American unions are kneecapped by the government. The 1947 Taft-Hartley Act made solidarity strikes (and several other forms of labor protest) illegal. It also opened the door for states to enact "right-to-work" laws.

This law is still standing in part because US courts have been anti-labor for their entire existence, aside from a brief period during FDR's administration.

[–] [email protected] 38 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 year ago

Beautiful. This is what happens when people actually have each other’s backs.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago

The delicious irony here is that U.S. corporations want the government out of regulating worker rights and company obligations, and having actually encountered that, Tesla said, "no, we don't like how that turned out, either."

[–] HairHeel 24 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Three days later, on November 20, the Seko union, which represents postal workers, will stop delivering letters, spare parts, and pallets to all of Tesla’s addresses in Sweden.

It seems troubling that there aren’t regulations in place requiring postal workers to deliver mail indiscriminately.

What if the postal union decided not to deliver mail-in ballots they thought might support a policy they disagreed with, for example?

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Can't tell if you're being sarcastic, but the postal thing has already happened during the USA 2020 election.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Hi, can you clarify what you mean or provide a source? I'm not away of any widespread examples of this but it could be that I'm misunderstanding or misremembering.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

Louis DeJoy, the U.S. Postmaster General who was installed by Trump in May 2020, spent the months prior to the November elections undermining voting by mail and sabotaging the Postal Service. There were multiple lawsuits about it.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

The Trump government shut down automated mail sorting machines, cut overtime for workers (so if they weren't keeping up with the workload, they'd just stop delivering mail instead of working a longer shift), replaced a bunch of air mail delivery routes with road ones, added delays to re-delivery attempts when a letter couldn't be delivered and removed mail collection boxes.

Supposedly all of this would "improve the efficiency" of the postal service. Yeah right.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Solidarnosc!

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I'm out of the loop. Why is this happening?

[–] [email protected] 52 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Sweden doesn’t have laws that set working conditions, such as a minimum wage. Instead these rules are dictated by collective agreements, a type of contract that defines the benefits employees are entitled to, such as wages and working hours. For five years, industrial workers’ union IF Metall, which represents Tesla mechanics, has been trying to persuade the company to sign a collective agreement. When Tesla refused, the mechanics decided to strike at the end of October. Then they asked fellow Swedish unions to join them.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

This is actually a pretty nice system. It works like a protection for all workers, that their salaries are set by the union and it can't be changed by the company.

Of course Tesla doesn't like that, and of course capitalism in general hates that, because how are you going to replace then with cheaper workers? Or fire them when they feel like it (this is also regulated by the unions).

Capitalism is at its core about exploiting humans, and specially humans that are weak and not able to compete in the capitalism class system. It's company profits over humanity.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Weird how reading the article will sometimes give more information than just reading the headline, isn't it?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I was thinking the same thing.

I resisted the urge to make a comment about it because honestly, sometimes I’ve been guilty of it, too. Also, some articles are so full of useless, unnecessary bullshit I can’t really blame people for not wanting to read them. So I just copied, pasted, and shut up. :)

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Wrong country

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Nah, it's all in the article, and that is not it.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago

Nice. Richtig so.