I’m kinda frustrated. Living in Europe in a country where you are more or less protected against layouts, were unions are allowed to exist. Jet it is so difficult to get the people to get their head out of their butts to do some solidarity or even improve their own conditions.
Companies doesn’t respect some basic laws and rights, people has been angry for 15 years and always complaining.
Despite of that, when asking people to organize, join an union or do even at least a day of strike, people start saying that it is not worth it, that it is not important. The most they accept doing is stop to work a couple of hours to complain at the gate like a kids rant.
I know for sure that workers have power. The company makes more money per worker and day that double de amount they pay us, so stopping working would hurt them more than us. Why do people lacks so much class conciseness? It is even more hurting for people working at a desk with a suit and doing economics, it’s like they think of themselves as if they were some kind of privileged when are just workers. Why do people chicken out so much when going on strike?
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The last time there was a serious strike in Seattle, we formed a General Strike Committee, which organized everything. They scheduled trash collection, organized laundry service, delivered food, and took over the hospitals so that healthcare continued. It’s trendy in today’s politics to act like striking is so easy – you just stay home from work! just go to the store the day before! – but to strike fear into the heart of the capitalist, you must provide a credible threat that you can keep on striking indefinitely, and that requires a lot of work and a lot of organization. Who has time for that when they’re working 3 jobs just to make rent?
but to strike fear into the heart of the capitalist, you must provide a credible threat that you can keep on striking indefinitely, and that requires a lot of work and a lot of organization
Or, threathen to make them actively lose money. For example, where I live it is legal for bus drivers to strike.
But they can’t strike by continuing their route and not charging for the ride. They explicitly made that illegal, making a general public transport strike not only less effective but it also turns the public against them because they are inconvenienced. All intended, ofcourse. Deny the workers an effective method of striking while still being able to say that they are “allowed” to strike.
It also requires a lot of free labor and money from other workers that are willing to donate or put in time voluntarily. When you’re only just able to put food on the table and a roof over your head, that’s hard - and it’s harder to organize it all because you don’t have a critical mass of unions that communicate and understand each other’s struggles.
even 1 job, and that high paying tech job can be gone in an instant if a employer finds out, although tech arnt likely to strike.
I don’t get this. so you’re arranging for the same work to be done, just by different people? How does that hurt them or change anything
Because modern young adults don’t even know how to socialize with each other these days, let alone organize.
Allow me to present Exhibit A:
https://youtube.com/shorts/kmJsYXuS154Piped link:
https://piped.video/shorts/kmJsYXuS154When I was a kid, the only people who went online every day were the quiet nerds like me who preferred a computer over people. People used to make fun of me for going online every single day, now those same people are terminally online just like me. These days even normal people are now unable to socialize.
Have you ever tried to get a large group to unanimously agree to ANYTHING?
Throw in the chance that they may all lose their jobs and it gets exponentially more difficult.
Also need people to agree on what they want to get out of a strike, and be okay with losing income for the duration of it.
Very true. Most places I worked, people were afraid to take a day off for doctors appointments, voting, or other obligations because that’s money they wouldn’t have. Just imagine getting them to agree to no pay for as long as it takes!
yeah, I am a dungeon master, but for strikes, when applying games theory, it’s only logical to stick together and go on strike.
So, you definitely know that no matter how well you spell it all out for them, someone’s going to go murder hobo and fuck it all up.
Have you read any books or done any trainings on workplace organising? Most unions provide free training for members who want to organise. I’d leave a book rec too but the main books I’ve read on the matter are by IRL comrades and I don’t really want to dox myself on here.
It’s about having the right strategy and knowing how to have these conversations with coworkers. Most people trying to organise a workplace come up against the same barriers. The biggest piece of advice I’d give is focus on active listening—what problems does this person have and care about in their workplace? Don’t impose your own problems/the issues you care about most onto them—what’s important to them may be different to what’s important to you. Find out what they care about, and get them thinking about what might happen if we used our collective power to do something about it. But organising strategy can’t be summed up in a Lemmy comment. I do suggest you look into doing a course/workshop/reading a book. You mentioned being in Europe; I think the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung ran online organising workshops for Europeans iirc, not sure if they still do.
