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Without the labour movement we'd have Triangle Shirtwaist fires and Ludlow massacres every week. I don't blame you for not knowing that, because our educational

by gnu8 9y ago

Without the labour movement we'd have Triangle Shirtwaist fires and Ludlow massacres every week. I don't blame you for not knowing that, because our educational system is designed to produce obedient workers, not class agitators. You might want to pick up a history book though.

chimeracoder 9y ago
> Without the labour movement we'd have Triangle Shirtwaist fires and Ludlow massacres every week It's a little disingenuous to conflate the labor movement with NLRA-regulated unions, especially in the context of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire and the response to it. They're not one and the same, although modern unions have done their best to erase that distinction from the historical narrative. You might also want to consider the other things unions of the time were involved with. Early 20th century unions passed bylaws excluding non-white members from their ranks, and then (successfully) lobbied for federal laws excluding them from the country altogether. Without the AFL, we may not have had the Chinese Exclusion Act, and we might not have stripped Americans of Chinese and Indian descent of their naturalized citizenship, seized the homes they legally bought with the money they earned, and then given the land to white Americans.
Jabanga 9y ago
You're wrong. The Triangle Shirtwaist fire was a result of the economy being primitive at the time, with very little resources available per capita for risk reduction. Work place accidents were decreasing every single decade before cookie-cutter work safety standards were mandated. The world today would be extremely safe in and out of the workplace in the absence of such mandates. This bias toward central economic planning and mandated standards is a consequence of the great complexity of a modern economy not being appreciated by the typical person. Central economic planning is based on oversimplifications that are easier to reason about. As for the Ludlow Massacre, that was largely a result of illegal and violent actions by unions. We don't have those anymore, because unions impose their will through political decree nowadays. Most teachers in the United States are unionized, and an increasing percentage are under collective bargaining agreements, to the great detriment of education: https://academic.oup.com/qje/article-abstract/111/3/671/1839935/How-Teachers-Unions-Affect-Education-Production https://academic.oup.com/qje/article-abstract/111/3/671/1839... The education system is consequently heavily biased toward unions and their dishonest narrative. Here in BC, teachers openly tell their students they hate the governing party (which stood up to the teachers union) and kids almost uniformly hate the governing party as well. It's absolutely ridiculous.

by gnu8 9y ago

chimeracoder 9y ago

> Without the labour movement we'd have Triangle Shirtwaist fires and Ludlow massacres every week It's a little disingenuous to conflate the labor movement with NLRA-regulated unions, especially in the context of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire and the response to it. They're not one and the same, although modern unions have done their best to erase that distinction from the historical narrative. You might also want to consider the other things unions of the time were involved with. Early 20th century unions passed bylaws excluding non-white members from their ranks, and then (successfully) lobbied for federal laws excluding them from the country altogether. Without the AFL, we may not have had the Chinese Exclusion Act, and we might not have stripped Americans of Chinese and Indian descent of their naturalized citizenship, seized the homes they legally bought with the money they earned, and then given the land to white Americans.

Jabanga 9y ago

You're wrong. The Triangle Shirtwaist fire was a result of the economy being primitive at the time, with very little resources available per capita for risk reduction. Work place accidents were decreasing every single decade before cookie-cutter work safety standards were mandated. The world today would be extremely safe in and out of the workplace in the absence of such mandates. This bias toward central economic planning and mandated standards is a consequence of the great complexity of a modern economy not being appreciated by the typical person. Central economic planning is based on oversimplifications that are easier to reason about. As for the Ludlow Massacre, that was largely a result of illegal and violent actions by unions. We don't have those anymore, because unions impose their will through political decree nowadays. Most teachers in the United States are unionized, and an increasing percentage are under collective bargaining agreements, to the great detriment of education: https://academic.oup.com/qje/article-abstract/111/3/671/1839935/How-Teachers-Unions-Affect-Education-Production https://academic.oup.com/qje/article-abstract/111/3/671/1839... The education system is consequently heavily biased toward unions and their dishonest narrative. Here in BC, teachers openly tell their students they hate the governing party (which stood up to the teachers union) and kids almost uniformly hate the governing party as well. It's absolutely ridiculous.