Comment on Thinking about how the U.S. should have a constitutional amendment banning state forces (e.g. police) from being used in labor disputes.

• sj_zero ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Different human rights end up butting against each other sometimes. Let's say that there's a strike at the nuclear power plant. Would you be okay with just saying "no that's slavery" and letting the plant melt down and kill everyone who isn't involved with the labor conflict? Those people have human rights as well, and arguably the right to not be killed due to a labor action you're not related to is greater than the right to engage in labor action.

  An alternative to forcing some union skeleton crew to continue manning the plant would be to loosen the labor monopoly the union has and to entitle the owner to bring in contract labor to run a skeleton crew during disputes.

  • ChonkyOwlbear@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Unlike the nuclear plant example, the supreme Court case did not endanger lives. All it did was threaten profit. Big difference.

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    • sj_zero ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      It specifically damaged property on purpose.

      Your right to strike isn't a right to damage stuff that doesn't belong to you as a bargaining tactic.

      • ChonkyOwlbear@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        They didn’t damage property on purpose. They chose a time to strike that would maximize the impact to the employer. Glacier Northwest knew full well that their contract with the union was expired. Without a contract, labor is under no obligation to continue working if they do choose, no matter how inconvenient or costly. Management still chose to send out full cement trucks with non-contracted drivers who had every right to walk away at any time.

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  • some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    But the reality is they shot people over steel production and coal mining (and other non-threatening situations).

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    • sj_zero ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      They even ordered a bunch of people running passenger trains back to work. And that wasn't 100 years ago, that was this year.

      I think that's exactly the sort of situation that I'm talking about, there's no need for that. Even in the case of something like a coal mine, you need to have a very bare minimum number of people to keep pumping running or there won't be a mine to go back to, well there's no reason why you couldn't just continue to send your staff (non union employees) to the mine site to do that bare minimum of work during strikes.

      Of course, act of violence or sabotage shouldn't be tolerated. And that's where police should be able to step in if something is going on other than just a work stoppage. What happens quite often is the government steps in because it's politically inconvenient to have a strike happen.

      In this regard, I think the government stepping in to do something like that is a violation of basic human rights. You can't just force people to work, and you certainly can't punish people for an otherwise legal expression of speech just because the speech is inconvenient for you.

      • some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        In this regard, I think the government stepping in to do something like that is a violation of basic human rights. You can’t just force people to work, and you certainly can’t punish people for an otherwise legal expression of speech just because the speech is inconvenient for you.

        The inconvenience is people realizing that there’s power in solidarity. The reason our geriatric overlords are still in power is because of a collective sense of inability to effect change.

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