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In Training posted:i don't envy workers engaging in that struggle, but there's also wider sentiment growing in multiple ways. A thought: who delivers the raw materials to Starbucks locations? Teamster truck drivers? Solidarity strikes that disrupt the actual supply in a region could more clearly show the power of witholding labor, and cut across different industries in a pretty visceral way.... UPS are Teamsters, so if a store is on strike (assuming they give the Teamster local a heads-up), the Teamster drivers won't cross the picket line. it's in the UPS contract with Teamsters that they can choose to not cross a picket line, and in practical terms, a Teamster driver who does cross a picket line is going to get their poo poo reamed out by their coworkers. OTOH Starbucks can and will find non-UPS ways to deliver stuff
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Aug 15, 2022 19:32
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vyelkin posted:Yeah, I wonder about this too. If there's a lot of vertical integration within a company, a union that organized at multiple levels within the company's supply chain might have more leverage - if you can get the people who roast the Starbucks beans to strike, or the truck drivers who deliver supplies to the stores, that likely puts more pressure on the bottom line than the frontline workers striking. (I would imagine a similar thing with, for instance, the techs who maintain and repair Verizon infrastructure compared to the store workers) But I think part of the changes to firm structure in late capitalism protects firms against this kind of thing, because so many of those additional upstream and downstream functions are done by separate contractors to atomize the workforce and dilute bargaining power. If Starbucks doesn't roast its own beans or drive its own trucks, then organizing those workers in the same union as the frontline workers becomes more of a challenge, and as far as I know current labour law (at least in the US) makes sympathy strikes illegal so a coffee roasters or truck drivers union would be less inclined to support a frontline worker strike as a result. right. if Starbucks has a supply disruption, it's not going to be more than a small percentage of their supply, so they can find a different contractor to get it from. the same is true of almost all these big corporations these days. it's not like the 30s when a sit-down strike at a specific GM plant cripples the entire production. companies did, unfortunately, learn, and they have fallbacks. even worse, if you were to specifically target a certain contractor to unionize, the big company can just shift that work to non-union labor.
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Aug 15, 2022 19:35
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This issue is why Amazon unionization is so exciting for so many people I think. Distro centers are so finely tuned for local supply chains that sorting and shipping workers have a lot of potential power to disrupt the productive outputs of capital in a very immediate way that would be hard for Amazon to subcontract their way out of in the short term. In the long term they would have no issue simply hiring new workers, since their turnover rate is astronomical anyway. But the flare up and fallout from that disruption could get out of their hands
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Aug 15, 2022 19:47
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Tom Smykowski posted:I think most kinds of sympathy strikes like that are illegal Solidarity/secondary strikes were made explicitly illegal in the US under the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947. But in that conversation, I think it's also worth reminding folks that at the turn of the 20th century, striking itself was considered illegal. What are laws but words on paper....
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Aug 15, 2022 20:22
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when talking about mental health care patients is a ratio of 1:2600 good https://twitter.com/MorePerfectUS/status/1559270881842515969
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Aug 16, 2022 01:35
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kingcobweb posted:when talking about mental health care patients is a ratio of 1:2600 good yeah this isn't the first time this happened and striked, and it's been bad for years and only gotten worse. fun fact, kaiser permanente is technically a non-profit organization but kaiser mental is a seperate for-profit entity. unfortunately most US HC is also imploding and getting worse. i don't see a light at the end of the tunnel anytime soon with woeful underpayment, overwork, and lack of workers in the areas with many who've permanently quit the profession for better jobs. it'll be a herculean effort that needs federal support to unfuck
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Aug 16, 2022 07:51
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kingcobweb posted:the underlying conditions of this stage of capitalism are so different than the last time we had a period of mass labor action that we need a fresh analysis that gives us strategies that will work in today's conditions. please don't mistake me for saying "strikes are bad" or other conservative/liberal/business union poo poo, just that we need to analyze what strikes win, and why, and make new plans based on that. kingcobweb posted:right. if Starbucks has a supply disruption, it's not going to be more than a small percentage of their supply, so they can find a different contractor to get it from. the same is true of almost all these big corporations these days. it's not like the 30s when a sit-down strike at a specific GM plant cripples the entire production. companies did, unfortunately, learn, and they have fallbacks. micro-tactics like the recent pro-union tiktok blitz is a good idea though probably would get banned from other social media platforms if it was tried. still, even if unionization doesn't exceed 2% of stores, that's still 2% of people whose lives have improved. it's not nothing.
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Aug 16, 2022 08:06
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Xaris posted:many who've permanently quit the profession for better jobs. it'll be a herculean effort that needs federal support to unfuck I'm genuinely curious as to both what's going on here and what is going to happen long term. Medicine, even nursing, was considered a strong career choice even just a few years ago, and now it's being badly outcompeted by...tbh I don't know, the medical personnel I know are mostly boomers and swapped into billing or management, or just retired, and I don't think are relevant to the millennial/zoomer experience. The ultimate demand for Healthcare for a society is functionally unstoppable, so like what happens? Pendulum swing on wages? Folk medicine? Cops get to do OT prescribing meds?
