Comment by OneDeuxTriSeiGo
20 hours ago
Just because a workplace is good currently does not mean it will always be good.
The fist is a fist none the less because the workers have the power if they need to use it. The hope is that they never have to but if changes in management force the workers' hands it is far better to be already organised and ready to correct management than for the workers to have to scramble to organise after the fact.
Again, mixed messages. Your symbolism is just tradition and doesn't really mean that, until it does.
Talking about how unions are for everyone and not about antagonism while adopting clearly antagonist symbolism while trying to take both sides simultaneously really sends the messages: A) we're cosplaying rebellion because we think it's cool and B) we're the ones starting the antagonistic relationship.
This is the problem with supporting unions rationally. They are sometimes necessary in certain industries and situations but also full of people who want to cosplay rebellion and grab power so they can abuse it instead of someone else.
Adopting a fist raised in defiance is definitely a way to attract cosplayers and repel support from everyone but the extreme. Particularly when your message loud and clear is "unions are for everyone not just those in trouble".
The raised fist isn't just raised in defiance or in opposition.
It's also raised in solidarity and in support.
And either way a raised fist is just basic union iconography and I don't see any issue
You may not see an issue, other people sure do. Do you want to radicalize or do you want to welcome? Unions in America have a perception problem which makes their jobs harder, their image is one the rebel without a cause, people agitating and being oppositional not for valid reasons but because they want to rebel. Cosplayers. People imagine 1900s coal miners as fighting for their freedoms and baristas as a joke.
You reenforce this by flying flags with raised fists to represent knowledge workers at a nonprofit unionizing with nothing in particular that they seem to want to fix.
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