ScabsFollow

If someone was mistakenly under the impression that I thought my job was not good enough for me, and opted to fill my shoes while I walked the picket line, I would be willing to follow him home and lay a pipe wrench across the back of his skull. Figuratively speaking of course.

Mostly, I'd wouldn't cross a picket line. I have done some work with the SEIU around social work organization. I'm in a profession that really needs it. At the same time, I'd feel torn if some people weren't getting mental health care. That's part of the reason we get sh*t on--people feel reluctant to push back b/c of ethical dilemmas. I don't know if that's good b/c I think the social workers and psychologists tend to be toothless in the whole healthcare industry. It's an industry that really could use unionization b/c so many people are underpaid.

Edited, Jan 30th 2010 9:12pm by Annabella

And what about if you had no job, were in danger of losing your home, no place was hiring, unemployment was 12.5%, and 100 employees just walked out because they felt their benefits were not good enough. (Welcome to Michigan!)

It's not that you were working, and could use the time off, and can just go find another job. You are standing on the outside, praying to find a job, and 100 new jobs just appeared, the only place that is willing to give you work, saving your family.

Because obviously here, enough people felt that them not having a job and unable to get a job was more important that the union workers' benefits. Enough so that the company was able to get enough workers, vote the union out of the shop, and the union workers were left in the cold.

Wages have fallen in real dollars for almost 30 years in the US. The breakdown of union labor and big labor in general has ruined many sectors of the economy. Anti-labor sentiment is often about the propaganda of big business. It's not the workers who are ruining the economy, the town, the factory, etc. It's the companies unwilling to offer a fair wage or give benefits. For every abuse of the labor system by unions, you can easily see thousands of people fucked over in non-union jobs. I think people forget, before the advent of superconglomerates and big box stores like Walmart, service employees made liveable wages. Union busting bs that is rife in the service industry has taken care of that reality. And we're in an economy where the service industry is the biggest employer so we really have to deal with the problems.

Abuse by which side doesn't matter when it comes to finding a job to save yourself during an economic collapse.

Evil or not, if I lost my job this last year, I would have introduced myself to the company down the street and seen if they had anything for me. I'm sorry those people didn't feel they were getting what their worth, but I'd be getting nothing.

acting as a community to confront that is a pipedream, though. You can't really expect the struggling father of 3 to forego a job so that another man can have better wages while he searches elsewhere. It's only natural for him to seize the position while he can, regardless of the broad economic impact.

Maybe. But does the big picture matter (to me) if I'm homeless? Good thing we stood up to the company. Now let me crawl back into my cardboard box?

There's a limit to what you should expect people to give up to support others. I don't look down upon those that cross picket lines to support their own family and keep their homes.


(No, I wasn't close to losing my home. I own it, and don't have a mortgage. But I'm lucky enough to have very little debt.)

Edited, Jan 30th 2010 11:11pm by TirithRR

My knowledge of the evolution of labor laws isn't expansive enough to confirm or refute this argument.

Is there any other reason people choose to be scabs? They need money and, sorry to the Union workers, but here's an available job. Like I said, evil or not, who's right, who's wrong, doesn't matter. These people can't find jobs, and now there are jobs available given up by people who were working them before. I haven't talked with many scabs, but the people I know who did it aren't ones sitting around just waiting to rub union workers faces in the dirt and laugh at them. They are (were) people who needed a job to live.


Yes, we can't compete with cheap labor. It's hard for us to get jobs when BMW and GM have assembly plants in Mexico, we have to ship across the country to them. Everyone around us wants to go with Mexican companies because they are close and cheap.

The company I work for isn't at fault. I don't see any reason to punish them for it by demanding hire wages and better benefits. The global industry has them by the balls demanding cheaper parts, yet raw materials won't get any cheaper. The only thing is production costs, majority of which is labor. Cheaper or more efficient labor is the only solution. And efficiency can only go so far.

There more to the industry than just the big evil corporations. The company down the street wasn't one of these. It was a smaller supplier like the one I work for. No better off than the worker.

But then again, as a labor force, constantly buckling and making concessions and breaking unions and deregulating industry hasn't really done us any good, has it? In fact, it's basically @#%^ed us that we accept an incredibly low minimum wage that doesn't even go up with inflation. It's all connected. We've been asked to accept jack sh*t and that's how we've ended up here--accepting substandard wages and work conditions b/c we're so afraid that we can't compete with child laborers in Indonesia. Awesome. Maybe we really need to think about how @#%^ed up that is. I think the corporations need to be regulated. They are running the show. It happened in the 19th century, during the gilded age, with the countries who had sufficient monopolies on industries to pay people horrible wages and put them in dangerous conditions.

I have a headache so excuse any general tone issues.

Edited, Jan 30th 2010 11:34pm by Annabella

I'd more than likely not be work in a situation where this would be the case, so I can't make a qualified decision here.

So, maybe?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122809320261867867.html



Its simple economics Anna. I remember someone else citing some figures (maybe Joph?) of the cost of car production in the US and I found this cheap google link. But the point is, it costs the US more to produce a car than other countries because of the concenssions won by the Unions in the past.
And part of that cost is your expensive healthcare system (now I'm running for cover .... )