First, unions don’t prevent mass layoffs. They might help make things more manageable and help some individuals in need but layoffs are entirely at the discretion of the business.
"There are several ways that unionization’s impact on wages goes beyond the workers covered by collec-
tive bargaining to affect nonunion wages and labor practices. For example, in industries and occupations
where a strong core of workplaces are unionized, nonunion employers will frequently meet union
standards or, at least, improve their compensation and labor practices beyond what they would have
provided if there were no union presence. This dynamic is sometimes called the “union threat effect,”
the degree to which nonunion workers get paid more because their employers are trying to forestall
unionization.
There is a more general mechanism (without any specific “threat”) in which unions have affected
nonunion pay and practices: unions have set norms and established practices that become more generalized
throughout the economy, thereby improving pay and working conditions for the entire workforce. This has
been especially true for the 75% of workers who are not college educated. Many “fringe” benefits,
such as pensions and health insurance, were first provided in the union sector and then became more
generalized—though, as we have seen, not universal. Union grievance procedures, which provide
“due process” in the workplace, have been mimicked in many nonunion workplaces. Union wage-
setting, which has gained exposure through media coverage, has frequently established standards of
what workers generally, including many nonunion workers, expect from their employers. Until, the
mid-1980s, in fact, many sectors of the economy followed the “pattern” set in collective bargaining
agreements. As unions weakened, especially in the manufacturing sector, their ability to set broader
patterns has diminished. However, unions remain a source of innovation in work practices (e.g.,
training, worker participation) and in benefits (e.g., child care, work-time flexibility, sick leave)."
i can guarantee that nothing can stop a business from maximizing profits.
You are not a union, you cannot stop a business from doing anything, together with your fellow workers however you can dictate anything about the behavior of your company that you and your fellow workers feel sufficiently passionate about enough to fight for.
And second, the industry is contracting because it hasn’t innovated in more than 5 years now.
Why should an industry bother innovating to increase dividends to shareholders with expensive and risky new technological ventures when it can just keep slashing labor costs and crushing employees under their foot? There is no economic incentive to innovate when unions don’t have the power to make executives think about choosing other less difficult paths than trying to directly reduce the quality of life of the companies employees.
you can dictate anything about the behavior of your company that you and your fellow workers feel sufficiently passionate about enough to fight for.
no! That’s not how unions work in capitalism. A union can’t decide the business side of things. There’s a clear separation of responsibilities. There are, of course, other types of societies in which workers have this power, but then there’s not real point in debating the role of the union in that completely different context.
There is no economic incentive to innovate when unions don’t have the power to make executives think about choosing other less difficult paths than trying to directly reduce the quality of life of the companies employees.
Union-lead society wide innovation for the sake of the current workforce is probably the dumbest thing i’ve read in a while.
no! That’s not how unions work in capitalism. A union can’t decide the business side of things. There’s a clear separation of responsibilities
Ahahahaha right, I love how you just accept the legally defined rights of what a union can do and what it can’t as if those laws in any given country aren’t just a record of the battlefield between the working class and the ruling class. A union can do whatever the fuck a union wants to do, and the law will attempt to constrain it in favor of the ruling class and capitalists to the degree that is politically tenable in a given environment. Sometimes it will be successful, sometimes it will fail, but unions fundamentally exist outside of capitalism because they have a level of legitimacy that capitalism and the idea of owning other people’s labor will never have.
It hardly needs to be said that like libraries, if unions didn’t already exist as a concept there is no way they would be legal at all if they were developed in this day and age. Unions are only ever temporarily legal along limited contexts under capitalism.
Union-lead society wide innovation for the sake of the current workforce is probably the dumbest thing i’ve read in a while.
high five solidarity my friend, even when you insult my intelligence you are still far more my friend than my boss will ever be
Sorry, i wasn’t aware you were advocating for Anarcho-syndicalism. I thought we were having a conversation in good faith about the current situation. Good luck with your revolution
The rest of us have work to do to end the violence.
I cannot imagine a world without oppression, this is true. However, I grew up long ago in a world where oppression came from those who said they’d overthrow it last time. They were using the same ideas you flaunt around and much like you (or whomever the person I was talking to before was), they had superficial understanding of what they were advocating for.
Sarcasm: Oh well, better just throw our hands up and allow right wing authoritarians to pursue their narrow minded cycles of exploitation and heirarchal domination. /s
Noone is accusing you of the very obvious, beligerent actions of the right wing authoritarians who ceaselessly perpetrate moral panics using fear based propaganda to consolidate their power.
Anyway, Andrewism’s latest video directly addresses your originally expressed concern:
It is not the single, momentous tsunami that shapes the coast, but rather the many small waves that erode the land with time.
In short, a social revolution that “seeks to alter the whole character of society.”
But what does that mean? People typically envision some massive uprising in the future akin to popular media’s depictions of the French Revolution, BUT in reality, as anarchists use the term, social revolution refers to an ongoing and intentional transformation of our society, economy, culture, philosophy, technology, relationships, and politics.
It is not starting from scratch, but rather utilising the shell of the old to build the new, taking on a conscious engagement with current conditions and using the means that are compatible with desired ends.
That process might be punctuated with flashy moments where leaps and bounds may be achieved, but much of the real foundations of anarchy are established in the interludes between insurrections.
It is not the single, momentous tsunami that shapes the coast, but rather the many small waves that erode the land with time.
