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some plague rats posted:I think the problem here is that I'm not interested in the dictionary definition because presumably we're all adults and capable of understanding things through a political lens rather than a babys-first-words one. To get specific, my definition, which is a widely held leftist one: without getting granular, it breaks down broadly into "labor unions" which represent working people laboring for a wage under the system of capital which is trying to extract their surplus value, and what you might call "capital unions" which represent the forces arrayed against them preventing them from trying to retain any measure of said value. They're diametrically opposed to each other in both function and membership, so claiming "yeah, but they're both unions" is technically correct (best kind of correct) but also completely useless in terms of actually understanding and making a point, because it's like saying rangers and Celtic are the same because they're both football teams, or like saying the IRA and the UVF are the same because they're all Irish christians. The dictionary definition is the common usage. If you're going to use some different leftist vocabulary then the onus should be on you to define your terms. Especially if you are going to use them in a way that contradicts their common usage.
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Jul 20, 2022 21:10
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Twincityhacker posted:A good example of the difference between unions and a police "union" would be comparing and contrasting a paid firefighters union with a police union. Both are goverment employees that are *supposed* to be for the public good, but they are different*. Yeah the major difference is that the police are an armed gang that will threaten you if their union doesn't get it's way, and the firefighters aren't.
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Jul 20, 2022 21:11
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Also police unions are also generally letter-of-the-law exempt from most union-busting bills, even for ones that otherwise target government workers like Teachers. It's a very "gently caress you got my negotiation power" thing.
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Jul 20, 2022 21:13
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Kaal posted:Only to the extent that any lobbyist group does, and only as defined by the senior leadership that manages the war they are undertaking against civic oversight. The central concept of a labor union, which is to organize on behalf of the worker class against the coercive power of management, doesn't exist for police. I don't think you'll find many teamster, teaching, or nursing unions out there that exist to defend their management, conceal abuses of members, and attack safety reforms. If you're looking for a term, they're more a guild than a union. Isn’t it pretty normal for leadership to be part of government workers’ unions? The government workers unions do not negotiate with the leadership for e.g. pay—they negotiate with the government. I get the feeling that a false distinction is being created here . . . it is one weird trick to avoid classifying police unions as unions. When most people talk about unions, they don’t mean this. A lot of people in unions, even non-police unions, would call that a bunch of commie gobbledegook. Are they not real trade unionists? silence_kit fucked around with this message at 21:26 on Jul 20, 2022 |
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Jul 20, 2022 21:14
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Biden made an interesting announcement earlier today: https://twitter.com/greg_price11/status/1549830673204232193 (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Jul 20, 2022 21:15
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That makes them sound like bad unions, rather than not unions. It seems easier to just say this than redefine words so that you can continue to say that every union is good.
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Jul 20, 2022 21:16
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DeadlyMuffin posted:The dictionary definition is the common usage. If you're going to use some different leftist vocabulary then the onus should be on you to define your terms. Especially if you are going to use them in a way that contradicts their common usage. I was assuming that most people posting in a politics forum would be familiar with leftist conceptions of unions, and able to parse out what I meant, so my bad there. I'll define terms better
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Jul 20, 2022 21:21
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Union rep here: management being part of the same union as everyone else is very much not a thing in most other unions. That's kind of the point of most unions, that they exist separate from management. I agree with Kaal that police unions are closer to a guild than a labor union.
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Jul 20, 2022 21:22
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silence_kit posted:Isn’t it pretty normal for leadership to be part of government workers’ unions? The government workers unions do not negotiate with the leadership for e.g. pay—they negotiate with the government. No, not at all. It's fairly unique to police. For example not only are district administrators prohibited from joining teachers unions, but so are most principals. Doctors cannot join nurses unions, nor can nursing managers. It's what distinguishes a labor union from other forms of lobby organizations.
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Jul 20, 2022 21:22
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silence_kit posted:When most people talk about unions, they don’t mean this. A lot of people in unions, even non-police unions, would call that a bunch of commie gobbledegook. Just to be clear, are you "most people"? Would you say that? Are you a union member who thinks this? Because I'm not interested in arguing with some great mass of people you can somehow speak for, I'm talking to you.
