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Working conditions are awful enough that companies can afford a high turnover rate, but can't efficiently fill too many positions at once. If people quit two o
by alxlaz 4y ago
Working conditions are awful enough that companies can afford a high turnover rate, but can't efficiently fill too many positions at once.
If people quit two or three at a time, management just redistributes work around, with extra pressure to deliver.
However, if everyone leaves at once (or goes on strike), there's nobody to redistribute the work to. Even if you could hire replacements on the spot (which you usually can't anyway), you can't just say okay, you're hired, now start working. New hires need company- and department-specific training, they need to coordinate with other people (who would also be fresh hires) and so on.
Modern companies don't run solely on management directions, they also run on an enormous body of practical knowledge and experience which bridges management intention with practical action. Without this, nothing works.
"Infinitely replacement" is a comfortable management myth -- it works only as long as it happens gradually. You can "infinitely replace" each part of a sailing boat, but if you try to infinitely replace all of it at once, everyone just falls into the ocean because at some point in the replacement effort there's no bloody boat. Same here. A 50-people company can afford to replace virtually everyone over the course of one year, as long as it's four fresh hires/month for 12 months. Fifty fresh hire in a single month while also keeping the shop open, on the other hand, is a no-go.
- dcow 4y agoAnd yet, this strike has been ongoing since November. Is it really a myth?
- alxlaz 4y agoYes. Not literally everyone is on strike literally all the time -- shifts still get covered, in part because the people who are actually on strike actually want the company they're with to grow, and still want to work there, otherwise they'd quit, rather than go on strike.
- throwdownaway 4y agothis is false, for this strike as well as others I am familar with the striking workers are fully withholding their labour. supervisors and contractor scabs are doing all the work—or attempting to—as neither is part of the union
- dcow 4y agoIf that’s true, then it sounds like the publisher has absolutely zero reason to indulge the strikers. Maybe they need to launch a real strike.
- alxlaz 4y agoYeah, that's not how the real world works. If the publisher indeed had zero reason to "indulge" the strikers, they would just fire them. They don't because they've left their concerns unaddressed for so long that it's now a large enough proportion of their workforce that firing all of them wouldn't bring about a better, more efficient team, but outright bankruptcy. Striking is just a form of clarifying the strength of their leverage. It's been going since November because negotiations have been going on since November.
- dcow 4y agoHistorically, a labor strike means people walk, at risk of being fired, and don’t work until negotiations are resolved. If anything, if the strikers continue to keep the lights on, the strikers are demonstrating that they’re overpaid.
- alxlaz 4y ago> Historically, a labor strike means people walk, at risk of being fired, and don’t work until negotiations are resolved. No, it doesn't, it hasn't worked like that for decades. Most labour organisations have some form of agreement in place as to when and how strikes can be organised, and most of them involve some commitment to at least some continued operation for a period of time. Even when such an agreement is not in place, strikes are initially not complete strikes, because that wouldn't be in the interest of either party. Fully walking out of work right away and bringing the company down would literally bring down the jobs along with it, at which point negotiating payment or working conditions would be meaningless.
- dcow 4y agoSounds like someone has perverted the notion of a strike in favor of the goals of capitalists. If your argument is honestly what people believe is the polite way to strike, then capitalists have won.