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Comment by tw04 | Hacker News Reader

Ultimately a whole new generation is finding out about the value of a union. You don’t need collective bargaining rights up until the point you disagree with the company you work for and decide to vocalize it. Then you find out how few rights you have.

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I know of no union in the USA that would be able to get its members off the hook for a sit in on an executive office. The unions, however, would at least have counsel on what its members could do to protest, but only for collective action, I’m not sure anti-Israeli sentiment would meet that bar. Usually it’s for economic things, like pay and benefits, that a majority of the union members could actually agree on.

The UAW literally had all their members sit down in various places throughout the factory and offices of GM in the past... I don't know why you think they "wouldn't be able to get members off" from this.

No.

https://www.nlrb.gov/strikes#:~:text=Strikes%20unlawful%20be....

> The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that a “sitdown” strike, when employees simply stay in the plant and refuse to work is not protected by the law.

Also see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sitdown_strike#:~:text=A%20w....).

When the Supreme Court rules on this topic specifically, union lawyers are going to be fairly clear about the consequences and advice strongly against it. Whoever organized this at Google either didn’t do a basic Google search or didn’t care about very clear consequences.

My understanding is that the protests were closely coordinated with lawyers, and Google will likely spend a ton of $$$ defending the terminations as a result.

The case law is really clear here, unless the Supreme court has gotten progressive enough to overturn their 1939 decision (which is really not possible), this will not make it far at all in court (anyone can sue anyone for anything, but this probably gets thrown out before pretrial). If they got advice from lawyers, however, that this was ok, there is probably clear grounds for a legal malpractice lawsuit.

I really doubt Google is going to spend much on this at all.

I am just repeating what I have heard from people who should know.

I think you've been misinformed, but this is the internet, so anything goes really. I can't imagine any lawyer, or anyone who can use google to search for things, thinking they can get a decent payday from this.

You are incorrect. Picketing, which is what unions do, is preventing people from entering the workplace. You can’t really picket in the workplace.

But even assuming that is correct, unions wouldn’t support this because it doesn’t fall under the mandate or the union, which is to protect the direct interests of its members. Some unions may broaden this to protect the interests of the industry at large, but even that is because it’s considered related to the direct interests of the members.

Unions may canvass their members to support other causes outside the workplace but they’re not gonna shut down the workplace to support a cause that doesn’t directly affect their members.

https://uaw.org/uaw-statement-israel-palestine/

>The UAW literally had all their members sit down in various places throughout the factory and offices of GM in the past... I don't know why you think they "wouldn't be able to get members off" from this.

Ya but that was coordinated by the union for the benefit of the union, right? These people are going rogue. I don't think the UAW would support them either.

You do realize the UAW has protected members from showing up to work high, right? Gotten them into treatment and back on the line. They don’t just protect members when it suits their needs.

They would absolutely support members protesting what the members believe is a human rights violation.

Protest activities like strikes and sit-ins/sit-downs and whatnot are voted on and approved. When a few members do this without voting, they endanger everyone in the union for their personal beliefs.

If the union voted on it and it was approved, then I think they would certainly support the protesters. If they didn't and protestors just did it on their own, that would be a big mess and I'm not sure what would happen, but I would guess expulsion from the union.

https://www.nidirect.gov.uk/articles/discipline-your-trade-u...

This didn’t occur in the UK… US unions protect members for “non-approved” actions all the time. See: your local police union.

They wouldn’t because the case law is very clear in this. I mean, they might offer moral support, but the lawyers would already know that legal support is futile.

Please cite the “case law that is very clear in this”.

I did in another comment, you can just look at the wiki article:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sitdown_strike

The case that sets the definitive answer is in 1939 by the Supreme Court:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NLRB_v._Fansteel_Metallurgic....

It leaves wiggle little room to get anything out of this from the company being striked against.

It leaves a ton of wiggle room actually. Nothing in the story says the Google employees were trespassed and arrested. The case you cited says that the NRLB can’t force an employer to rehire a worker fired for breaking the law.

Furthermore, it says absolutely nothing about the union itself protecting an employee, just the limits of the NRLB in forcing a worker to be rehired.

Otherwise ya… no wiggle room.

Do you really think, that if these employees won against Google in court, the current conservative SCOTUS majority would just let that ruling stand?

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