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Aug 16, 2022 08:36
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Xaris posted:good posts. I think a lot of people have some rosey idealism that what happened in 1920s can happen again in 2020s, but we aren't the same circumstances at all. there's no easy answer at the moment from what I can tell, and definitely strategies need a radical evolution given capital took all the cuts from the past and rebuilt itself to avoid labor collaboration and diminish labor power by various decentralization, distribution, overbuild, and even control of media that people hear and see.
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Aug 16, 2022 13:24
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https://mobile.twitter.com/MNReformer/status/1559543426512814081 In other health care related labor news, nurses in MN vote to authorize a strike.
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Aug 16, 2022 19:00
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dxt posted:https://mobile.twitter.com/MNReformer/status/1559543426512814081 Good. Nurses are criminally underpaid and mistreated by their employers.
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Aug 16, 2022 19:09
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MrYenko posted:Good. Nurses are criminally underpaid and mistreated by their employers. Agreed. Another criminally underpaid and mistreated profession; Teachers in Minneapolis and St. Paul went on/threatened to go on strike recently and won some big concessions. Hopefully nurses win too.
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Aug 16, 2022 19:21
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stripper union! https://twitter.com/GrimKim/status/1559995539999031297 STRIPPER UNION!!!
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Aug 17, 2022 21:14
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There's a pretty good documentary from the '90s about a peep show place in San Francisco unionizing, I remember watching it in college: Live Nude Girls, Unite! edit: looks like it's streaming on Kanopy if yr library offers that Uncle Boogeyman has issued a correction as of 22:20 on Aug 17, 2022 |
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Aug 17, 2022 22:16
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In Training posted:This issue is why Amazon unionization is so exciting for so many people I think. Distro centers are so finely tuned for local supply chains that sorting and shipping workers have a lot of potential power to disrupt the productive outputs of capital in a very immediate way that would be hard for Amazon to subcontract their way out of in the short term. In the long term they would have no issue simply hiring new workers, since their turnover rate is astronomical anyway. But the flare up and fallout from that disruption could get out of their hands As an Amazonian, I'm absolutely loving the stories of everyone getting a poo poo pay raise and then doing a labor stoppage on site. My site's wage adjustment isn't until September so Amazon as a whole might get a clue about giving us poo poo while claiming record profits. Maybe. I doubt it though and I'm absolutely ready to walk out mid all-hands meeting if they give us gently caress-all. I really don't think I'm fit for an organizer, especially not the figurehead, but I've been doing my best to just talk to others, spread the news that other sites are striking. Just doing my best to maybe be the first few pebbles that get other, less socially awkward stones rolling.
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Aug 19, 2022 04:25
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that’s organizing
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Aug 19, 2022 13:08
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its a huge obstacle to organizing that people believe its a special skill and that only the best organizers should even try, when the reality is that a deep bench of mediocre, casual organizers is a lot more powerful and useful for the majority of union strategies than having a handful of super-organizers
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Aug 19, 2022 15:16
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^^^absolutely right^^^ if your union campaign is dependent upon one person, it will fail. if it is dependent upon having the "right" person lead it, it will fail the whole point of the exercise is that you're stronger together. everyone should be ready to step up and do their little part in spreading the message, answering questions, listening to concerns/wants, having the same conversations over and over. everyone has a different conversation style/approach that is useful to explaining the benefits of a union to someone e: put another way, if 50% of the workers at a workplace are just idly chatting about unions all the time, versus one or two people militantly trying to convince a bunch of people and everyone else just sorta saying "sounds good, go for it," it's a lot harder to stop the campaign. i'm exaggerating for effect, but you get it JAY ZERO SUM GAME has issued a correction as of 15:22 on Aug 19, 2022 |
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Aug 19, 2022 15:19
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JAY ZERO SUM GAME posted:^^^absolutely right^^^ This is also what makes a union resilient in the long run. If it's organized around and by a single driven leadership figure it's much more likely to be vulnerable if that person gets fired or moves or gets burned out or whatever. If it's organized around and by a lot of people each using their own strengths to further the cause in a small way, that's a much more diffuse and resilient structure.
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Aug 19, 2022 15:43
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Tulip posted:its a huge obstacle to organizing that people believe its a special skill and that only the best organizers should even try, when the reality is that a deep bench of mediocre, casual organizers is a lot more powerful and useful for the majority of union strategies than having a handful of super-organizers Aye. But having a structure for the casual organizers is still really necessary, coordinating together will make everyone stronger. If youve come across any people in your casual conversations who's really engaged by the idea, maybe try setting up a time for everyone to get together outside of work!
