this post was submitted on 07 Aug 2023
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I kinda don't like how unions are a regulated legal thing... Why are they not just a a private club, where people collectively agree to not take shit conditions anymore? Why can't all independent contractors go on strike tomorrow?
I agree. I don't want to take power from the existing unions, but they should be able to exist in some less official capacity as well. 1st amendment says freedom of association, right?
That's what they are trying to do, and why Amazon is paying multiple firms to fuck with them over it.
Unions are part of a free labor market, and any attempt to bust them is an attempt to prevent a free economy. Funny how corporations have convinced so many that's it's a bad thing
Unions should exist, but they should be something that needs voting and shit to create. All it needs is a law that protects worker from being fired for joining a union, nothing more. Then workers can join, or not join, however they like.
Less official means less protection. Which means, you talk about organizing and, "you're fired". Just Google some of the history of unions and the reason the NLRB was created in the first place. Without government protection or mafioso strongmen, it's hard to get companies to give in and keep scabs from taking jobs if you refuse to work.
Because employers have the power. Without the legally protected status as a union you have no legal right to protest the conditions of your job. You have no right to refuse to work under dangerous conditions. And employers are free to retaliate against workers for even talking about unions or talking about reporting the dangerous conditions. How are you going to get people together who are all desperate for money and get them all to agree to go on strike and then get other people to not come in and take the jobs. One way used to be to call them scabs, make everyone else hate them through propaganda campaigns, and hire the Mafia to beat them up until they quit and no one else would take the jobs. It wasn't until the NLRA that unions were protected.
But conservatives have turned anti-worker now due to their reliance on corporate donations among other things. And they have spent decades making unions look bad, saying they're just criminal organizations, and calling them communism. So not enough people are going to feel sorry for the striking worker or hate on the scabs enough to pressure the companies to give in to demands.