15k likes btw
So threats against your boss result in higher wages and better working conditions, got it. <3
People got tired of having to stab bosses so we invented labour unions
More like people realized it’s easier to stab your boss and win if you got a group backing you
People think unions won concession from corporations in the 1930s by striking but a large part of it was threatening to burn the bosses house down if he didn’t give them a raise
This is myth and legend.
Mostly it was equipment being destroyed if they destroyed everything.
The main difference isstrikes weren’t just a picket line. They would take over the factory.
If we want to get serious we need to do that again. Doesn’t even have to be workers. Imagine having hundreds of peole ascend on each Starbucks and just loitering about so no real customers can get service
The police wouldn’t be able to handle that sort of mass protest.
Picket lines were the compromise. The promises are broken so the compromise needs to go away and we need to get serious.
Talk of a general strike is too large of a leap. The media has convinced many potential allies that organized labor works. People need to get a taste of the power we actually have.
This is myth and legend.
Mostly it was equipment being destroyed if they destroyed everything.
ahhhmm…no? at least, that wasn’t the point being made by the workers.
sabotaging factory equipment was a show of intent: “we are serious about causing damage. this time it’s equipment, next time it’s you!”
the factory vandalism was a threat.
if the threat was understood as being serious, and working conditions improved as a result, no further escalation was necessary. that’s why relatively few escalations happened.
however, A) escalations DID go further on quite a few occasions, and B) the threat preventing the necessity of further escalation was the entire point.
so, no, it wasn’t “myth and legend”. it worked exactly as intended.
and it worked, because of the couple of times the threat was not taken seriously. those times made it clear that the threat is real.
It’s so weird how this is foreign to people at first. I owned a small business for a time as a hobby, and all profits went to employees or employee-related benefits. I took nothing (actually I lost money…a lot).
But people couldn’t wrap their head around that, they were always asking why I didn’t take at least a little. And my answer was always that I have a day job, I’m not doing the work that they are, I don’t deserve the money.
And people’s brains would explode over that. Like, it made sense once stated bluntly, but it’s like they would have never arrived at that conclusion on their own which was baffling.
This is why it’s always better to have a lot of small and mid-sized businesses than a few large ones. “Strength” my ass. The small and mid-sized ones, if they collapse, don’t affect national economies as much; and the boss vs the coworkers have a much more equal relationship, I’d wage. We can federate decentrally if we need to, but too much centralisation ain’t too good an idea.