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Jul 20, 2022 21:22
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silence_kit posted:Isn’t it pretty normal for leadership to be part of government workers’ unions? The government workers unions do not negotiate with the leadership for e.g. pay—they negotiate with the government. Yeah I don’t think some ideological definition is all that useful for anything besides internet arguments. Union members in the US are mainly just concerned with whether or not they have somebody representing them and taking a negotiating position on their behalf. I am a union member btw.
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Jul 20, 2022 21:24
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If you're going to advance the argument that a thing that conforms to the dictionary definition must be classified as a union, then I would like to congratulate whatever members of the Patriarca crime family remain on their successful decades of unionization.
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Jul 20, 2022 21:24
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Kaal posted:No, not at all. It's fairly unique to police. For example not only are district administrators prohibited from joining teachers unions, but so are most principals. Doctors cannot join nurses unions, nor can nursing managers. It's what distinguishes a labor union from other forms of lobby organizations. SEC management is also very clearly not in the NTEU either.
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Jul 20, 2022 21:27
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Kaal posted:No, not at all. It's fairly unique to police. For example not only are district administrators prohibited from joining teachers unions, but so are most principals. Doctors cannot join nurses unions, nor can nursing managers. It's what distinguishes a labor union from other forms of lobby organizations. For what it's worth RE teachers unions - I kind of wish the union applied to support staff like cooks, custodians, maintenance, and the like (or at least that they had their own union). For as much of a punchline the working conditions for teachers are, the way that the custodians and the like get treated is absolutely brutal.
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Jul 20, 2022 21:30
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Lib and let die posted:If you're going to advance the argument that a thing that conforms to the dictionary definition must be classified as a union, then I would like to congratulate whatever members of the Patriarca crime family remain on their successful decades of unionization. My understanding was that we were going by dictionary definitions under the current moderation scheme.
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Jul 20, 2022 21:37
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DeathSandwich posted:For what it's worth RE teachers unions - I kind of wish the union applied to support staff like cooks, custodians, maintenance, and the like (or at least that they had their own union). For as much of a punchline the working conditions for teachers are, the way that the custodians and the like get treated is absolutely brutal. Most of the time, those positions do have their own unions. Custodians almost always do in my experience, they just often aren't in the same union as the teachers.
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Jul 20, 2022 21:37
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DeathSandwich posted:For what it's worth RE teachers unions - I kind of wish the union applied to support staff like cooks, custodians, maintenance, and the like (or at least that they had their own union). For as much of a punchline the working conditions for teachers are, the way that the custodians and the like get treated is absolutely brutal. Yeah I get that. They are fairly different jobs though, so it can be difficult to adequately represent both interests. But support staff are actually welcome to join most teachers unions. Classified employee unions and service worker unions certainly exist as well, most notably the two million SEIU members and the two hundred thousand strong California-based CSEA. Custodial workers are also welcome in many teamster unions.
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Jul 20, 2022 21:37
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Tiny Timbs posted:Yeah I don’t think some ideological definition is all that useful for anything besides internet arguments. I mean... yes? What do think we're doing here?
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Jul 20, 2022 21:38
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some plague rats posted:Just to be clear, are you "most people"? Would you say that? Are you a union member who thinks this? Because I'm not interested in arguing with some great mass of people you can somehow speak for, I'm talking to you. I’m not a blue collar worker but have been a member of two unions. I’m not speaking from personal experience because I don’t think I am really a typical union man, but there’s no way that the average trade unionist in the US attaches all of that stuff you were posting about to the concept of a trade union.
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Jul 20, 2022 21:40
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Kaal posted:No, not at all. It's fairly unique to police. For example not only are district administrators prohibited from joining teachers unions, but so are most principals. Doctors cannot join nurses unions, nor can nursing managers. It's what distinguishes a labor union from other forms of lobby organizations. I think it's far from universal for law enforcement unions, honestly. I've heard of sergeants being unionized on the grounds that they are more like lead workers than management proper, but I can't say I've heard many examples of the upper ranks of an agency being unionized. What is true, though, is that nearly all of those upper ranks made their way up from the rank-and-file union membership, and many of them first moved up by taking leadership roles in the union. Aegis fucked around with this message at 21:46 on Jul 20, 2022 |
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Jul 20, 2022 21:42
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If you want to be pedantic police unions are not part of the American labor movement but are "unions" but in practice people involved in the legit movement would take that as a reason to say they're not unions. https://theconversation.com/why-police-unions-are-not-part-of-the-american-labor-movement-142538 They themselves do prefer the term association or fraternal organization which pedantically is also not a union. The history and conditions of American police unions and American labor unions are different enough that you can't really call them the same thing then if they're both vaguely unions. Gumball Gumption fucked around with this message at 21:49 on Jul 20, 2022 |
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Jul 20, 2022 21:43
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DeadlyMuffin posted:That's my point. This vote is meaningless, and an easy "yes" *unless* they want to overturn Obergefell. If the vote fails, I think it's evidence that the Republicans are gunning for same sex marriage. Because Ted Cruz, major GOP player and would be Presidential candidate, pushing the line against Obergefell isn't evidence enough?
