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This seems like baseless conjecture, unless you have an example of a union (literally any union in history) being busted by "identity politics". Where I am fro

This seems like baseless conjecture, unless you have an example of a union (literally any union in history) being busted by "identity politics". Where I am from (the UK) unions are relatively commonplace, I have even been in one in the past (the university and colleges union), they seem like very stable organisation to me. I've never even heard of a union closing in the UK, although I guess it happens occasionally.

lotsofpulp 6y ago
Surely the unions for all the industries that were outsourced from the UK to cheaper countries have closed.
- eigenket 6y ago
  What happens as industries reduce is that multiple unions which are becoming smaller merge together. This is very different to what the guy was writing above about unions fragmenting due to political differences.
toyg 6y ago
> (the UK) unions are relatively commonplace They have been slowly dying. They resist in the public sector (like the one you joined), in manufacturing (a shrinking sector in itself), and in call-centres. Everywhere else, they don’t really have a meaningful presence anymore. Part of the reason is the atomization of work in smaller and smaller companies, and temp-agencies being normalized; traditional union practices and laws struggle to fit these conditions. This is absolutely on purpose and effectively government-encouraged since the Thatcher years. > I’ve never even heard of a union closing They don’t “close”, they merge when membership falls below sustainable levels. You can look at the statistics on union membership to see the actual story.
- eigenket 6y ago
  I agree with everything you wrote here, when I wrote "relatively common", I meant relative to the USA. I didn't mean to imply this was the golden age of union membership in the UK at all.
raxxorrax 6y ago
It was an example for a union needing unity on issues it wants to improve. A tactic of union busters is to seed such strive and there are countless approaches to that. For example, if a group A forms a union against working conditions at X, X makes concessions to a subset A' of A by highlighting arbitrary differences. This can result in conflict between A and A'. If A and A' cannot reconciliate, X wins. The standard divide and conquer tactic. You can pick your example yourself, but race, sex, age, nationality, religion are prime examples of arbitrary differences not relevant to the topic or goals that brought a group together in the first place. We evaluate public political discourse differently and I am not saying I am correct about it, but I do think that "identity politics" has caused massive rifts between political camps formerly working together. I don't have or want to produce formal evidence because it would just be counterproductive against my political position, but I think the picture is more clear than blurry.
- eigenket 6y ago
  Of course, I agree in principle at someone could try to use "identity politics" to try to break up a union. I think in my country all or most of the arbitrary differences you list are "protected classes" and a company seeking to bust a union with such a method would find get in legal hot water pretty fast. I have no idea how producing formal evidence can ever be counterproductive to your political position. That statement does not make sense to me.
  - raxxorrax 6y ago
    The would not discriminate a protected class, they would elevate one above the other to create the strive, it is irrelevant which one, in most cases the focus would be the smaller one. The rest of the group would feel put aside and would direct their anger towards the preferred group. That is a basic "flaw" in human psychology. Being called names by a friend hurts more than from a bystander and the same effect is abused here to direct anger from the former target to your own group. > I have no idea how producing formal evidence can ever be counterproductive to your political position. I presented it as I see it. I think unions can be very important and it is in my interest that people don't mangle themselves on superficial differences. That happens a lot lately. I am no tycoon to likes union busting.

lotsofpulp 6y ago

Surely the unions for all the industries that were outsourced from the UK to cheaper countries have closed.

eigenket 6y ago
What happens as industries reduce is that multiple unions which are becoming smaller merge together. This is very different to what the guy was writing above about unions fragmenting due to political differences.

toyg 6y ago

> (the UK) unions are relatively commonplace They have been slowly dying. They resist in the public sector (like the one you joined), in manufacturing (a shrinking sector in itself), and in call-centres. Everywhere else, they don’t really have a meaningful presence anymore. Part of the reason is the atomization of work in smaller and smaller companies, and temp-agencies being normalized; traditional union practices and laws struggle to fit these conditions. This is absolutely on purpose and effectively government-encouraged since the Thatcher years. > I’ve never even heard of a union closing They don’t “close”, they merge when membership falls below sustainable levels. You can look at the statistics on union membership to see the actual story.

eigenket 6y ago
I agree with everything you wrote here, when I wrote "relatively common", I meant relative to the USA. I didn't mean to imply this was the golden age of union membership in the UK at all.

raxxorrax 6y ago

It was an example for a union needing unity on issues it wants to improve. A tactic of union busters is to seed such strive and there are countless approaches to that. For example, if a group A forms a union against working conditions at X, X makes concessions to a subset A' of A by highlighting arbitrary differences. This can result in conflict between A and A'. If A and A' cannot reconciliate, X wins. The standard divide and conquer tactic. You can pick your example yourself, but race, sex, age, nationality, religion are prime examples of arbitrary differences not relevant to the topic or goals that brought a group together in the first place. We evaluate public political discourse differently and I am not saying I am correct about it, but I do think that "identity politics" has caused massive rifts between political camps formerly working together. I don't have or want to produce formal evidence because it would just be counterproductive against my political position, but I think the picture is more clear than blurry.

eigenket 6y ago
Of course, I agree in principle at someone could try to use "identity politics" to try to break up a union. I think in my country all or most of the arbitrary differences you list are "protected classes" and a company seeking to bust a union with such a method would find get in legal hot water pretty fast. I have no idea how producing formal evidence can ever be counterproductive to your political position. That statement does not make sense to me.
- raxxorrax 6y ago
  The would not discriminate a protected class, they would elevate one above the other to create the strive, it is irrelevant which one, in most cases the focus would be the smaller one. The rest of the group would feel put aside and would direct their anger towards the preferred group. That is a basic "flaw" in human psychology. Being called names by a friend hurts more than from a bystander and the same effect is abused here to direct anger from the former target to your own group. > I have no idea how producing formal evidence can ever be counterproductive to your political position. I presented it as I see it. I think unions can be very important and it is in my interest that people don't mangle themselves on superficial differences. That happens a lot lately. I am no tycoon to likes union busting.