cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/24998458
If I missed 10 days of work it would take me a year to recover. The oligarchs are sitting pretty and they know it. It would take an army of Luigis to change anything.
this post was submitted on 03 Feb 2025
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Work Reform
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A place to discuss positive changes that can make work more equitable, and to vent about current practices. We are NOT against work; we just want the fruits of our labor to be recognized better.
Our Philosophies:
- All workers must be paid a living wage for their labor.
- Income inequality is the main cause of lower living standards.
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- Higher wages for underpaid workers.
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In this political climate a 10 day general strike would be dealt with by deploying the army.
There’s also the chance that they’d just hunker down and outlast it. Giving them a definite timeline gives them a light at the end of the tunnel. After 10 days, it’s just business as usual again. A general strike without a posted timeline would lead to capitulation within only a few days. It wouldn’t even take all 10 days.
Kidney stones don’t suck just because they hurt. They suck because you don’t know how long they’re going to hurt for. They hurt until you have passed the stone, and you have no idea how long that will take. The pain is analogous to a muscle cramp. People can grit their teeth and bear it if they know it’s just a muscle cramp and will end soon. But when it has been six days and you don’t have any idea how much longer it will last, it makes you desperate.
So what, they gonna come to my house and make me go to work?
Or do they show up at my work and do my job?
Neither. The army joins the strike.
So what, they gonna come to my house and make me go to work?
Arrest you and toss you in a cell, more likely.
Ok, so they do that to everybody, and now the strike can’t end. This helps them how?
Ok, so they do that to everybody, and now the strike can’t end. This helps them how?
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They likely won't have to do it to everyone. Just enough people to make examples and frighten people into going back to work. Solidarity is not a magic word, but a state of enthusiasm that must be maintained.
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If they do have to do it to entire workforce-sized populations, we get a cozy GULAG style labor system.
"They can't arrest all of us" only works if there's means of resistance other than passive. In liberal democracies, that's typically protests, elections, and legal avenues; in less charming regimes, it comes down to internal dissent in the security apparatus or outright force from the oppressed. If you lack those means of negotiation, or the credible threat thereof, then they literally can arrest all of you, and will, given half a chance.
Would it though?
Firstly, the general population is stretched so financially thin that a 10 day strike is unaffordable for most
Now, ten days to bring everything to a halt sounds great. But unless it's coordinated in certain areas, then there's just a freeze on everything. Remember the COVID pandemic? Even if only certain areas strike, the situation is so bad that alot of jobs would be covered.
Secondly, do you honestly believe that the general population is selfless enough to not place any e-commerce, online services or any sort of digital product purchases within that 10 days? No.
Lastly, what happens after those 10 days? The whip comes out, there's catching up to do.
I'll do you all a favor and tag the people and voices you should not listen to. They want you to live in subjugation.
Edit: there are 350 million people in the USA. We do not need concensus.
Edit2: do not ask for your rights. Do not argue for your rights. Fight for your rights.
I'm blocking you, per your request.
Please!!!!
Don't interact with me. Don't respond to me. I get to talk to maybe 40 or 50 people at a time and it is wasted on you.
Get ready for 2028. That is the year, right?
US laws offers enough protections for legal strikes that unions follow the law so they can't do solidarity strikes. UAW is aligning their contract renewals for 2028, so it can happen then. But also if they repeal the nlra there will be little incentive to not start doing solidarity strikes.
One way to escalate such a strike is to have a limited, general, recurring and escalating strike.
So it's a day in January; two days in February; three in March, etc.
Its complicated, possibly too complicated for the typical worker, but it would give ramping escalation and allow for negotiation in process.
the problem remains the same: getting the general public to heed a strike. Short of people dying by hundreds of thousands, they don't seem motivated.
When a million Americans died of Covid people demanded to end Covid restrictions.
Sad but true.
Not all Americans called for it, just very vocal ones. The people that were fine with the lockdowns and restrictions were not represented in the debate because they were sheltering in place at home trying to keep more people from dying to the virus.
America's national identity is not around individualism. Other people dying it's less important than individual success.
That's why it's the economy that matters. a quarter of a percent of extra deaths isn't something people care about AI long as they aren't the ones dying. But evonomic turmoil hits everyone individually.
You can not put an end date on it that defeats the purpose
The purpose is to discourage voting. Messages like this serve that purpose well.
Having conversations around how ineffective voting is, is not equivalent to discouraging voting.
in the minds of many readers, it is.
UAW is calling for all unions to align their contracts to end on May 1st 2028 and calling for a general strike to start that day. That gives us 3 years to get organized, set up local strike funds for our communities, and make sure we have representation at the negotiating table whether we're in unions or not.
https://www.thenation.com/article/activism/general-strike-2028-unions-labor-movement/
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I love you OP. I give you blowie? You are so fucking hot.
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