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Jul 20, 2022 21:44
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Plague Rats explained what they meant. There isn't really a need to go in circles about the dictionary definition if everyone knows what they are talking about. I will be making an example of the next person to engage in extreme pendant-tree.
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Jul 20, 2022 21:47
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:Plague Rats explained what they meant. There isn't really a need to go in circles about the dictionary definition if everyone knows what they are talking about. Uh, do you mean pedantry? (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Jul 20, 2022 21:47
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At least the first part of this could actually pass the senate? The second part might be too much for some of the republicans. There is bipartisan bill coming to reform the Electoral Count Act of 1887. https://www.npr.org/2022/07/20/1105843501/electoral-count-act-changes-pence-january-6th quote:Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Susan Collins, R-Maine, led the effort to reform the law, which would need 60 votes to break a filibuster and pass the Senate. The proposal unveiled Wednesday to reform the Electoral Count Act has 16 co-sponsors, including nine Republicans. Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky has signaled he's open to updating the old law.
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Jul 20, 2022 21:48
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That SEEMS like a good thing, mainly because the Sedition Caucus doesn't make up 20% of the senate.
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Jul 20, 2022 21:51
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Aegis posted:I think it's far from universal for law enforcement unions, honestly. I've heard of sergeants being unionized on the grounds that they are more like lead workers than management proper, but I can't say I've heard many examples of the upper ranks of an agency being unionized. While practices vary, it's very typical for sergeants and even lieutenants to be standard police union members. And police groups tend to build sub-unions to retain the support of each rank. For example while the Police Benevolent Association of New York represents 24,000 members, the New York Sergeants Benevolent Association represents 13,000 members (some active, some retired). And there's also sub-unions for lieutenants, detectives, patrolmen, captains, etc. The leaders of these unions also receive significant stipends, often doubling their already princely salaries. Sgt. Ed Mullins, one of the disgraced NY police union reps who was forced out recently, was pulling in $220,000 above board and was dipping into the union retirement funds on the side.
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Jul 20, 2022 21:58
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:Plague Rats explained what they meant. There isn't really a need to go in circles about the dictionary definition if everyone knows what they are talking about. So should we stop all discussion of police unions or does this mean that it needs to just be more substantive since OP obviously understands now that they were confused about why police unions are not unions?
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Jul 20, 2022 21:59
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Yeah, I get it. People who really like to talk about left wing politics like the writer of the article you quoted like to attach all of this stuff to the concept of labor unions that most people, including many people in labor unions, don’t associate with the term. When you add all of these accoutrements to the idea of a union, police unions do not meet the criteria of being real unions.
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Jul 20, 2022 22:18
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silence_kit posted:
yeah they are. The issue here is that these types of people have socialist ideologies but don't realise it because they think socialism = bad so it must be something different than what they're after this happens a lot.
