Comment by ryanmercer
7 years ago
These people should be fired, not because they want equal pay but because they refuse to do the job they were hired to do.
Different genders deserve equal pay, people of different races deserve equal pay, people with various disabilities deserve equal pay.
HOWEVER, you want to walk out of work? You should be terminated. If I walked out of work, I would be fired. If I organized several people to walk out of work with me, we would be fired. This is the case at my current job and at every single job I've ever had.
You don't change things by striking, in my book this is effectively corporate terrorism "hey we have demands, if you don't meet them we aren't working!" If someone strikes, you can never trust that employee again. Ever. You can not count on that employee in any situation because they've demonstrated that they will happily stop working when it serves their desires.
What you do is you make the issue publicly known, you do it in a positive way, you do it in a polite way. You ask for change and if change won't be given, you find an employer that will even if that means moving or starting your own business.
I'm all for equal rights, I'm all for equal pay, I'm not for people holding businesses hostage by refusing to do the job they were paid to do.
>corporate terrorism
Unless they're bombing buildings the word you're looking for is extortion, not terrorism.
Striking has changed a good amount of business's in the history of the U.S . public outcry and worker cooperation is the halmark of workers rights.
The reason protest is required is because the company will not change without a better force. 'asking nicely' doesn't go anywhere when the bottom line is money and image.
Employee collaboration for workers rights does not automatically mean they're against the company. They're against parts of it's operations, but still have wants to do their work. That's, again, been all apart of the last 100 years of workers rights. You should perhaps look into how companies can possibly stay afloat even when there's unions. Not that I agree with unions typically, but if there can be no trust and workers just dont care about the company then it should all fail.
>Unless they're bombing buildings the word you're looking for is extortion, not terrorism.
You don't have to blow up a building to be a terrorist. You don't have to carry out an act of violence, or even suggest one, to be a terrorist. Organizing a walk out is intimidation,
ter·ror·ism /ˈterəˌrizəm/ noun the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims.
You are misreading the “violence and intimidation” in that definition as if it were “violence or intimidation”; it actually contradicts rather than supports your claim.
3 replies →
>You don't have to carry out an act of violence, or even suggest one, to be a terrorist
>ter·ror·ism /ˈterəˌrizəm/ noun the unlawful use of violence and intimidation
u srs bruh?
Do you realize that all the things that make your current job bearable like 8 hour workday, weekends and safe work environment are only possible because people in the past had the spine to strike and demand better conditions for themselves and their fellow workers?
People repeat this line ad nauseum but i find it hard to believe work conditions would not improve over time if not for the presence of unions, look at highly unionised countries vs less unionised countries and compare the quality of life / workplace for an example.
while i'm sure unions were involved i doubt they were the only reason we started reducing work hours and improving work conditions, here's a good history of the 40 hour work week: (https://www.businessinsider.com.au/history-of-the-40-hour-wo...)
>while i'm sure unions were involved i doubt they were the only reason we started reducing work hours and improving work conditions,
You are absolutely correct, I can give a VERY modern example. Medical residents now have capped hours, in I believe all 50 states, due to New York passing the Libby Zion Law and other states adopting similar laws. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libby_Zion_Law
The same goes for pilots - https://work.chron.com/duty-limitations-faa-pilot-17646.html
Truck drivers - https://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/regulations/hours-service/summary-...
Etc.
Your line of thinking is alien to people in the UK and Europe.
> You don't change things by striking
In the UK, the 1970 Equal Pay Act was triggered by the Ford sewing machinists strike of 1968.
>In the UK, the 1970 Equal Pay Act was triggered by the Ford sewing machinists strike of 1968.
And 1970 might as well have been 1870. The 21st century is an entirely different world.
Most of the jobs that triggered actual labor reform in the 19th and 20th centuries just don't exist any more. The factories of the 1800's wouldn't survive a single day of business today because modern, largely automated, equipment would leave them sitting in the dust when it came to profitability.
In this case you list, same thing. There aren't sewing machinists like that now, that stuff is largely automated. Very few automotive manufacturers use people to do the sewing and when they do it's a highly skilled artisan job that involves hand stitching for luxury vehicles, not machines.
I do not deny unions reformed working conditions, most of it however was many, many, decades ago in a world that doesn't begin to resemble today's world.
Fact is, unions are dying in the western world. Union membership is free-falling. Who needs a union when you have a cell phone and organizations like OSHA here in the US that you can directly file safety violations to for investigation.
Unions made changes with striking. Striking is no longer a useful tool and no longer needed.
If you strike now, especially if you aren't in a union, you should be fired. For each of those people that strikes over this, there's probably 50 people that would ecstatically take their job in the city they are in.
Striking isn't going to do jack for discrimination/harassment. We don't live in the 20th century anymore. Documenting and reporting incidents will bring change, not walking out of work like a child throwing a temper tantrum.
A lot has changed. What hasn't changed is that corporations are often motivated by profit over employee well-being, and that strikes can put pressure on them to change.
> Fact is, unions are dying in the western world. Union membership is free-falling.
Again, quite US-centric. In the UK it's been slowly increasing over the last few years. Finland, Sweden and Denmark have something like 70% trade union density.
> If you strike now, especially if you aren't in a union, you should be fired. For each of those people that strikes over this, there's probably 50 people that would ecstatically take their job in the city they are in.
The first line doesn't follow from anything you've said. The second line is the most convincing argument for trade unions in this entire thread.
You are lucky that someone else risked their jobs to put you in a position where you can spout this. If it weren't for unions and strikes, the common worker would have been much worse off.
You realize most of the labor unions that made meaningful reform were in factories yes? Factories that simply would not exist today because most of the work has been replaced with automation and equipment orders of magnitudes more efficient, yes?
> You don't change things by striking,
Traditionally union action including strikes has been the only way to make changes in big employers.
I've never worked for a unionized company yet hey, I've been treated fairly.
You've only been treated fairly because of the substantial gains that unions have won for you in the past. You don't even realize how much worse it could be. Enjoying that 5-day 40-hour workweek? Without unions, it'd be a lot worse.
3 replies →