Why are workers striking for their "friends" in the form of sympathy strikes illegal in the land of the free?
Certain groups are just not legally allowed to strike in the US. Air traffic controllers are critical to the economy and safety of the country.
Another interesting point is that all of the fired air traffic controllers were banned for life from working that job again.
That helps explain why it took 10 years to recover: all the new employees were probably newly trained.
Once that card (striking) has been played, you lose any leverage afforded by avoiding interruptions of "economy and safety".
If you are not showing up for work (striking) you are not getting paid anyway. This is why the unions build up huge war chests so that they can pay their striking members. For example the largest property investor in Finland is a company owned by the unions. So they got wealth in the billions to fight if need be.
An ATC being fired doesn't ground flights any more than an ATC on strike grounds flights.
"Stop getting a paycheck" is just a euphemism for "the employee/union has already burned their leverage and gets fired".
Paying striking members is a losing battle once those members are fired: you’ll be paying them indefinitely in this case because there is only one employer for air traffic controller jobs in the USA, the federal government.
Reagan did not negotiate with terrorists, either. These people were knowingly and purposefully breaking federal law. What kind of example does it set to continue negotiations with them after that?
Additionally; laws follow humans, not the other way. If you're a person in a profession that is not allowed to argue for better conditions: then that's the best way to get the worst possible conditions.
Seems like a false economy to force people to accept the conditions that they get with no recompense. A bitter FTC employee is much worse than a strike. A bitter FTC employee can kill hundreds.
The Iran-Contra affair seems like a pretty clear case of negotiating with terrorists.
There is an obvious and straightforward way of getting those 12000 people to work again. There is no argument for firing them just because they are striking outside of petty displays of power and pure stupidity.
And how is it stupid to conclusively resolve an ongoing dispute that intentionally threatens national air travel? Just because one side loses doesn't make the decision 'stupid'.
Replacements were found and the world didn't end.
The notion that labor isn't replaceable when their demands exceed their replacement costs is absurd, no matter how skilled they are or how critical their work is.
Especially when the opponent is the government, the one entity that gives unions their power of monopoly, and the one opponent who doesn't need to act rationally when determining "replacement costs".
You can't make it illegal to strike on the grounds of it being dangerous; then fire everyone for it with little or no issue: it just tells us that the reasons for it being illegal were bullshit.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/danish-government-inter...
In this case it was the nurses' union vs. the public healthcare system. The nurses voted no to the proposed agreement and eventually went on strike. Because nurses are critical to healthcare it was very controlled which nurses were included in the strike.
The negotiations continued but it was impossible to reach an agreement and the number of nurses on strike increased over time.
Eventually the government decided to intervene and made the initial proposed agreement into law. This is part of the organization of the Danish labor market that if a conflict continues for too long there can be an intervention from the government.
Some nurses being angry about the outcome continued smaller strikes. These strikes are illegal within the framework of the labor laws. There's a special court ("Arbejdsretten" or "The labor court") that can decide that both the nurses as well as their union have to pay fines for illegal strikes. This is not a criminal court.
The main reason that the nurses went on strike is because they want greater pay. Historically nurses and many other public jobs were governed by special rules where they were not allowed to strike but could also not easily be fired ("tjenestemand"). This system was inflexible and was modernized in 1969. The nurses ended up with lower pay compared to similar jobs in terms of education (schoolteacher, policeman) most likely because being a nurse is typically a woman's job. This pay gap still exists today where the nurses now are allowed to strike within the framework of the labor laws in an attempt to increase their pay.
However, the question was if nurses are forbidden to strike, and the answer is: no, not in general. What is happening now is that the government forced a contract on them, and continued strikes break that contract.
>In February 1981, PATCO and the FAA began new contract negotiations. Citing safety concerns, PATCO called for a reduced 32-hour work week, a $10,000 pay increase for all air-traffic controllers and a better benefits package for retirement.[9] Negotiations quickly stalled. Then, in June, the FAA offered a new three-year contract with $105 million of up front conversions in raises to be paid in 11.4% increases over the next three years, a raise more than twice what was being given to other federal employees, “The average federal controller (at a GS_13 level, a common grade controller) earned $36,613, which was 18% less than private sector counterpart";[10] with the raise demanded, the average federal pay would have exceeded the private sector pay by 8%, along with better benefits and shorter working hours. However, because the offer did not include a shorter work week or earlier retirement, PATCO rejected the offer.[11]
On the bright side we don't really have mercs or the US military showing up to murder strikers anymore, so that's nice
Why would you think you have the arbitrary power to walk out on your job, and not have them let you go?
