71–80 of 160 posts
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OK. What if a company wants to close a plant, because it's not profitable enough? It's also an organized (corporate) action, so it must be disallowed?
One of those is a business decision about what to do with their private property the other is an external actor demanding what you do with your private property.
And why is that bad? You've just described a negotiation between two private parties. In any negotiation, parties try to get their counterparty to do something with their property.
Workers are negotiating with the company about the sale of private property that they possess (aka "labor services"). Of course, workers can also organize together, it's simply an exercise in free speech.
Heck, it's as libertarian as it can be.
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One of the key points to being unionized is the fact of solidarity with other union workers. that is where the power in unionization comes from. Literally, the entire purpose of unions is to give employees enough economic power to fight greedy CEOs, managers and boards As it stands now, corporations are entirely too powerful that the only way to actually fight back is to create collective support structures
Which is why solidarity strikes have been illegal in the US since 1947's Taft-Hartley Act.
This is a perfect example of how corporate ownership of the political process has usurped the actual function of government responsible to the poorest people, in favor of taking care of corporate interests
A great example of how oligarchical power is literally built into our legal infrastructure
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One is a business decision, the other one is people exercising their rights.
People don't have rights over others private property that's the of the basis of human rights.
Have the workers looted Tesla's plants? Are they burning down Tesla cars in transit?
No?
Then fuck off. Workers are simply negotiating for a fair price for THEIR private property - the labor services that they provide.
Unions are a good thing, definately right now when the competition from "slave owners" in eastern Europe, China etc will exploit workers and outrun competition that way. For Tesla, with China's export of electric vehicle it would be a good thing to "set the bar" and prevent low cost workers from entering the market - hence securing Tesla's position in Sweden. And that's what the "Swedish model" of working is all abou…
Not necessarily. They protect exploitation of the some of the workers, but often bring about abuse and host of other problems.
Even of I look at the most problematic union conduct I can recall of the top of my head it is absolutely dwarfed by any potential abuse coming from corporations which unarguably is many magnitudes more problematic. And this includes armed rebellions against company armies.
It is a bit like pointing to a few cases were ambulances produced traffic accidents and demand that they can't be trusted for that reason. Maybe it's my physics interest, but if this was a formula I would say we can ignore the union downsides because they are insignificant.
Unions over all have shown to be helping raise the standards for even those who are not in them and there is enough sociological research to back that conclusively. Systemically, if corporations would share their success with their employees instead of trying to maximize the extracted value. So the flavour of unions you will get has to do with the society you are in.
In an era where corporate sends Pinkerton thugs to beat up people unions will jive very differently than in a social democratic nation in Scandinavia in the 2020s. Heck, I would even say that in the rugged-individualism-embarassed-billionaire-land that the US is, unions would take on a different shape than in any neighbouring country just based on cultural differences. So a bit more nuance and a look at things at scale is certainly needed.
Tesla built factory in Germany and hired thousands of workers while Volvo build new EX40 car completely in China. Just saying.
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And USA wonders why it has the world's highest incarceration rate, least cost-effective healthcare system, daily mass shootings, massive homeless population and declining life expectancy.
Why do you assume he's American? From his history he's Canadian fyi.
American companies often think that European unions are just stronger than unions in Europe. They don't realize that labor and union laws are different. Toys R Us tried the same in Sweden. They initially refused agreement and hired only non-union workers. But transport and logistics workers union and finance union started sympathy strike. Toys R Us didn't get deliveries and bank workers refused work related to compan…
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Also they forget that on average they are pretty benign. At least in my field they ask for quite tame things. And them being same union for everyone means that you don't really lose much to competitors. As they will have same rules in place...
Good point. Sweden has better institutions and labor laws to reduce friction and enable cooperation. Enterprise bargaining in the US is more zero sum game between companies and workers. Everything you give to workers, reduces competitive edge against non-union competitors. It's in company interest to fight unions as much as possible. In sectoral bargaining , unions negotiate same deal with their counterparts represen…
This is how companies treat enterprise bargaining. It is rarely true.
Unions are often after things that benefit both sides. Safety improvements both protect the workers and shield the company from both injury liability and material losses due to accidents. More generous leave policies and more worker-friendly hours result in happier, healthier, better rested, and therefore more productive workers, which can easily balance out the small reduction in total hours.
But executives/corporations don't see it this way - they see this all of this as a power game, and every union demand they agree to is a fight lost.