There is an organization that does training on group action: https://organizing4power.org/
That’s the one I was referring to! It was (still is, I think, by skimming the website) hosted by the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation. I went to it a while ago and found it useful, so can recommend. It’s quite highly regarded by the trade unionists I know.
probably the most constructive answer. It would be nice the book recommendations.
The weakness of the individual people.
I’ll just add that people are generally comfortable*. Yeah they bitch and moan about work and their employer, but for the most part they’re paying their bills, coming home and enjoying their house(or apartment), watching Netflix, going out to eat, making sure they have groceries, pursuing hobbies, and so on.
Risking all of that and having to trust that everyone else will risk it with you so that it works is a big ask. Plus there’s some potential problems that can happen with unions (see other comments) that get propagandized and blown out of proportion by companies trying to convince you they’re a bad idea.
^*not everyone, not everywhere^
I believe it’s because
- The newer generations lack the experience and knowledge of oppression. Too long time has passed since the women in Russia gave their lives for the working class. Too long time has passed since families were ripped apart by the wave of capitalism that was induced by the Industrial Revolution. We have become complacent. You could draw a parallel to how we have forgotten the price of democracy and the fact that democracy isn’t a constant or a permanent state of being once achieved but something that has to be fought for continuously in various forms. The same goes for workers’ rights.
- Capitalism is not merely a catalyst of racism, misogyny and otherization. It is also inherently detrimental to democracy, workers’ rights and a healthy climate in which one is allowed to find time and energy to meditate on the state of affairs, society, politics, workers’ rights and such. We are kept from sparing time and energy to organize and debate. Only monetary productivity remains. Only work is valued.
I am not sure it is a problem with younger generations, I see it, sometimes even more on older people. I can understand that someone close to retirement doest get gains enough for striking, but that’s what solidarity is about.
I’m pro-union,
But there are legit downsides to consider.
Most often,
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Minor Problem - Fee’s (typically they aren’t that much)
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Moderate Problem - Union Management eventually gets big enough, they lose touch with the workers
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Biggest Problem… Union’s protect people that absolutely deserve to be fired, and protect the useless far too often. You get stuck with co-workers that by every metric should have been let go, but the Union keeps them.
These are my own anecdotal opinions that I’ve personally experienced working in both Union and Non-Union situations.
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Also the lack of healthcare means people are tied to working long hours, so they dont have free time to just quit a job and protest all the time. its by design, because they know healthcare hostage is one thing keeping people in thier place. propaganda in recent times, have demonizes protests as nothing more than a disruption to daily life. Also one side doesnt protests, aka conservatives where it matters, even when they do protests its likely funded by billionaires anyways.
strikes require sacrifice and effort from workers. you need to hear their grievances and bring them together over a specific issue they think is worth it
strikes only work when everyone is suffering to a degree. like nurses, they dont get enough pay, work-life balance, skeleton crew all across teh board they will strike for the most part. but everyone has enough creature comforts to not do that. dont want to strike because you might miss out on streaming shows, or you get too poor to own a car,etc.
A strike represents a lot of risk, uncertainty, and variables unaccounted for. People accept the hell they know because the next day’s outcome is certain.
For many, it’s simply preferable to accept the current system another day than to risk everything for an outcome that may not happen or be what they wanted.
Cause people gotta eat, dog. They got kids and bills and shit. Ain’t complex. Until it is more economically uncomfortable for workers to not strike, than it is to strike, there is very likely no strike, if you get me.
But here’s a problem, there’s not much reason to strike if people are living comfortably. So when is the right time?
it is , its by design to keep people from protesting all the time(if they tie your cost of living, healthcare to your job). flooding the zone also works to that end to make people turn off to news or politics hence theres a disconnect there as well.
I know you live in Europe, so it’s different, but in the US healthcare is almost always tied to a person’s employment. If you don’t have a job, your family doesn’t have medical coverage. Everything everyone else has said is also relevant in the US as well.
They’re also expensive. Could you afford to not work for a month? What if there are 20 people all going on strike? What if the company just hires all new workers in a week or two? Suddenly the idea of trying to endure it doesn’t sound as bad, especially if you have a family.
Strikes happen all the time but only in places that are already unionized. You don’t just stage a single day of strike. They are laws governing this like minimal level or services that needs to be maintained during strike. Many well organized groups present their demands and go on strike. I read about successful strikes all the time.
I don’t know why some industries are more unionized than others but probably looking into that may give you answers on how to organize people around you.