You 100% have the right to 'not show up at the auto shop to protest wages at the coffee shop' ... but it's a little odd to think that they can't just let you go and find another worker who will actually show up.
This is why you rarely hear about individual workers going on strike. An individual is expendable. It’s quite another thing when the entire workforce shuts down production by walking out. Sure, you could just fire them all, but your production is still shut down.
The question of legality is not a question of whether an individual worker has the right to walk out (of they do; they are not slaves), or whether employers have a right to fire them (they mostly do). It’s a question of whether workers have the right to organize and coordinate the walking out, or whether this constituted a criminal conspiracy.
"or whether employers have a right to fire them (they mostly do)"
No - they do not. Employers cannot fire workers that are striking 'properly' (i.e. within labour code protections) - that is the very essence of the power of Unions.
Workers can walkout or 'strike' any time they want, as groups or individuals.
They can all quit, and even threaten to all quit.
They can even 'conspire' to all quit.
None of that is illegal - but the company cannot fire people if the strike is per regulations. They can fire them if the strike is not per regulations.
The notion of 'illegal strike' is misappropriated here.
The term 'illegal' or 'unlawful strike' really should be described as 'illegitimate strike', in which case the (non-market) rights that the government has afforded labour to 'not be fired' when they strike, do not apply.
Under specific conditions, the government protects workers who strike from being fired.
If those conditions are not met, then the protections offered workers are absolved, and so the workers can be fired.
Sometimes, workers will do a 'strike' together, without the backing of their leadership - this is called a 'wildcat strike' i.e. 'coordinated strike, technically not under the premise of the labour regulations'. This is an 'illegal strike'.
Someone 'walking out' and doing a '1 person strike' would be doing a mini 'wildcat strike' i.e. 'illegal'. They will be fired.
As you mentioned, the threat of a labour union just 'stopping production' would be scary, yes, but in most scenarios, the company - if they could - would definitely take the pain to get rid of the union. In a heartbeat. With joy and elation.
If you have antagonist staff that are threatening your operations by shutting down production, harassing replacement temporary workers, all sorts of tactics ... you definitely want that situation gone.
The owners would more than likely just let everyone go, and open the doors to hire new staff, and probably allowing regular workers to come back but not allowing the 'bad apples' (their purview).
In short: Unions derive their ultimate power form the ability to 'walk out' whilst at the same time being protected from being fired. That's the power that Union power rests on. Without that power, they'd be whittled away very quickly.
Danish white collar unions, a little bit like government unions, are very different from most of the traditional labour unions i.e. factory workers, auto workers.
In the later, unions can wield incredible power. At Beoing plant in Canada, 'Management' does not decide who does what job, or who gets promoted/advanced. Boeing basically allocates the # or roles and the skill sets. The Union leadership decide who gets to do what job, and it's almost entirely based on 'time in'. 'Seniority' is the golden power for union members and it outranks almost all other things. At a Ford plant in S. Ontario, the #1 job for the guy with the most seniority is to do nothing. Literally he sits all day in a room, overlooking the plant, watching everyone work. I think it's a historical artifact of when there was literal oversight needed, but obviously not anymore. He's like the King of the factory and rules all. He earns well over six figures to do that. Really nice guy though.
Support/sympathy strike means the the workers from other companies stop providing services for to the target of the strike. Most common forms of this is something like the ground crews joining the cabin crew/pilot strikes (or the other way around) or truck drivers joining the port workers strike (or again the other way around)
edit: Or wait is just normal striking illegal too? So it is literally illegal for a group of people to get together and go "fuck it this sucks" and not show up to work the next day?
Most if not all of these actions are legal in Denmark, here's some quick definitions:
- A Jurisdictional Strike is a strike to dispute job assignments; e.g. that all brickwork be done by members of a brickworking union
- A wildcat strike is a strike without union organization (so to answer your question, yes it is literally illegal for a group of people to get together and go "fuck it this sucks" and not show up to work the next day.
- Solidarity strikes would be a strike when you don't work for the employer. Not to be confused with secondary boycotts (below)
- Political strikes are strikes intended to influence government policy
- Secondary boycotts are what TFA mentions; e.g. not loading/unloading cargo to/from a specific company.
