4 ms·

> Unions exist primarily to engage with employers, not government. Labor parties in countries like the UK and Australia specifically exist to act as union-supp

by cyphar 7y ago

> Unions exist primarily to engage with employers, not government. Labor parties in countries like the UK and Australia specifically exist to act as union-supported (and funded) parties. Unions do exist to help deal with members' employers, but they also exist to allow for collective political action. An obvious example worldwide is teachers' unions (though you could argue because their employer is the state government, the union is fighting against their employer). Another example would be the strikes in the UK during Thatcher's time in office. Not to mention that basically all workers' rights legislation in most countries came out of battles between unions and governments, hence why they are so "weary" to "permit" unions to take political action -- because collective action works. > So you'd need workers to unionize (which they have NOT done to deal with their employers) [...] There's a saying about the second best time to plant a tree being today, and that applies here. This battle is most likely already lost, but actively choosing to not learn a lesson from it (unionise and mobilise for the next time this happens) is simply foolish. Ideally the technology industry would've unionised 30 years ago, but you'll never have any strength if the immediate response to someone saying "we should unionise" is "even if we unionised right now we couldn't solve $current_problem". Even if that is true, maybe having that infrastructure in place will allow you to solve tomorrow's problem? > I think the real question here is why tech companies (or rather their CEOs, founders etc) are not making a fuss. I hope by "fuss" you mean "shutting down operations until demands are met". Plenty of CEOs blogged about how insane the aforementioned anti-encryption legislation is (as they have in most of these cases). Looks like that doesn't work, maybe we should stop trying the same tactic? > Politicians ignore us because 90% of people are not informed and choose not to think about history when these issues come up. If (hypothetically) Google shut down for a week over this or any other bill, it would not be passed. They ignore us because all of our complaining is petulance -- it's not a substitute for action. That's the entire historic purpose of general strikes.

LatteLazy 7y ago
The last Labour (UK) government launched the Iraq war, started privatising the NHS, brought in student fees and cut benefits for working people. They supported measures far more draconian than this, including detaining people without charge for 28 days. The party was founded to empower workers and unions. But that was in 1900. Things have changed a lot on the last 120 years. >If (hypothetically) Google shut down for a week over this or any other bill, it would not be passed. Assuming that's true, its irrelevant. No one here can turn off Google (or Facebook or whatever else) for a week. So no one here is being petulant are they? A few very rich and powerful people might be able to. I'm happy to agree they should do more. But 99.999% of people can do nothing but complain. Edit: FYI, I agree they should get on and unionize. But that will be a multi-year (maybe multi decade) process...
- cyphar 7y ago
  > The last Labour (UK) government [...] I disagree fundamentally with many of the things the last UK Labour government did. However at the same time, the last Australian Labor government combated the GFC with a stimulus package that allowed us to be the only country that survived the recession effectively unscathed. They developed the NBN which (before the Liberals got their hands on it) was affordable and actually stood a chance to revolutionise Australia's economy. The Labor government before that was responsible for the largest structural change to Australia's economy through floating the dollar. My point is that just because one Labour government did many reprehensible things doesn't discount the very concept. And even in the UK (where Labour has struggled to get elected for decades), Labour governments have done more than a handful of worthwhile things in the past 120 years. > No one here can turn off Google (or Facebook or whatever else) for a week. So no one here is being petulant are they? Right, and I was going to say this in my original comment. But then I thought "if all the engineers who worked for Google striked, would Google function for a week?" and wasn't sure of the answer. This is ultimately the downside of working on self-regulating machines -- strikes become less effective because the machinery stops for no-one. But I still think general strikes by technology workers would be effective.
- ben_w 7y ago
  The most recent U.K. Labour government also reintroduced national minimum wage, raised the zero-tax threshold, and passed the Human Rights Act and the Freedom of Information Act. I don’t like everything they did, but they did do various things which supported worker rights.

by cyphar 7y ago

LatteLazy 7y ago

The last Labour (UK) government launched the Iraq war, started privatising the NHS, brought in student fees and cut benefits for working people. They supported measures far more draconian than this, including detaining people without charge for 28 days. The party was founded to empower workers and unions. But that was in 1900. Things have changed a lot on the last 120 years. >If (hypothetically) Google shut down for a week over this or any other bill, it would not be passed. Assuming that's true, its irrelevant. No one here can turn off Google (or Facebook or whatever else) for a week. So no one here is being petulant are they? A few very rich and powerful people might be able to. I'm happy to agree they should do more. But 99.999% of people can do nothing but complain. Edit: FYI, I agree they should get on and unionize. But that will be a multi-year (maybe multi decade) process...

cyphar 7y ago
> The last Labour (UK) government [...] I disagree fundamentally with many of the things the last UK Labour government did. However at the same time, the last Australian Labor government combated the GFC with a stimulus package that allowed us to be the only country that survived the recession effectively unscathed. They developed the NBN which (before the Liberals got their hands on it) was affordable and actually stood a chance to revolutionise Australia's economy. The Labor government before that was responsible for the largest structural change to Australia's economy through floating the dollar. My point is that just because one Labour government did many reprehensible things doesn't discount the very concept. And even in the UK (where Labour has struggled to get elected for decades), Labour governments have done more than a handful of worthwhile things in the past 120 years. > No one here can turn off Google (or Facebook or whatever else) for a week. So no one here is being petulant are they? Right, and I was going to say this in my original comment. But then I thought "if all the engineers who worked for Google striked, would Google function for a week?" and wasn't sure of the answer. This is ultimately the downside of working on self-regulating machines -- strikes become less effective because the machinery stops for no-one. But I still think general strikes by technology workers would be effective.
ben_w 7y ago
The most recent U.K. Labour government also reintroduced national minimum wage, raised the zero-tax threshold, and passed the Human Rights Act and the Freedom of Information Act. I don’t like everything they did, but they did do various things which supported worker rights.