The process of social revolution involves acts of confrontation, such as occupation and expropriation; acts of noncooperation, such as strikes and boycotts; and acts of prefiguration, such as establishing spaces of encounter, free schools, and alternative economies.
If such efforts are effectively networked, they can grow large enough to practically counter the all-encompassing idea and experience of many that there is no alternative to capitalism and the State.
I still recommend my video on the topic for a full explanation, with the obvious caveat that I would now challenge my consensus- and democracy-limited depiction of popular assemblies and cooperatives as a misrepresentation or needless restriction of anarchy, which can be more accurately…
Not some tsunami to be scaremongered, but the regrowing of dormant ability to self-govern, which requires us to heal and educate from so many woundings and ills, misinformation and disinformation 🫶
"There are several ways that unionization’s impact on wages goes beyond the workers covered by collec- tive bargaining to affect nonunion wages and labor practices. For example, in industries and occupations where a strong core of workplaces are unionized, nonunion employers will frequently meet union standards or, at least, improve their compensation and labor practices beyond what they would have provided if there were no union presence. This dynamic is sometimes called the “union threat effect,” the degree to which nonunion workers get paid more because their employers are trying to forestall unionization.
There is a more general mechanism (without any specific “threat”) in which unions have affected nonunion pay and practices: unions have set norms and established practices that become more generalized throughout the economy, thereby improving pay and working conditions for the entire workforce. This has been especially true for the 75% of workers who are not college educated. Many “fringe” benefits, such as pensions and health insurance, were first provided in the union sector and then became more generalized—though, as we have seen, not universal. Union grievance procedures, which provide “due process” in the workplace, have been mimicked in many nonunion workplaces. Union wage- setting, which has gained exposure through media coverage, has frequently established standards of what workers generally, including many nonunion workers, expect from their employers. Until, the mid-1980s, in fact, many sectors of the economy followed the “pattern” set in collective bargaining agreements. As unions weakened, especially in the manufacturing sector, their ability to set broader patterns has diminished. However, unions remain a source of innovation in work practices (e.g., training, worker participation) and in benefits (e.g., child care, work-time flexibility, sick leave)."
https://www.epi.org/publication/briefingpapers_bp143/
https://files.epi.org/page/-/old/briefingpapers/143/bp143.pdf
You are not a union, you cannot stop a business from doing anything, together with your fellow workers however you can dictate anything about the behavior of your company that you and your fellow workers feel sufficiently passionate about enough to fight for.
Why should an industry bother innovating to increase dividends to shareholders with expensive and risky new technological ventures when it can just keep slashing labor costs and crushing employees under their foot? There is no economic incentive to innovate when unions don’t have the power to make executives think about choosing other less difficult paths than trying to directly reduce the quality of life of the companies employees.
no! That’s not how unions work in capitalism. A union can’t decide the business side of things. There’s a clear separation of responsibilities. There are, of course, other types of societies in which workers have this power, but then there’s not real point in debating the role of the union in that completely different context.
Union-lead society wide innovation for the sake of the current workforce is probably the dumbest thing i’ve read in a while.
Ahahahaha right, I love how you just accept the legally defined rights of what a union can do and what it can’t as if those laws in any given country aren’t just a record of the battlefield between the working class and the ruling class. A union can do whatever the fuck a union wants to do, and the law will attempt to constrain it in favor of the ruling class and capitalists to the degree that is politically tenable in a given environment. Sometimes it will be successful, sometimes it will fail, but unions fundamentally exist outside of capitalism because they have a level of legitimacy that capitalism and the idea of owning other people’s labor will never have.
It hardly needs to be said that like libraries, if unions didn’t already exist as a concept there is no way they would be legal at all if they were developed in this day and age. Unions are only ever temporarily legal along limited contexts under capitalism.
high five solidarity my friend, even when you insult my intelligence you are still far more my friend than my boss will ever be
Sorry, i wasn’t aware you were advocating for Anarcho-syndicalism. I thought we were having a conversation in good faith about the current situation. Good luck with your revolution
Hey bud, if you cant imagine a world without [oppression] please step aside. The rest of us have work to do to end the violence. We know it’s time.
I cannot imagine a world without oppression, this is true. However, I grew up long ago in a world where oppression came from those who said they’d overthrow it last time. They were using the same ideas you flaunt around and much like you (or whomever the person I was talking to before was), they had superficial understanding of what they were advocating for.
What a boring, tired attempt.
Sarcasm: Oh well, better just throw our hands up and allow right wing authoritarians to pursue their narrow minded cycles of exploitation and heirarchal domination. /s
In fact, organizing non-heirarchal is quite proven. Doing so on a scale we’re discussing, and Truly Breaking the Cycle of the Planetary Work Machine well, see for yourself, there’s more imagining to do.
Are You An Anarchist? The Answer May Surprise You
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Truly Breaking the Cycle of the Planetary Work Machine
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
am attempt at what? not everyone has a hidden agenda, who are you talking to?
Noone is accusing you of the very obvious, beligerent actions of the right wing authoritarians who ceaselessly perpetrate moral panics using fear based propaganda to consolidate their power.
Anyway, Andrewism’s latest video directly addresses your originally expressed concern:
https://youtu.be/lrTzjaXskUU?t=2634
It is not the single, momentous tsunami that shapes the coast, but rather the many small waves that erode the land with time.
Not some tsunami to be scaremongered, but the regrowing of dormant ability to self-govern, which requires us to heal and educate from so many woundings and ills, misinformation and disinformation 🫶