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Aug 19, 2022 16:55
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Fair enough. It's central Texas so I've been trying to keep it on the down low though. For everyone I get who's all "gently caress. Yes. They ain't paying us enough" I get a sob story of "Well when I started out minimum wage was about $3..." and I just die inside trying to figure out how to change the subject and disengage.
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Aug 19, 2022 18:48
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All of what’s been said is 100% valid advice for an existing union too. having all my local members actually know the contract and their rights would be my number one wish.
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Aug 19, 2022 22:39
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makes me real happy when socialists get power in their unions and do baller poo poo https://twitter.com/SeanOrrMKE/status/1560453076150108160
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Aug 19, 2022 23:35
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the ups contract fight is gonna be nuts
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Aug 19, 2022 23:39
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It's teacher strike season again  https://twitter.com/ColumbusEA/status/1561533910399475717 This one's been pretty clearly on the cards for a while, the teachers want crazy things like 'schools that are safe for students and have working HVAC' but the board would rather walk away from the negotiating table repeatedly than put anything about that in writing.
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Aug 22, 2022 05:11
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employers hate having anything about building operations in CBAs. locks them into maintenance costs, or, rather, prevents current administrations from deferring maintenance to make their budgets look good i'm fighting about it right now somewhere
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Aug 22, 2022 16:36
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Part of it is that with schools in particular, building issues are often expensive to fix due to decades of deferred maintenance brought on by budget cuts. In order to properly unfuck the situation you need amounts of money that are only available through elected officials, who would rather spend the money on something new and glamorous, rather than fixing the fuckups of their predecessors. The shortage of skilled construction workers and the fact that it is impractical to do major construction work while school is in session adds to the problem.
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Aug 22, 2022 19:12
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Max Peck posted:This one's been pretty clearly on the cards for a while, the teachers want crazy things like 'schools that are safe for students and have working HVAC' but the board would rather walk away from the negotiating table repeatedly than put anything about that in writing. It's a solid bet since a ton of parents get super mad when they have their kids home and blame the teachers.
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Aug 22, 2022 23:24
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Jaxyon posted:It's a solid bet since a ton of parents get super mad when they have their kids home and blame the teachers. I wouldn’t be so sure of that. the strike ended up being averted but I saw in Vegas in 2019 there was almost a teacher strike, but management caved, and one of the reasons was they knew community support was on the teachers’ side. HS kids were making TikToks about how they were standing with their teachers. but it’s up to the teachers there, in terms of how well they’re building community relationships. hopefully they’re calling up CTU and taking notes on how to replicate that success. edit: when the strike is over things like safe and healthy schools, small class sizes, etc, parents are gonna be on their side!!
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Aug 22, 2022 23:29
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I'd imagine that the teachers usually demand the same things that the parents want.
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Aug 22, 2022 23:34
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https://twitter.com/trtworld/status/1562220643382353920
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Aug 24, 2022 07:59
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Jaxyon posted:It's a solid bet since a ton of parents get super mad when they have their kids home and blame the teachers. Saw a bunch of stuff on Reddit about this strike while surfing at work last night. The parents are indeed super pissed...at the administration, not the teachers. Turns out it's really hard to lay the blame at the teachers when your eldest comes home and says there was no air conditioning again today, and your youngest said there was A/C at his school but the vents were blowing black dust. Anyways, still waiting on the railroad strike to go nuclear. The federal ban on railroad strikes is the dumbest thing, as is apparently the commission Biden setup suggesting everyone just get back to work. If you forbid any forms of push back then when people are finally forced to push back they do so that much harder.
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Aug 24, 2022 12:29
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There is a railroad strike in the north of the Netherlands today as the first part of a series of 24-hour strikes moving through the country  https://twitter.com/NL_Times/status/1561701480452632577
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Aug 24, 2022 18:23
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https://twitter.com/MorePerfectUS/status/1562816860042579969 apologize for what you did Howard!! yeah that’ll show him
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Aug 25, 2022 16:07
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i mean being forced to admit wrong doing will probably drive most CEOs up the wall but I'd prefer him having to pay restitution out of his wallet to a video
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Aug 25, 2022 16:28
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Is it common for the NLRB to make the CEO record a video? I thought they usually just require a notice be posted on site somewhere.
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Aug 25, 2022 16:35
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columbus strike was successful https://twitter.com/MorePerfectUS/status/1562875078525984768
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Aug 25, 2022 19:58
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Hulk Krogan posted:Is it common for the NLRB to make the CEO record a video? I thought they usually just require a notice be posted on site somewhere. i know they've made CEOs make speeches to all-hands meetings at factories or whatever, this is probably the only way to do something similar.
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Aug 25, 2022 19:59
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kingcobweb posted:columbus strike was successful curious what the deets will be in terms of gains. ive heard from teacher friends in NYC that the city has basically just refused to bargain at all and union leadership is telling them to just work without a contract once it expires in september. -_-
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Aug 25, 2022 20:14
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that fuckin SUCKS
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Aug 25, 2022 20:32
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