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‘No way’: US labor watchdog refuses to bow to SpaceX, Amazon and Starbucks (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 8 months ago by MicroWave to c/economics

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The NLRB general counsel has accused US’s largest corporations of creating distractions to cover their law-breaking

The US’s top labor lawyer has said her agency will not “succumb” to Amazon, Starbucks and SpaceX’s attempts to legally challenge the National Labor Relations Board and its ability to enforce federal labor law.

Jennifer Abruzzo, the NLRB general counsel, accused some of the US’s largest corporations of “jumping on the bandwagon” in mounting legal challenges to the labor watchdog, which has found itself at the center of the ongoing battle between the companies and a wave of unionizing efforts by workers.

Attorneys representing Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Amazon, Trader Joe’s and Starbucks have all argued in recent months that the NLRB is “unconstitutional” and has overstepped its authority.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

TIL Biden invented the NLRB

Actually this is a common misconception -- the NLRB dates back to 1935. Biden was negative seven years old then; he had nothing to do with it.

In fact, he took the fairly unusual step of firing Peter Robb who Trump had put in charge of it, which was widely viewed as yet another in his string of horrifying union busting, since Robb had brought in his strong credentials of classifying Uber drivers as contractors instead of employees, and helping with Reagan's absolutely historic breaking of the air traffic controller's strike, which ushered in a whole new era of labor relations which has blessed us with the new economic landscape we've been in ever since the 80s.

Absolutely normal stuff for the NLRB and yet another example of how all these corporatized candidates are all exactly the same, and too bad we got Biden who started undoing all of it. I was hoping for Jo Jorgenson.

[+] MotoAsh -6 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Yes, the TIL was sarcastic, because obviously Biden has little to do with it.

I love how you fools view him undoing a direct attack as a step forward. You have yet again proved how Republicans constantly gain control: Democrats are too fucking stupid to understand slowly boiling water...

A step closer to what WAS normal IS NOT a win. Period. Ever. We're still further behind where we would be, let alone where we should be. This celebration as a victory is beyond pathetic.

Stop patting Democrats on the back for turning the temp back down to STILL, "too hot".

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I love how you fools view him undoing a direct attack as a step forward.

Is this some of that 4d chess I was hearing about, where undoing a direct attack is a step northwest or something?

[+] MotoAsh -9 points 8 months ago (1 children)

It's not the step that is bad but the congratulatory dick sucking that follows. Thanks for once again proving your lack of understanding of nuance.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)

Actually this is worth delving into a little bit.

This pattern is called Never Play Defense -- MotoAsh is throwing out repeated accusations and shifting the frame of the discussion so that anything I say to demonstrate that any given one of them isn't accurate just gets a response that's some new line of attack. It's a way to take a tremendously weak or specious argument (in this case, the idea that Biden's bad for labor) and make it look like a serious contender in the arena of ideas.

So take a look at what's happened:

I highlight the shills who keep up a drumbeat of how bad Biden is for labor

MotoAsh insults me and implies that Biden isn't responsible for what the NLRB is doing and that the idea he might have is stupid (sort of related to my point)
I point out some citations for specifically why the current NLRB's actions are a direct result of what he did (outside the norms of a usual US president)

MotoAsh ignores the point, and shifts the framing to say that anything that's good progress is worthless unless Biden singlehandedly gets us to a point above where we were after however-many years of backwards. That (1) isn't how it works, and (2) has nothing to do with my refutation of what he was saying.
I disagree

MotoAsh decides to shift away from anything factual at all and purely to accusing me of being a shill for Biden.

So at that point I have a choice. I can respond to the new accusation, or I can stick with the old point that I was making before the framing shifted, or I can just respond in kind to the personal insults. All three of these are bad responses. The video lays it out in a little more detail, but basically, we're now on the fourth iteration of a new thing to talk about, and just responding factually can actually make a winning argument look like it's "losing" because of the flow of conversation. A lot of times people who use this style are happy to continue it forever, because they know they're getting their points across and into the mainstream. For as dishonest an approach as it is, it's actually really effective.

Tell you what, MotoAsh: Usually with this kind of thing I like to just ignore the bad faith claims after a certain point and calmly lay out my own talking points for people to read, with the factual citations of why they are accurate. But if you want a real response, then sure. Lay out exactly what you're saying in full. I can tell you what you're wrong about with some citations, and we can call it a day. How's that sound?

(I somewhat anticipate they won't want to do that, which is fine from my side too.)

[–] Motorheadbanger 5 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Thank you for this. Any pointers on how to suss out such things faster/at all?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

The video goes into a bunch more detail, but for me I think just take a step back. Why are you in the conversation? For me I like talking about this stuff and learning about it, and I think it's productive to communicate my point of view. If you look at it like that, it's easier to avoid getting sucked into a back and forth or just pointless bickering -- like what's the overall goal? I mean it's fine just endlessly answering bad-faith arguments one after another if you want to, but usually it doesn't feed any particular end goal. It's just a waste of time.

If someone makes a substantive argument I'll feel like I have to respond to it, but if they're clearly just using the opportunity of us talking to blather a shifting series of stock flimsy Biden-is-bad constructions, then I don't feed too much into it; I think it's perfectly fine to just make my own series of constructions for my own point of view.

[–] LucidNightmare 1 points 8 months ago

I like to give them the information that was quickly found online, after sifting through multiple sources to make sure I'm not the stupid one, provide those sources, and then to tell them how fucking stupid they are because I have no patience for bullshit.

Works for me at least.