• Minotaur
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    3 months ago

    I’m not, I’m saying an individual is indulging themselves by simply hand-waiving any employment related problem as “just start collective bargaining and your problems are solved!!!”

    • MudMan@fedia.io
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      3 months ago

      Well, if they’re handwaving and not organizing, then yeah. If they’re actually organizing, then no.

      In almost all circumstances, being organized for bargaining is going to be better than not being organized for bargaining. That holds whether you’re hand-waving your problems before getting organized or not.

      • Minotaur
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        3 months ago

        …. You understand that those are two different people, right? The person hand-waving how easy starting a union is and how easily beneficial it can be is not the same person as the worker who has to do the thing lol

        • MudMan@fedia.io
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          3 months ago

          Ah, gotcha. Well, my point stands. Unless your hypothetical hand-waver is unemployed or already in an union, I suppose.

          I’m not American, so I don’t know how hard it is to unionize in the US. Over here there are massive unions with country-wide presence that typically can set up where needed, as well as segment-specific unions. I’m pretty sure you can either start a new one with a handful of people or just… you know, call a preexisting one and sign up. I’ve heard about companies in the US having way more restrictive steps, having to agree company-wide to unionize and stuff like that. That’s… not how we do it.

          • Minotaur
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            3 months ago

            It’s very hard here, especially depending on your circumstances - and even when a union is formed they’re often unable to really… get any meaningful progress. Depending on your particular employment, it’s effectively impossible - and it gets harder the poorer you are.

            It’s why it’s sometimes frustrating to hear Americans tell other Americans (often less well off than they are) to “just form a Union!”. The leftist version of “pull yourself up by the bootstraps”

            • MudMan@fedia.io
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              3 months ago

              Yeeeeah, see, there you lose me.

              You can organize, unionized or not, and it seems like organization is a gateway to unionization, regardless of how hard that may be. And it is a fact that organization and collective bargaining will help and is a key path to improvements, so even if it’s hard, it’s still the way to go.

              And hey, ultimately the goal is to keep electing pro-unionization leaders so it becomes easier to it’s more feasible. But you don’t stop doing it or recommending it just because it’s harder there.

              • Minotaur
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                3 months ago

                Okay, so a bunch of people organize and then the boss fires all of them for doing so. That’s not exactly a perfect system leading towards better working conditions

                • MudMan@fedia.io
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                  3 months ago

                  Who said “perfect”?

                  A bunch of people organize and then the boss fires them. Then the boss has no employees to do the work. Ideally this outrages enough other employees to go on strike and in a semi-functional country it would also prompt some oversight on their practices.

                  The more people organize, then harder it is to just fire them. The more publicly they organize, the harder it is to just fire them.

                  If they don’t organize, the boss just gets to say what they do and for how much money, so that’s definitely not a better alternative to organizing long term in terms of “leading to better working conditions”.

                  So yeah, organizing is better. Every time.

                  • Minotaur
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                    3 months ago

                    Yeah man, but these are real people and not hypothetical worker drones in an internet comment. If they all get fired and don’t have money for food and rent, that’s really fucking bad. You can’t say “it’s always good to organize! Just take the risk of getting evicted from your apartment! Don’t let them boss you around!” And not expect the working class Joe in the factory to look at you like you’re the dumbest guy around