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"you are expected to resolve the on-scene dispute without violence" Only to a limited degree, and this forbearance is itself subject to abuse. When everyone p

by fatbird 10y ago

"you are expected to resolve the on-scene dispute without violence" Only to a limited degree, and this forbearance is itself subject to abuse. When everyone politely agrees to "grieve later", it creates an organization-level moral hazard where large companies can pay less in lawsuits than they can save in expenses by abusing the individual's restraint. Walmart during the 1980s practiced a scorched-earth legal defence against any and all employment claims, clearly aimed to exhausting the ability of plaintiffs to sue, regardless of the legitimacy of their claims and depending upon their financial endurance to eke out a net win, which they did for a decade.

true_religion 10y ago
I'm not sure that's a great example. If Walmart employees had started to 'grieve' in store, they'd have been arrested for trespassing unless they moved away to a public street and picketed the location. Picketing the location is a-okay, and counts as aiming to resolve the dispute without violence. Resolving it "with violence" would mean attacking some floor manager who gets paid $13/hr, and immediately being imprisoned. This doesn't seem like it'd change corporate's strategy at all. My real issue here is violence vs non-violence.... not necessarily using lawsuits as the only option---there are others, but I am a bit biased to believe lawsuits are best.
- fatbird 10y ago
  I agree that's not a great example from the perspective of what the individual should do. It's just the best example off the top of my head of an organization using its size to make lawsuits largely worthless as a remedy. That said, I disagree that Dr. Dao is responsible for the violence that occurred or that he chose violence. His was a classic act of civil disobedience: he simply didn't comply, even when violence was used against him, and it's turning out that the predicates for using violence against him are falling apart. He wasn't trespassing, the police acted incorrectly, the gate agents acted incorrectly, and the whole airline business leading up to that moment has built up a faulty expectation of what's allowed and expected. The Walmart equivalent wouldn't be attacking a floor manager, it would be staging a sit-in, which would be much more clearly a simple case of trespassing because it's a store rather than an airplane.
- ubernostrum 10y ago
  Careful. Even in the most "business friendly" parts of the US, workers still have some federal-level protection for organized action, meaning there are things workers can do which the business cannot just decree to be off-limits and force them out.

by fatbird 10y ago

true_religion 10y ago

I'm not sure that's a great example. If Walmart employees had started to 'grieve' in store, they'd have been arrested for trespassing unless they moved away to a public street and picketed the location. Picketing the location is a-okay, and counts as aiming to resolve the dispute without violence. Resolving it "with violence" would mean attacking some floor manager who gets paid $13/hr, and immediately being imprisoned. This doesn't seem like it'd change corporate's strategy at all. My real issue here is violence vs non-violence.... not necessarily using lawsuits as the only option---there are others, but I am a bit biased to believe lawsuits are best.

fatbird 10y ago
I agree that's not a great example from the perspective of what the individual should do. It's just the best example off the top of my head of an organization using its size to make lawsuits largely worthless as a remedy. That said, I disagree that Dr. Dao is responsible for the violence that occurred or that he chose violence. His was a classic act of civil disobedience: he simply didn't comply, even when violence was used against him, and it's turning out that the predicates for using violence against him are falling apart. He wasn't trespassing, the police acted incorrectly, the gate agents acted incorrectly, and the whole airline business leading up to that moment has built up a faulty expectation of what's allowed and expected. The Walmart equivalent wouldn't be attacking a floor manager, it would be staging a sit-in, which would be much more clearly a simple case of trespassing because it's a store rather than an airplane.
ubernostrum 10y ago
Careful. Even in the most "business friendly" parts of the US, workers still have some federal-level protection for organized action, meaning there are things workers can do which the business cannot just decree to be off-limits and force them out.