- Secondary picketing would be picketing companies that do business with the company (e.g. picketing stores that sell products from the business, or companies that sell goods or services to the business)
- A closed shop is a deal that requires the employer to only hire union members[2]
- Donating funds to federal campaigns is perhaps obvious?
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taft%E2%80%93Hartley_Act
2: Note that it is still legal for a collective bargaining agreement to require those hired to pay dues, but this act also allowed states to ban even that. 27/50 states currently ban even this, though going by population it's less than half the population that live in such a state.
No, it is not (!).
This thread is full of reality-bending statements.
It's 100% legal to say 'fck it' and not show up to your job (in most cases).
That was never illegal, and it still isn't either in the US or Denmark.
It is not, however, possibly not legal to do so and maintain Union protections and 'not be fired'.
The power to literally not do your job* and then to have the government force private companies to maintain your contract (possibly renegotiated) as opposed to just annulling it and hiring others ... is effectively a 'positive right' which is obviously going to be regulated.
'Blockading' businesses, is also a very different thing than a 'boycott' and under any reasonable circumstance would also be illegal.
Go walk in front of your local Starbucks and try to stop deliveries, customers and employees from entering, and you'll find out both what the law is, and what's reasonable.
'Political Strikes' wouldn't ever be considered a form of reasonable power as well. Can you imagine Tesla employees not showing up for work for several weeks/months because they want to support/oppose Gavin Newsom's recall? And that Tesla wouldn't be allowed to let them go for now doing their work? I don't think you're going to find a lot of reasonable sympathy there.
Providing for the ability for workers to shut down a company because they want to make a political statement, to damage other businesses or workers, or blockading other businesses or workers etc. shouldn't rationally be within the purview of normal Union activity.
> No, it is not (!).
You are correct. It is only illegal if you are a member of a union. If you never were a member of a union, or if you terminate your membership with the union, you may then strike (at which point you obviously do so without any union protections).
Here in the Nordics there is no law protecting you from not getting fired for not showing up for work during a strike. It is all in the collective agreement that both sides agreed upon. And again the collective agreement applies to everyone union member or not.
Basically if a company does so the company is fucked as support strikes will stop pretty much all basic services your company uses from happening (cleaning, trash collecting, security guards, trucking/package services, etc would just stop happening). Obviously this only works if there is relatively high level of unionization on all fields.
Getting all these support strikes slapped on top of the "normal" strike is what happens when the employer breaks (or refuses to sign/join) the collective agreement (this is exactly what happened to McDonalds in Denmark)
Though I can't speak to that fact specifically, I doubt that Nordics can be fired from not showing up due to striking - because 'striking' i.e. the threat of shutting down the factory and the company not being able to dismiss everyone is the basis for the collective bargaining power.
Without the 'power' there is no basis to bargain.
If the company can just punt unskilled workers and hire new ones, then striking has considerably less power in most scenarios.
That said it's worth pointing out the differences between Nordic Unions and traditional American Unions. The later is heavily working class (think Ford/GM plant) while the former is just as much 'White Collar' (think Teachers Union).
Also, it's worth pointing out that again, technically, it's 'legal' to 'not show up for work' even if you're a member of an N/A union, it just means you'll be let go and that's that. People are pushing the wording of that far to aggressively.
> Without the 'power' there is no basis to bargain.
My understanding is that the Nordic unions have this power via secondary boycots. If you hire non-union unskilled labor for your factory, good luck getting unionized truck drivers to haul the finished product away.
> Also, it's worth pointing out that again, technically, it's 'legal' to 'not show up for work' even if you're a member of an N/A union, it just means you'll be let go and that's that. People are pushing the wording of that far to aggressively.
"Illegal" and "Unlawful" are terms that are widely used. Just participating in an illegal strike is not criminal and (unless you otherwise disrupt the company's business) the only civil repercussion is loss of job (including backwages).
Eventually this led to the establishment of the NLRB and various laws that kept trying to patch any (real or perceived) current imbalance of power. It's like a sport where they make rule changes to emphasize offense, but then a few years later make other changes to fix unintended consequences of the first change, and eventually you have so many rules that the refs need extensive training. (Professional gridiron football in the US is this way; not sure if there's a Nordic equivalent)