What happened to respecting the will of the voters?
Why do we take it for granted that we live in a democracy, but tolerate that businesses are directed like dictatorships?
That's insane.
Why do we take it for granted that we live in a democracy, but tolerate that businesses are directed like dictatorships?
That's insane.
The will of the voters that matters in this case is the voters who voted for labor laws. (Or rather, voters who voted for politicians, who voted for labor laws.) And, of course, the voters who voted for the Supreme Court, who gets to singlehandedly say what those laws actually mean. (Again, they don't vote directly; they vote for a President who nominates and a Senate who approves.)
The vote of a union only matters in light of those labor laws. And the company has the right to appeal those, under those same laws.
It would be nice for the company to also take the responsibility to respect the intention of the law, rather than hoping they'll get some body (elected or otherwise) to give them the answer they wanted. But our whole system is deliberately adversarial: everybody fights as hard as they can for what they want, regardless of what would actually be right. That's a big chunk of the reason we have unions in the first place.
It's a terrible system, the worst one, except for all of the others. Me, I'm voting with my feet: I'm using Amazon as little as I can get away with, even when it costs more to use an alternative. They can fix that by ceasing to be douchebags... but that seems pretty unlikely.
Voting with feet and voting with dollars has always been a way to make workers and consumers(often the same) feel like they've got a say without actually giving them one.
The problem is that the territory of the conflict is attempting to be constrained ie: within the current legal structure. What isn't allowed here is the conflict to spill into the province of arguing about the rules of the game itself. We've never had a static legal landscape and never will, and yet arguments like these assume it.
Workers should have a shot at workplace democracy because it's a fundamental right of self-determination. Carve-outs of that right like in workplaces are only as natural as we make them.
There's a million things I'd do differently if I were in charge. But not only am I not in charge, what little power I do possess has been systematically diluted to the point of effective nonexistence.
Don't I, as a free man, have the right to negotiate as I see fit with my employer? Why should that right be taken away by a vote of others?
Or let's put it another way. The Dems are for purple cars, the Reps are for yellow cars. We all get to vote on what we get! Is that freedom? What if I want a purple car, and the vote went yellow? What if I want a red car?
That isn't freedom.
In the car analogy, you're missing the "free to not have any car at all even though you would like one" option.
EU legislation establishes individual rights for all workers, with a maximum working week of 48 hours, paid annual leave of at least four weeks per year, rest periods and rules on night work, shift work and patterns of work.
Who needs unions with great labor laws already in place? Of course the right in the US want none of that.
A lot of EU law already in place is a wish list for US employees who join a union.
Right to work could be good under the right conditions. Which the EU already largely has. In fact many EU countries have far stronger labor laws than the EU laws themselves. That's the context within which right to work starts to make sense.
The massive wealth gaps in the US tell the actual story. Corporations have a huge influence over US law and the laws mostly benefit the corporations over individuals or unions. That's one of the dangers of massive wealth. You can just buy the government. Which has already happened in the US.
That's kinda like asking 'who wants vaccines when we have this wonderful herd immunity?'
Unions are the reason those labor laws are there in the first place.
I support many union actions at my employer, for example I joined their recent strike, withholding my labour (and consequently getting paid less) because the employer and indeed their entire sector, refuses to make sensible pension and pay provisions - but I won't join the union itself because I don't agree with all their positions and I'm content with the trade off that results.
I dunno when the EU laws were created, but the 4th and the 5th week of PTO were also brought by unions (one with the help of q socialist government). The other 14 days (we have 39 total PTO in France, 14 of those can be redeemed as money basically) i don't know where they came from.
So that's the missing piece I was looking for. I think you'll find something similar in Italy.
The big difference in the US is that Americans have never elected a truly labor friendly government. These laws in the EU are not just the result of strong unions. You need government to be on board too and that requires the voters.
This is less directly related to unions.
The EU was founded as two basic principles - free movement of goods, free movement of workers. The idea was to achieve a common comercial block that could compete in the era of superpowers.
What we’ve come to realize is that those basic principles end up almost building a country from the ground up:
You can’t have workers from france outcompeting germans by selling lower quality meat because the French don’t have to follow German animal health standards. So, common health standards for everyone.
You can’t have an Italian company outselling Spanish companies because the Spanish lose money repairing defective products and the Italians don’t have to. So common consumer laws.
keep going and we’ll eventually have an army to protect our interests, etc. and we’ll become a federal country of sorts.
That explains why the EU creates standards. We all have to compete under the same rules.
As for why set the standard as “improving rights for everyone” rather than “lowering rights to the minimum for everyone”, it is always going to be more popular to raise the standards, rather than be an institution that takes rights away from citizens of the member nations. If the EU was seen as the big guys that force you to work and live in worse conditions it would not last long.
If this vote goes through (and a contract agreed), and you take a unionized job in the unionized warehouse, you will be covered by the union contract. If management violates the contract in a way that harms you, the union will be filing a grievance on your behalf. If you ask for a union rep to be in the room when discipline is discussed, they must send a rep. You will vote on a proposed contract. In short, the union has the responsibility to represent you, based on your being in a union job.
A "right to work" state is one where the union cannot sign a contract with the employer forcing you to pay union dues in order to get the representation you are entitled to. So, you have the right, in a "right to work" state, to avail yourself of the union representation without paying dues. That's exactly what "right to work" means, and no more.
> Or let's put it another way. The Dems are for purple cars, the Reps are for yellow cars. We all get to vote on what we get! Is that freedom? What if I want a purple car, and the vote went yellow? What if I want a red car?
you weren't talking about government here?
The idea of “freedom” from government as a frame of reference here is bullshit. The entire concept of a corporation is a government created legal fiction, and an arbitrary one. Corporations are required to do hundreds of thousands of things.
Jeff Bezos can rent a warehouse and talk people into going there and do whatever the fuck he wants. But if he wants limited liability, access to the roads and waterways the society creates and manages, enforcement of property rights, and the permission to enter a joint stock partnership to fund it he needs government permission, also known as the permission of society.
The fact of Amazon even existing at all is a privilege granted by the state that can be revoked at any time.
I don’t have the freedom to negotiate as I see fit with my employer. I also don’t have the freedom to punch Jeff Bezos in the nuts for not paying fair wages and I am not allowed to be a hairdresser if I don’t pass an exam or sell securities without registering them or pork that I’ve been storing in my attic all week.
We regulate every single aspect of commerce, it’s a choice we’ve made as a society.
Or to exploit and rob minority members of said society. The "good willed" government does not exist and has no reason to: it owns the ultimate monopoly, on violence. Most governments today on the planet are evil. The list of atrocities perpetrated by governments is as long as civilization's history and completely dwarfs the list of bad things done by corporations.
> The fact of Amazon even existing at all is a privilege granted by the state that can be revoked at any time.
States tried getting rid of corporations. Their citizens starved. The truth is, most value created by companies is captured by the society at large (the value we get from the stuff we buy is much larger than the cost we pay), not the company owners or employees.