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Jul 20, 2022 22:21
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Gumball Gumption posted:So should we stop all discussion of police unions or does this mean that it needs to just be more substantive since OP obviously understands now that they were confused about why police unions are not unions? LT2012 probed themselves so I'll respond I suppose. The original discussion was about a Biden EO refusing to let rail workers strike: Josef bugman posted:So I was reading that Biden has signed an executive order refusing to let striking train workers actually strike? Is this accurate. which then became a discussion about union interests vs. the public interest and then an argument about the definition of unions and whether police unions count. I wouldn't ask people to stop discussion of police unions, but it's wandered pretty far off the original news item. edit: as in, it would be more on topic if folks discussed the rail workers' strike EO (if they like), police unions is kind of off on a tangent but it's hardly forbidden discussion or whatever. Fritz the Horse fucked around with this message at 22:34 on Jul 20, 2022 |
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Jul 20, 2022 22:31
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Edit: nevermind, missed the note
DeadlyMuffin fucked around with this message at 22:56 on Jul 20, 2022 |
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Jul 20, 2022 22:47
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Fritz the Horse posted:LT2012 probed themselves so I'll respond I suppose. The original discussion was about a Biden EO refusing to let rail workers strike: Yeah, that's fair and I'm reading back to that now and the original point that seems to have kicked off the union thing is silence_kit posted:Didn't you make a bunch of hysterical posts about how UK supermarkets were not going to have food on the shelves last Christmas due to supply chain issues? Which is pretty black and white to the point that I'd argue it's wrong. Unions ultimate interest is their members and that can lead to decisions that would be at odds with public interests but in this case the union is also saying they want the government to step in, to not go on strike, and keep rail moving so none of this even seems to be against the public interest. The government isn't taking anti-worker action here since the union wants this. If they end up dictating terms that are unfair to workers then obviously they should have gone on strike and the government hosed up but that's a different argument. It looks like police unions were then brought up as an extreme example that unions have no loyalty to the public and that leftists then make up rules to not call them unions but I think that's just resistance to refining definitions. If we have all these labor unions who see themselves as a unified group and work through organizations like the AFL-CIO and then this one specific exception who actively and loudly rejects all of those things then we can't use the exception as the definition. Instead what we can do is expand our definitions and refine them and realize there are multiple types of union and police and labor unions have so little in common they cannot be treated the same. Also none of this is pedantry, it's commie gobbledygook
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Jul 20, 2022 22:52
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Police unions are unions but they shouldn't exist because their members have the power to kill someone with little consequences. Police unions explicitly and willfully protect people who misuse this power. I can't think of any other union whose members have a license to kill.
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Jul 21, 2022 00:56
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ISU Local 007
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Jul 21, 2022 02:17
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DeathSandwich posted:For what it's worth RE teachers unions - I kind of wish the union applied to support staff like cooks, custodians, maintenance, and the like (or at least that they had their own union). For as much of a punchline the working conditions for teachers are, the way that the custodians and the like get treated is absolutely brutal. When I worked for the local school district IT department there was a separate union for support staff. We were distinct from the teachers but still part of the NEA. Of course after I left the new CIO managed to convince most employees to become unrepresented and (allegedly) pressured/forced out anyone who stayed in a union represented position. I’m glad I left before that because there’s no way in hell I would’ve switched to a non-union job. He felt that since he put in extra unpaid hours to get ahead when he was first starting out everyone else should too. gently caress that. mrchoupon fucked around with this message at 02:23 on Jul 21, 2022 |
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Jul 21, 2022 02:21
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Read a somewhat interesting assessment from the gaurdian opinion pages that the dems should kick manchin to the curb. The rationale response to the response of ‘oh no we’d lose control of the senate’ is ‘Well, I have news for Democrats. They already lost control over the Senate. In fact, the way things are right now, Biden and the Democrats have the worst of both worlds. They look like they control the Senate, as well as the House and the presidency. But they can’t get a drat thing done because Manchin (and his intermittent sidekick, Arizona’s Kyrsten Sinema) won’t let them.’ I don’t know this would make any real difference but since the dems won’t even strip him of his committee appointments I guess we’ll never know. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jul/20/joe-manchin-democratic-party-kick-out?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
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Jul 21, 2022 03:04
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Seems like a classic Robert Reich opinion. The man is a straight-up accelerationist.
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Jul 21, 2022 03:08
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Kaal posted:Seems like a classic Robert Reich opinion. The man is a straight-up accelerationist. Ok I’m not that informed on him, what’s the argument against his opinion for my knowledge? It seems that the idea he espouses that the current situation is the worst of both worlds is worth consideration but I’ll acknowledge I’m not that knowledgeable.
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Jul 21, 2022 03:24
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Kaal posted:Seems like a classic Robert Reich opinion. The man is a straight-up accelerationist. I've read dozens of articles by the guy. He's not an accelerationist.
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Jul 21, 2022 03:31
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