Fucking no strike clause, what the FUCK
Liberals are fucking moronic scum, we have no freedom, we have no rights, we are granted no provisions for our betterment or even protection or basic decision making
I will destroy this evil land, I will spill the blood of oppressors and free my fellow workers from their chains
I AM RISEN 
My union had this whole fight about the field workers not wanting to advocate for something only the office workers would benefit from (remote work). They threw a whole stink about it and ended up letting management take it away without a fight. Office workers are pissed and we've had a couple quit over it.
Like what the fuck is the point of collective bargaining if you only bargain for things everyone benefits from?
A WIN FOR YOU IS A WIN FOR ME. CLASS SOLIDARITY, MOTHERFUCKERS.
It's part of why I have moved on from "more trade unions is the most important thing." Yes unionization is important and more unions is better than the fewer unions in every way, but they can easily be a dead end. Between the horrible laws in the US that restrict union activity and the reactionary thinking of "fuck you what's in it for me" that is standard to Americans, there's only so much unions can do.
It's why I think a revolutionary workers' party is necessary that works closely with unions but isn't beholden to them.
Part of the reason I went for this job is because of an episode of Revleft. I cant remember the episode and its been years now... but they spoke about a lot of trade unions being very right leaning, especially for being a union. In particular, the IBEW is especially bad. But, getting lefties into these groups and pushing then further left is possible and very impactful.
Amazon workers trying to strike in the town over? Well, good thing the utility workers have class solidarity. It'd be a shame for something to "happen" to Amazon's power.
Man it's amazing, I work with some super-right wing people- like borderline Q conspiracy nut jobs
But as long as I'm careful about with my phrasing, I can go almost full Marx on their ass and have them nod along. At least when it comes to labor issues.
Guys at my place have the thin blue flag on their trucks. I'm in a similar situation.
"Class solidarity"? Thats communist junk. "A win for you is a win for me"? Hell yeah, brother.
"The bourgeoisie's interests can never align with the proletariat" might actually get me punched in the face. "The boss don't give a shit about you" will get a "damn straight!".
“We have strict rules about using exclusionary language in organizing committee meetings” will lose you half the room.
“If you wouldn’t say it in church, you don’t say it here” gets near unanimous nodding heads and grunts of approval. If I can get a bunch of middle class white Christians to chastise someone for using bigoted language and all I have to do is not say, “fuck” or “shit” during meetings, I’ll take that trade every time. It’s funny as shit to see.
well said
AYYY found the episode
Climate Change as Class War: Building Socialism on a Warming Planet
https://open.spotify.com/episode/0fskXlQ1Qrzf19gJlx2v0E?si=-69zj3n2Rg6k1-5Fa91AEQ
Hey, I appreciate your posting
Aw, thanks 😊
It goes back to the AFl. Gompers led a much more exclusionary union movement, and as time went on became more racist and anti-communist. However the reason a trade union federation was needed and is still a great development for that moment is because the Knights of Labor fell apart and fell apart hard. So a more organized "profession" union of trade workers with the specific purpose of collective bargaining directly with management proved effective in a time of serious reversals of labor power.
The problem is these things are not a substitute for socialism, and in fact create a stronger labor aristocracy. I can't blame the craft unions for taking their shot and gaining those wins for themselves. It is a response that sadly makes sense even if you isolate yourselves. And as organized labor is crushed again, it is obvious that the same process is happening.
The office workers were union too?
Yup. Proud engineer and IBEW member here (its weird).
No yeah there are definitely unionized engineers, just wondering what the expectation was, cause a union advocating for non-union workers would be unusual but potentially cool
It's not super unusual in Healthcare, but nurses build their whole identity around care, so it makes sense.
It’s also not unusual in certain school districts. It’s bizarre how much variance there is in teachers’ unions in the United States, but the culture swings wildly, even between school districts that are like ten minutes apart from one another and have similar demographic info.
I mean, the field guys have a point. They would also love to work from home, but they don't have that option. So what is on the table for them in these negotiations?
A good union should be advocating for the entire unit, particularly when everyone is expected to stick their necks out at once. Talk about better hazard pay or overtime or sick leave as part of the negotiation package. It can't just be field workers taking the hit in the name of "solidarity" when the office workers aren't reciprocating.
Make the implicit explicit and negotiation for benefits across the entire unit.
Literally everything you'd expect. Better pay, better retirement, more PTO, more vacation, more budget for safety equipment, etc.
We weren't going out of our way to only cater to one group and forget about everything else. We just wanted to add one thing into the negotiation bundle.
In that case, idk wtf they wanted. That just sucks.
A lack of political training resulting in passively absorbed crab bucket mentality.
The old guard in a lot of unions is secretly against work from home because it makes it harder for reps to talk to workers.
Imo that's terrible logic because it should be workers talking to workers with reps just there to fill the gaps, and because work from home is a reduction in working hours which is exactly what we should be fighting for.
In my line of work, the office workers who interface with the people working on site are the ones with fat ass fucking paychecks. And as a result, it’s been harder to foster solidarity between them and the low-paid office workers, who are much more numerous. If anything, it should be the opposite, but because we’re under different vice presidents, that communication has designated channels which involve us reporting to our superiors (but for some reason the communication is not happening VP-to-VP, which defeats the purpose of the hierarchy argument). Literally, our communication would have primarily been happening through public channels, so it’s not like they couldn’t have monitored them. But I’m pretty sure what it is is that they don’t want us knowing each other and commiserating and they want to be able to blame the opposite group for their own managerial fuck ups when something goes wrong.