Unions are why you have 5 day, 40 hour full-time work weeks. Unions are why they have to pay you in actual dollars instead ofĀ ācompany creditsā that you can only spend at the company-owned stores. Unions are why there are fucking fire exitsĀ at your place of work. Unions are why itās not okay for your supermarket ground beef to be any percentage human.
You think your company pays you out of the goodness of their hearts? Or even out ofĀ āmarket pressure?ā TheĀ ājob marketā is a myth perpetuated by the capitalists. Corporations would pay you nothing if they could get away with it. And you argueĀ āoh, but if they paid me nothing Iād just go to another one.ā Wrong. Because to maximize profits, they all want to pay you nothing.Ā Corporations exist to maximize profits while reducing risk for investors. Itās part of their entire function to find ways to cut costs as much as possible, and that includes finding ways to pay you nothing.
Unions are your defense against that. You think all a union does is strike? If you pay union dues, a lot of that is spent on lobbyists in various governments reminding your lawmakers that you have rights as a living human being that a corporation should not be able to stomp all over. Unions hire lawyers so that if youāre fired for bullshit reasons, the union can stand up for you against your boss. Theyāre called unions because workers are unitingĀ to pool resources so that they can stand up to these corporate overlords with more money than God.Ā Unions exist because you might not have the words, resources, or time to fight workplace injustices all by yourself. Thatās the whole fucking point.
And if a business shuts down because a union is striking, itās because the business was abusing people and didnāt deserve to be in business anyway. Donāt make excuses for the corporations. They already have trillions of dollars and a couple million lawyers to do that for themselves. They donāt need your help.
tangentwithtanner
stormborns
blakekathryn
2087
